INKED MAGAZINE - 69 Eyes

“The late ’80s were a very magical time in New York,” says Jyrki 69, the singer for Finnish gothic rock-and-rollers 69 Eyes. “There were clubs like the Limelight, the Ritz, and CBGB, and I’d see my idols like The Ramones and Johnny Thunders on the streets.” For a period of six years, the then-wide-eyed glam rock teenager would save enough money to make pilgrimages from Helsinki to the Big Apple and soak up as much of the Reagan-era rock scene as he could. These experiences not only inspired him to form 69 Eyes, but also helped establish the band’s aesthetic and lyrical themes, the latter thanks in no small part to Jyrki 69’s dabbling in NYC’s goth underground.

“People were always telling me, ‘You look like a vampire, with your blue eyes and white skin.’ I was even a member of the Count Dracula Society of New York,” Jyrki 69 recalls with a laugh. “So when we started the band we naturally explored vampires and horror movie themes.”

Since forming in 1989, 69 Eyes’ sound has evolved from the gritty street glam of Hanoi Rocks and Guns N’ Roses to the Sisters of Mercy meets ’80s hard rock style for which they’re now known. But Jyrki’s fascination with the undead remains a focal point of their lyrics, as heard on 69 Eyes’ latest record, Back in Blood. “With this record I decided to bravely go where no goth-and-roll guy had gone before, and make a concept record about vampires,” says Jyrki with another laugh.

And his timing couldn’t be better....

CLICK HERE to read the rest of this profile, which originally appeared in the February 2010 issue of Inked Magazine.

GUITAR WORLD - SUNN O)))

They may make the densest-sounding tones in the universe, but Sunn O))) manage to fit orchestral instruments, choirs and a whole lot more into Monoliths & Dimensions, their latest adventure into music’s darkest territory.

"Inducing altered states is one of my main focal points,” says Sunn O))) guitarist Stephen O’Malley. “From the ritual of putting on the robes and drinking wine before going onstage to what’s happening with the smoke and lights, the slow tempos, sound pressure, low frequencies and oscillations—everything is set up to shift your brain 20 degrees. I believe real, passionate music can induce other states of mind.”

Monoliths & Dimensions, Sunn O)))’s latest release on taste-making indie Southern Lord Recordings, ranks as the most expansive and orchestral of the band’s seven mind-shifting records, which began back in 1998 with The Grimmrobe Demos. While Sunn O))) initially formed as a tribute to drone/doom pioneers Earth, O’Malley and co-guitarist/bassist Greg Anderson’s restless creativity quickly led them into distinctly new sonic territories, which has allowed the band to continuously evade genre classifications. Attendance at a Sunn O))) show proves the point: hesher stoners, indie hipsters, bookish intellectuals and bizarre artists all gather before Sunn O)))’s waves of sublime subsonics and occult theatrics. To aid in their sonic expansion, over the years Sunn O))) have enlisted a veritable who’s who of cult-star musicians, from black metallers Xasthur and Leviathan to eclectic Japanese rockers Boris to noise pioneers John Wiese and Merzbow.

Sunn O)))’s artistic tides keep shifting, but one thing hasn’t changed in the past 10 years: the core of the group’s sound is still firmly rooted in the classic tube amps after which they’re named, the Sunn Model-T.

“At first we got into them because they were inexpensive,” O’Malley says. “For $300 you could go to a pawn shop and get a 100-watt tube amp. The climate around Sunn amps has changed over the years, and now they’re like $1,500. But all that is secondary. Sunn amps are the engine for what we do.”


Click HERE to read the rest of this feature, which originally appeared in the Guitar World December 2009 issue.