A brand new 1 hour documentary about The Rasmus was previewed last Monday in Helsinki. Aki, Lauri and Eero were there, as well as friends, families, their live crew, invited media and a few lucky fans. This was the first screening of the film, which will be broadcast in Finland on YLE-TV2 on Sunday, 9th of April, 2006 at 3.15 p.m.

"The Rasmus: The Documentary" tells the success story of The Rasmus.

The documentary looks back on the past of the band and tells the story of how success affected the 15-16 year old guys more than ten years ago. It also covers the international break through later on and the feelings related to it. The band members (Lauri Yl�nen, Pauli Rantasalmi, Eero Heinonen and Aki Hakala) talk openly about their experiences of dealing with the success and the challenges it has brought about.

The camera crew follows the band closely during the recording and release of the 6th studio album, Hide From The Sun. We see The Rasmus, for example, in the studio in Stockholm, on promotional tours across Europe, at the videoshoot for Sail Away in Latvia and numerous gigs and festivals around Europe. In addition there is plenty of unreleased archive footage of the band, and interviews with people around the band.

This is the first documentary ever made about The Rasmus, and the members themselves like the idea of being captured like this. "I enjoyed the documentary, it gives quite a positive memory from everything from band's history", says bassist Eero Heinonen. "It was especially nice to see some old footage when we were young and thin and funny punks. Now there exists some kind of organized document of this band's career. We just have to keep it going for another 10 years at least."

Everyone knows The Rasmus by name and appearance, but very rarely we hear the band talking openly about their real feelings as successful rock stars. The idea of the documentary was to reveil what sort of thoughts and feelings there are behind the success and glamour.

"It was a very challenging task to do the kind of documentary we wanted," says the producer Terja Salaspuro. "The Rasmus are quite reserved towards the media, as professional artists tend to be. In order to come up with some "real stuff", we had to bombard the guys with numerous questions and let the tape roll. We were praying that at some point they would be too tired to remember to play any roles and would let the curtain fall down."

"The biggest compliment for us was when to Eicca Toppinen from Apocalyptica told that he had cried 5 times during watching the documentary. So there must be some real feelings captured on the tape!" says Terja Salaspuro.

The team behind the film:
Director: Tommi Mattila (Documentaries: HIMmeet� Valoa/TV2 (documentary on HIM), Viva Rock 'n' Roll! - On Tour With The Flaming Sideburns/TV2 and Ibiza Documentary/Channel 4 Finland. In addition several TV commercials, short films and music videos.

Journalist: Timo Ihoaso (Music journalist for several Finnish newspapers and magazines such as Aamulehti, Soundi, Rumba, Suosikki, SoneraPlaza, etc.)

Producer: Terja Salaspuro (Documentaries: HIMmeet� Valoa/TV2, Ibiza Documentary/Channel 4 Finland and Viva Rock 'n' Roll! - On Tour With The Flaming Sideburns/TV2. Tv programmes: Idols/MTV3, Sessions/SubTV, Pop-komissio/YLE-TV1, Head of Music Dept./Moon TV.)

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