Page 6 - Black Velvet Issue 87

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STATE OF THE ART

ow in his fifties, Michael Monroe is showing no signs of slowing
Ndown. The flamboyant Finnish frontman has been performing
since the seventies, most notably rising to fame with Hanoi Rocks in the
early eighties, influencing many, before the band split and Michael
headed down a solo path. Hanoi did reform in 2002 but Michael has been
fronting his own band for the past five years, with latest album ‘Blackout
States’ being arguably his most impressive work to date. Bounding

around a live stage, every now and then doing the splits, he can give mu-
sicians half his age a run for their money. And now being a coach on The
Voice of Finland too, Michael’s life is busier and better than ever.
n ‘Old King’s Road’ on the new album, Michael sings
I‘we were all insane’. He contemplates how things
must be for bands now, compared to the early days of
Hanoi Rocks. “Things have changed so much,” he says. “It
must be different. In some ways it’s the same but it must
be different because the music scene has changed so
much. It depends on what you go for. We started on the
streets with nothing and we made it from there, but there
are so many different ways to do it these days.”
Born the son of a well-known Finnish radio personality,
Michael Monroe hooked up with guitarist Andy McCoy in
the 70s before forming Hanoi Rocks with rhythm guitarist
Nasty Suicide. After releasing their debut album, ‘Bangkok
Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks’, the band decided
to move to the UK.
“We had to get out of Scandinavia and Sweden and we
had to get to the main capital of the world. One of the main
capitals of the world is London so we relocated there.
That’s how we started Hanoi Rocks. When Hanoi broke up
I relocated to New York City. You had to get out of Scandi-
navia back in those days.”
Michael claims that he really came into his own as a
songwriter when he started his solo career. He says that
‘Can’t Go Home Again’ from his debut solo album, ‘Nights
Are So Long’, released in 1987, was the first song where
he said something really important. “Can’t go home again.
There’s no turning back,” he says. The song sees the
singer looking to the future, closing the door on the past.
“Now it’s history,” he sang. Although on the follow-up re-
lease, ‘Not Fakin’ It’, you see Michael’s vision turn out to
the world, rather than just what was happening in his own
life. In ‘Man With No Eyes’ Michael sang, ‘We got famine
while you feast, we got new kinds of disease’ and ‘They
measure your hopes and dreams in dollars and cents, fear
and loathing is their national debt’. Michael has actually
been singing this song on tour this year and it still sounds
as relevant as it did back in the early 90s – maybe moreso,
even. “We were just talking about it with Sami the other
day, saying how amazingly timely the song is still today,”
he says. “I know what I was thinking then and now I look at
the world today and it’s more timely than ever.”

ear and loathing is not something that Michael suf-
Ffers from though. He says of himself, “I’ve always
had my style and I’ve always been comfortable the way I
look and the way I am. I have my own style, it’s very differ-
ent from most people but it’s the way I am.” and he tries to eat healthily.
Performing and being involved in rock and rolls keeps “I drank some in the past. Over ten years ago I decided not to drink
him youthful. “To me, rock and roll is the fountain of youth at all. But I never really drank that much anyway. It made me feel nau-
and it keeps me young. If you’ve got a fresh, young mind seous and not very well, so I figured I wasn’t enjoying it, so stopped com-
you can stay young forever,” he says. “It’s an attitude and pletely.
age is just a number. Rock and roll makes it easy. For me, When we ask whether the slim and fit musician is vegetarian, he
it helps. To stay young and not become a robot,” Helping replies, “I’m not vegetarian, I still eat some fish occasionally but I try to
him keep youthful is the fact that he doesn’t drink alcohol eat to live and not live to eat.”
MICHAEL MONROE