Mindcore interview

Hi folks!

This update took bit longer to make than I hoped for, but please forgive me. I am after all a student, work part-time and got kids, so sometimes I am just too busy to update the blog. I will however keep updating every week :)

This time around I did an interview with none other than Mindcore! Mindcore is a name that should ring bells if you like your music hard. These guys have been in the game for a long time and really pushed hardcore scene forward here in Finland. Next up will be an interview with the street team and we'll look what the heck it is all about. But now, I proudly present you.... Mindcore!

Who are members of Mindcore?

Wille Immonen (Waily), Jani Virta (Zerathep), Mertsi Valerious (Skitzofrenik) and Toni Taskinen (Machina). We also play gigs as Mindcore djs collective and mutual industrial/crossbreed project of Skitzofrenik and Machina is called Chimaera.

You have been in the game for long and kept pushing Finnish hardcore scene. How much has the scene evolved over the years?

Scene has taken big leaps forward during th years and these days hardcore has made it to big events, well-known hardcore artists have a following over here, which allows many more possibilities to organise harder events than before when the scene was still taking it first steps.

Raise of hardstyle: good or bad thing for hardcore?

Revolution of hardstyle has given a lot to the Finnish scene and made possible to have excellent events. Some of which were part of. It has given us a lot of fantastic possibilities to spread our loved ”hardcore virus”. Without the hardstyle revolution, and especially without the rise of rawsrtyle, we wouldn't be in the current situation, where we can organize parties for example in Circus. Most definetly hardstyle has been really good thing for scene in Finland, since it has reduced borders between genres, now that hardcore and hardstyle have both raw and melodic styles.

Over the course of years hardcore has changed a lot and mainstream hardcore has gotten more commercial and easier to get into. Positive side of this is vitality of the genre, but is commercialism a good thing? It does add lot of supply but does it become more of take the money and run?

All music evolves and mainstream is just one part of hardcore. Genres tend to live on cycles, that keep repeating. Same thing was seen in 90's when hardcore changed to really commectial and then some broke off and created rawer and faster style. Same pattern happened with uptemp vs mainstream. Therefore we see commercialsm a good thing up to a point. It brings new listeners to the genre and this often creates new artists who can add some new flavour to the music and this always good thing for the genre. It keeps things fresh. Nowadays it is possible to organise events on a whole new level and in a different way now that we have pushed the genre forward for years and have a fanbase, who comes to our parties eventhough we wouldn't tell them any infos of them except the date. So we can make even better and create first-rate events. Making money has never been a principle of Mindcore, we always try to create as unique event as possible and give people their money's worth.

Mindcore has co-operated with other party organisations many times. How did this happen?

Whole idea of co-operation is to create an atmosphere that combines two or more party organisation's visions to one and offers that wat unique atmosphere for the party for examplse in the form of wider line-up of different genres and artists as a way to crreate excellent experience.

What keeps you going on organising parties, which is hard work and quite risky?

The love for hardcore, no other just doesn't give as much vibes as hardcore. That vibe at Mindcore, when people love that music and the crowd is warmed up and first proper hardcore tune blasts from the speaker and crowd goes crazy. That is absolutely the best that this can give you, seeing how people enjoy themselves. That keeps you pushing on and makes one forget the rest.

Which djs you'd want to bring over?

We do not build events around one artist, we think of it as whole, whether it is mainstream, uptempo, crossbreed or frenchcore for that matter. The future will tell.

What will future bring for Mindcore?

Mindcore will keep serving hardcore in all it's forms on big and small stages. We want to keep things varied since hardcore is very vast genre and has so much to offer for Finnish hardcore heads. There will be big events but also small intimate ones!