Rock Music ruled the Eurovision this year, proof that the genre never dies and fans are still there, waiting for their moment to shine. Italy may have won the contest but Måneskin wasn’t the only band who made our hearts beat again. Finland entered the chat with an unexpected gift: its name? Blind Channel. Dark and catchy, Rock and Pop, Blind Channel surprised us with Dark Side and the Internet went nuts. A few days ago, we met Olli Matela, the bassist of the band. Introduction…
Hi, Olli! Thanks for being here with us today. For those who don’t know Blind Channel yet, how would you describe your band?
We are a 6-piece band from Finland and we play Pop music. What I mean by Pop is that we do super catchy songs. We do crazy stuff and live shows too.
It could be surprising to call you Pop, what are your main influences?
We have a lot of influences. We all listened to Linkin Park when we were kids, for example. We listened to a lot of dark music but we’re also into Pop artists like Post Malone and regular radio Pop song stuff.
What song do you listen to on repeat lately?
Most of our last songs, actually (laugh).
You did a really unexpected cover of an Anastasia song. How did you come up with such an idea? This is brilliant.
(Laugh) Thank you. We were recording at our place and we have this radio station called « radio nova” and they had a playlist called « radio nova 2000 ». We really liked it and wanted to do a cover of it.
How did you work on your last album, Violent Pop? Are you all involved in the making?
We write songs all the time. For our last album we really had a lot of free time during tours and after, so we decided to write songs all together, and in the studios then.
What’s your own favorite track on it?
Oh, I have to think about that. I’d say Over My Dead Body.
You recently did the Eurovision. How was it?
It was a really great experience for our band. Especially in this time when there’s a pandemic going on and you cannot do any shows. I can’t describe the feeling. When we hit the stage there were something like 5.000 people in front of usand so much more watching on TV.. It was great and especially because we’ve never done any TV production before, it was a new experience to us. Of course, it was a little bit stressful but it was amazing.
Was it something you ever wanted to do?
No. You know, when this pandemic kicked in 2020 we were like « OK what can we do now? » and our guitarist told us « it might sound a little crazy but I think we should try this. »
I saw you and Måneskin seemed to get along.. Did you guys support each other? How was it to have the opportunity to represent Rock music in such a big mainstream song contest?
They were really supportive of us and we were the same. It was a great thing for Rock Music. Rock music lived again and Rock’n’roll won on the mainstream and it’s pretty cool. It’s a really great band. We love them. We were not predicting this result for Blind Channel. It wasn’t a competition for us. We just wanted to go there, do our rehearsals and show the world who we are and what we do. And people liked it.
What did it change for you?
We have a new album coming soon. It’s almost ready. We are also planning new shows, we have new contacts, a new label, new fans. We love new fans… They are great! It’s a really good booster for us.
A new album… Come on, you have to tell us more about it, what do you mean by “soon”?
Next year?
Do you plan on coming to Paris?
Yeah sure. We’d like to do a European tour as soon as possible and visit all the countries. We’ve never been to France, it would be our very first time. See you soon, hopefully!Thank you!
ABOVE THE NOISE 