Coming Up With New Characters And Rockin' Grannies

Lordi's musical, aesthetic and entrepreneurial debt to their idols KISS is well documented. KISS' ex-guitarist Bruce Kulick has also collaborated with the Finnish hard-rockers. It's a source of inspiration vocalist Mr Lordi, aka Tomi Petteri Putaansuu, readily acknowledges; he even indirectly converted his mother. "My mum didn't take me to the rock concerts when I was a kid, but something changed when I formed the KISS Army Finland in the early '90s, my mum said she wants to go," he explains. "She was, 'Yeah, I want to go to a rock concert'... Now, almost 20 years later she's seen KISS five or six times, she's seen Twisted Sister, every summer she goes to the festivals and she turns 80 next year. She's a rocking granny now," he laughs.

So what's Putaansuu's viewpoint regarding the recent dispute between KISS frontman Paul Stanley and Twisted Sister's Dee Snider? The feud stems from the latter lambasting the former for enlisting other musicians to portray the classic Catman and Spaceman characters.

"I'm such a huge fan of them both. So to read that, it's like, 'Guys, please, don't fight, no, be friends,'" he laughs. "I remember in the '80s when there was the trademark issue between Gene Simmons and King Diamond. I loved them both, so as a little kid that was also really hard. For some reason, too many of my favourite bands, and there aren't that many, they aren't friends with each other for some reason."

"She turns 80 next year. She's a rocking granny now."

Although he doesn't take umbrage with KISS' current incarnation, Lordi adopt a different outlook for fresh recruits. Putaansuu wants new members to be comfortable with their persona ("Do you like werewolves? Mummies? Vampires?"), although laments several personnel shifts during a two-decade career. "Of course you always wish and always hopeful that this line-up is the final one, but sometimes you don't get what you wish for. People get older, get their personal lives in the way, get bored, we get some kind of arguments. For whatever reason the line-up keeps changing. But for us, it has always been really important that you don't... We always come up with a new character for a new member of the band. So far I think we have 11,12 or 13 different characters. I hope there won't be any more line-up changes, because it's getting really fucking hard to come up with new characters," he laughs.

The band will enter the studio in December to follow up 2014's Scare Force One. They'll also be bringing their cartoonish theatrics and stadium-sized hooks Down Under for Soundwave in January. "It's monsters playing heavy rock. We're flying all the way from across the other side of the planet, and it's our first trip there, so I'm afraid that we cannot bring the full show, but we will bring the best of our little tricks and gimmicks on stage. I've always been a fan of bands that have something worth seeing on stage. I don't like the bands that look like my neighbours' dad or something... You never hear anybody say, 'Let's go listen to a band.' They always say, 'Let's go see a band.' If there's nothing worth seeing it for, what's the point then?"