Järvenpää , Finland based band CAUSE A RIOT have recently dropped a new single & music video for the track “Counting On You”, coming from their upcoming LP “Final Broadcast”, to be released soon via Shield Recordings (NL) & Stupido Records (FIN). The emotional, highly energizing first single is also available in Spotify and Bandcamp. Today, we caught up with the band to talk about their work, new record, current Coronavirus struggles and some recommendations to keep yours ears busy.
Cause A Riot was born in 2011 in Järvenpää, Finland and our current line-up has been solid since the beginning of 2018 after the latest member Petri joined in. Since 2012 we have released couple EP’s and one album before this upcoming second LP called “Final Broadcast” and we’ve been playing shows and touring around in Finland, Eastern Europe and US east coast. Throughout the years, we’ve all had multiple other bands and projects aside of CAR: at the moment our vocalist Simo plays guitar and screams in a melodic hardcore band Distral and is also doing acoustic solo stuff under the name of Set The Tone, Kaarle plays bass in a rock/pop group called Köysistö, Ari has a noise rock trio Noisy Heaven and punk band Checking Line and Olli & Petri plays skate punk together.
This new 9-track album was recorded and mixed by Saku Tamminen (Unkind) during the Spring-Autumn 2019 and mastered by Teemu Aalto. Saku is a friend of ours and he really knows what he’s doing so it was easy to ask him to help us again. We started to write these songs right after Petri joined band in 2018. These new songs has definitely more diversity compering to earlier stuff and now the songs includes a probably bit more touch of skate punk as well.
Lyrically speaking we have spoken our mind on issues like inequality and oppression and the albums first single ‘Counting On You’ is not an exception on that front.
Common workers and citizens are forced to live in distress, trying to provide a healthy life while the corporate world will sacrifice anyone to increase theirs.
Järvenpää local music scene
We are from a small city called Järvenpää where the live music selection has been pretty thin for few years already, especially for the independent bands/artists. Having that said, lately our friends from the local hardcore band called Confidead have organized shows here and there.
But what it comes to the current state of the punk scene in Finland – it’s totally different. There’s an endless list of -not only great bands- but also great people who are working hard trying to organize shows, running distro or a small label etc. It’s not uncommon that there are three different punk/hardcore shows in Helsinki during the same night. There are also different kinds of independent punk festivals in Finland, like the legendary Puntala Rock in Lempäälä (July), Hässäkkäpäivät in Oulu (July) and Skepufest in Helsinki (late Summer-early Autumn).
Current situation and Coronavirus outbreak
At the moment, the coronavirus is naturally forcing people to cancel all the shows for now and like in many other countires, Finland is in lockdown as well. Seems like this is affecting everyone of us in this world in so many ways that it’s even scary to think about it. But right now, what we can do for the record stores, distros, small bands, artists & labels is that we need to support them in anyway we can – so please, buy records, buy shirts and other merchandise or just plain donate to keep the industry alive!
Early 2020 recommendations
Vapaa Maa – Vesi nousee 12”
They just released this via famous Combat Rock Industry and it sounds amazing – really solid old school hardcore punk with even better lyrics.
Juggling Jugulars – Insurrection 12”
This actually came out last year but I’ve been listening this a lot during the last few days. A powerful lyrics and beautiful yet strong guitar parts – like they always have done. They’ve been active and playing shows around the Europe since the 80’s. DIY indeed.
Custody – II 12”
These guys are hard to leave out of the list -not only because they are our long time friends (and now label mates too: Shield Recordings)- but because this brand new album is great. If you listen to bands like Samiam, The Get Up Kids and Leatherface or you just appreciate a skillful melodies – you can buy this LP without any hesitation.
