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Jonne Aaron is one of the most famous rock singers in Finland, apart from a notorious sex symbol. Girls dream about him, guys imitate his style and press follows his steps. But the person I find sitting in front of me at Klubi in Tampere is just a normal young talkative guy, a person quite down to earth who enjoys also doing housework, not ashamed of his past and looking at the future with the illusion of a child in a candy shop.
Hello Jonne. Negative has recently released a new album, Karma Killer. What can the new and old fans expect about it?
I think the album itself is really positive. If you compare it to the previous one, Anorectic, it was really depressive, to me at least personally. It was made through very difficult times. In Karma Killer otherwise I just concentrated on what is going on now and the future. When we started many people were putting us in the same group with other bands like H.I.M, but I think that now with Karma Killer we have achieved the kind of sound we wanted. It shows the direction to follow in the future.
The album is positive but there is also quite an angry track: Motherfucker (just like you). Do you meet many motherfuckers in everyday life?
Hehehe… Of course! Sometimes… It is about anger, it has a lot of hate but it is also about not giving up. I have worked hard to make this band to be one of the best known all over the crowd, so if I would give up, this song would be for me! It would be the “easy escape” to leave everything and just take drugs or shit like that. You know what I mean.
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You have lived all your life in Tampere. Do you like it here?
It is really nice. People have been asking for many years the same question, why I do not move to Helsinki where there is more promotion. But I have rally strong roots over here, I like it here! People are quite down to earth. In Helsinki it seems to be important what you are doing, where do you come from…
I was assisting to the contest for choosing the Festbabe in Tammerfest and one question asked to the girls is how they would react if they would meet you. How do you deal with this image of sex symbol in Finland? Is your life keeping up with the rock stereotype of sex, drugs and rock, or how is a normal day in your life?
Well, sometimes it can be glamorous. It depends; I have a lot of friends who can organize parties wherever I am, but usually my life is quite boring, hehehe. I like to wash dishes myself; I like to clean my house…. Every time I came back from the road first things first, I need to clean my place and then it is time to relax. I like watching movies, listening to music, playing guitar, writing songs at home. I avoid a bit crowded places. At the beginning I liked it, I was driven by people´s attention, but now I prefer to stay at home.
And we cannot forget that you are just 24 now. When Negative started you were very young!
Yeah, I was just 18. I must confess at the beginning I lost a bit myself. Who wouldn´t? When your albums are selling gold, platinum… And you have even more shows to do than days in the week and good looking girls are all the time around. But it was just for a while. I allowed that for myself, because there were so many years that I was dreaming with these kind of things… like for example to get a record deal, to get a record company behind Negative it was one of the main things that happened in our career.
When I come home from the road, the first thing I like to do is cleaning everything and washing the dishes -Jonne Aaron; singer of Negative-
And actually the promotion of your last album is huge inside Finland, with ads everywhere. Do you have any specific target in the international market?
The whole Europe. We are going to concentrate on that and I think for the next one there is going to be a lot of worldwide promotion. Let´s see. Now we are going to make a wide tour in Europe with 45 shows. So step by step, album by album.
You have many fans in Spain and South America from the beginning!
Yeah, we have played in Mexico and Argentina. And I think Spain is also included in our tour. As I said, step by step. I am still very young so we have time to become bigger. Actually next week I am going to start with Larry working in the next album. We have a working title that is something like “super trooper”! hehehe. We want to make that kind of album that make people fall of their chairs!
I want to ask you also about the problems of the band in the past, and the recently leave of Sir Christus from the band.
Well, we have been so many years together in the band, but then sometimes people start to go in different ways. I would compare him and this situation to Brian Jones and the Rolling Stones. But well, of course I hope he won´t die. It came from our side, since he was not able to keep up together. He had some personal problems and complicated things and it was really difficult for all of us. We gave him a last chance but nothing happened, no improvement, things kept just going down and down. We started to rehearse for Karma Killer and he did not show up! So in some ways I think the decision was kind of relieving for everybody.
I heard that you are going to the studio today in Tampere after this interview.
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Yeah, we are going to make a cover of a Dingo´s album: Sinä ja Minä. It is going to be interesting!
How was to record the DVD In the Eye of the Hurricane here in Pakkahuone?
Oh, it was all crowded. There were people actually in the show from all over Europe. Of course it is special. The concert from my side is not the best one; I was pushing the voices too high. I was a bit nervous for the recording of the DVD. Actually I am already nervous for the concert tomorrow (Negative was playing next day in Tammerfest at 15:00 and Jonne did not like much to have to play so early).
You were playing in Sweden Rock this summer that counts with an amazing band list. How was there?
Yeah, we played between Deff Leppard and Whitesnake! I was even barely born when these two bands were popular! The audience was very nice, it was the first gig for Negative in Sweden, and we saw a lot of Swedish tits! (Jonne lifts up his t-shirt imitating the ladies in the Swedish audience who showed their charms)
So what are your future plans?
We have a few festivals here, and then we will continue to Europe and then let´s see. We are living quite interesting times; a big record company is coming behind Negative so promotion is going to be even better!
And the interview was over with me in a hurry to take the train to Helsinki to see “The Boss”, Bruce Springsteen, and Jonne heading to the studio to record the Dingo´s cover and feeling in his own words “jealous” because he could not go to see Springsteen too. Well, as he said, he is still very young and will have many chances to see and give amazing performances on stage.
Negative´s discography commented by Jonne Aaron
{mosimage}War of Love (2003): It is a collection of war love, demo tapes. All songs were written in many years, from 1997 to 2003. It is our first official album.
{mosimage}Sweet and Deceitful (2004): It is really beautiful, high sensitive, probably one of the most beautiful albums we have released.
{mosimage}Anorectic: It was quite dark, a little bit too depressing. I see that we decided as a band to take a big step and not to do the same kind of album than the previous ones, so we decided to go in a new direction. It would be even better album, deeper musically, but still it is quite good, it has a lot of stuff and information inside.
{mosimage}Karma Killer: It is very positive. There are the elements we represent, you take all what we want in rock and you put it together and here it is. I take it also as a new step for the band, we have to climb higher and higher and the development as a band has been huge. this is the album I am most satisfied with