Titus Hjelm: At last a bass player question!!! You'd be surprised how rarely I get these... Anyway, first of all I'm the worst kind of heretic there is because I began as a guitarist. I ended up playing bass more or less by accident, but of course all of the guys above have been important characters even from a guitarist's viewpoint. Playingwise I'm probably closest to Lemmy, his style is closest to guitar playing anyway, whereas Gene is more of a Paul McCartney type of guy and Glenn has the funky side. But I'm glad that I have been able to progress as a musician by changing the instrument. It forces you to think about music in a very different way. So perhaps one day I might have some of the best sides of the other guys too.

Before Thunderstone was formed in 2000, you were in Antidote with guitar player Nino Laurenne. When Nino decided to record some demos for a side project, were you interested in doing that with him or was it a surprise he asked you join?

I was never really that much into the power metal thing, which the project was in the beginning. I never even asked to hear the first demo after I had done the bass. But when I heard Pasi's incredible voice and the very professional arrangements and production, I became very interested.

Thunderstone has released 3 albums in 5 years. That's pretty impressive considering the type of music that you play. How do you manage to put out music as often as you do and it still sound great?

It has a lot to do with what's happening in the band generally. If there's a lot of touring, there's bound to be more time between albums. This time we didn't really get the best promotion touring for the second album so we just started writing new material and came up with enough good stuff for an album. Why hold back at that point?

What was your first concert and what effect (if any) did that have on you becoming a musician?

My first big gig was Mötley Crue in Helsinki in 1986. Even though they were never THE band for me, all the pyro stuff and the sheer volume of the music just blew me away. Of course KISS were my biggest heroes at the time, so when I saw their original line-up show at last in 1996 I knew there was no turning back.

With other Finnish metal bands striking the popularity that they are (i.e. Nightwish ,Children of Bodom, amongst many others), would you say that Finland is more of a breeding ground for metal (heavy, black, power) than say, The United States?

Per capita most certainly, but then again the US has a whole lot of million-selling modern metal bands like Slipknot, Marilyn Manson and what have you. I think its only natural that bands that are successful inspire the same kind of music, so with names like you mentioned above, there is a lot more that kind of metal happening in Finland.

How do you feel about the current metal scene?

Having seen the sad fall of the scene in the early 90s I think metal is doing great nowadays. I'm especially happy to see a lot of enthusiastic response from countries like the US and Britain which have for a long time been, at least for me, somewhat of blind spots in the metal scene.

What bands that are out right now would you love to do a world wide tour with?

Personally touring with old school heroes like Deep Purple or Whitesnake would be my dream come true. But then again we wouldn't probably reach much new fans on those shows. Commercially something like Iron Maiden would be huge, because they've managed not only to keep the old fans but to get a lot of new kids to come to their shows too. I think that would be cool. And Dio would be great too, he's such a nice and warm fella.

Onto a lighter subject, also on the Thunderstone website, it says that some of your hobbies are reading and writing-"but mostly boring academic stuff". Are you taking college classes?

I have a Ph.D in sociology of religion and spend most of my non-Thunderstone time doing research and writing papers. My first English book should come out sometime next year. Everybody interested in social constructionism check it out, hahahaha. Now you see what I mean by boring...

If you could please, describe a normal day in the life of Titus Hjelm.

I'm currently living two quite different lives so it depends on whether you're talking to the Titus who's sitting backstage trying not to drink too many beers before the show or the researcher guy who spends most of his time in front of the screen. Some people find it disturbing that both my "normal" days are so far from what you would maybe expect from the stereotypical rock'n'roll alcoholic or a university geek, but I find it really liberating. Spending five weeks in a smelly bus with four - and often more - drunk bastards is exciting for a while. As is writing. Now I have the best of both worlds!

Finally, what makes all of this worth while? What I mean is, what keeps you going show after show, album after album and still crave more of it?

The more you see the world and the bigger the band gets, the hungrier you become. And that is also when disappointment starts to creep in. Stupid things like: we only sold 800 tickets to a 1000 seat club. As if the 800 didn't appreciate what I'm doing! For me the cure is to look at the kids in the first row and remember myself at that Mötley Crue gig twenty years ago and to think that these kids are getting the same kicks out of what I'm doing now. There's hardly a better compliment anybody could give me. The point is also to really have a good time, all the time, as Viv Savage of Spinal Tap would say, hahaha. We have a great band chemistry and I trust we'll have many fun years ahead. Its only worth doing if you enjoy it and at the moment I couldn't imagine anything better!