Finland’s Flatline Rockers are far friendlier bunch than their heavy psychobilly would suggest. Packed round a table backstage at Essen, Germany’s Don’t Panic Club, they’re feeling good ahead of their headline set at this year’s Psychobilly Kicks Back.

“We got our album out in the last year,” says vocalist A-V Nauha of 2024’s ‘Six Feet Down’. “It’s the first album in ten years, so we took a lot of time making the second one. Actually, it’s a long story, but basically life got in the way. Some of us lived abroad, and others got families, children, that sort of thing. I think it was a couple of months before Corona [that] we started training again…and realised soon [after] that it’s COVID-19, there’s no gigs. So [instead] we started making new songs and training the band. When COVID was done, we were pretty much ready to go. Rght now we’re getting good gigs, quite happy about it. I mean, we’re not really looking to do a gig every week or anything. Once a month is busy for us, and we like it that way. We take the good gigs, you know!” 

He’s probably thinking of their set at the Bedlam Breakout last year. “It was a good gig. Yeah, it was fun. I loved it. I gotta say, I think Bedlam is probably, out of the big events, the best organised one, so it’s fantastic playing for the guys,” he says. As well as winning over the psychobilies of the UK, it gave them the chance to film the video for ‘Alcohol’.

“We did take two videos,” Nauha explains. “We got two people film everything, and then Jere [Lähteenmäki, guitarist] more or less put together the ‘Alcohol’ one.” “We started filming when we arrived at an airport in Finland,” adds the guitarist, “with everybody filming something. I just mixed it up, and [I added] a little bit of live things and everything. It was just drinking and having fun, that video. It was not only about drinking…”  “I think ‘Alcohol’ was more of a reflection of who we are.” 

An unexpected song from ‘Six Feet Down’ comes in the form of ‘Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya’, but dropping a Celtic punk song feels like it works in their set. “My sister lives in Ireland,” says Nauha. “She’s lived there for twenty years or something, so I listened to quite a lot of the Irish music, and I think we like Dropkick Murphys. Our cover isn’t really one-to-one with the Dropkick Murphys one. It’s a bit more different, I would say. Of course it’s more psychobily, but it’s sort of an old tune that’s fun to play with. Because it’s from… what was it? It was in 1867 that it was first published, so no one in the world knows what the original one was essentially. It’s a great song. We have been playing it live before the album and so on, and we were thinking of songs to put on the album and that just came up. But yeah, what the hell?” He shrugs.

“I have a fun story,” Jere Lähteenmäki interjects.  “When the first Flatline album was released, I was a very young boy. I was a big metal music fan, and also I liked the Nekromantix and Mad Sin. I was something like fifteen. One day, A-V asked me, ‘hey, do you have some whiskey?’” Of course I have whiskey. I’ve played in other like Billy Bands before I joined the Flatline Rockers. And of course I have whiskey. ‘Hey, you have to come here, come sing with us’ [he said]. And after that they were, ‘hey, you are in the band now. Play the guitar and sing those songs. Yeah.’” He laughs hysterically at how he was press-ganged into the band. Nauha clarifies. “Okay. So it was quite funny because we were recording the album, some of the first takes of the album. It was in Tampere, where Jere lives. All of us are from Pori on the very, very west coast of Finland and Tampere is about 100 kilometers inland, so to speak. We were just starting the recordings there. And these guys drink beer. Yeah, I don’t drink beer. I can’t drink beer. So we sort of ran out of alcohol, and we were like, so who do we know in Tampere? This guy shows up in the middle of the night, first of all, with a guitar and a bottle of whiskey, and he knows like two, three of our songs…and he sort of joined the band.” 

Flatline Rockers are taking it easy with their next plans. “We’ve got the album coming out on vinyl. It’s been delayed a few times but it is still coming. Once that is out, we’ll do limited pressing of the first album. That’s pretty old but we’ll do a small pressing of that anyway. I think the next EP is coming out only on vinyl, and of course the digital services and so on and so forth. So I think just getting nice gigs, having a bit of fun with it, meeting new people. I mean, it’s always fantastic when you know a lot of folks whenever you travel. e got quite a lot of great stuff coming up. I think we’ll be around for quite a lot longer than last time, but the main thing is just having fun. Making music with friends. That’s the main thing – four old dudes and Jere.” 

Kate Allvey

So what’s the official Rip It Up take on ‘Six Feet Down’? Nick Kemp gives his verdict:

This is a solid psychobilly record from German band the ‘Flatline Rockers’, my personal preference would be for a little more billy. I have no doubt, however, that this well-performed and recorded album will find a receptive audience.

‘Ghost Story’ begins with quite a sinister riff and then gets into a slowish groove with nice slapping. 

There is a similar pace and nice melody to ‘There’s Evil In Her Eyes’, with a good metal-ish solo. The vocals are quite good, tending towards spoken word as opposed to singing. 

‘Six Feet Down’ is a good song replete with its off-beat reggae section before a Mad Sn style riff and good gang vocals.

‘Never Again’ begins with a terrific riff, it’s a faster song and has a feel of the Sin Kings to the guitar work.

‘Parasite Hill’ is a very fast number and it has some fine slapping and relentless guitar.

‘Old School Psychos’ has a very nice groove, it has a dark feel to it and the song has a classic double time section. It ticks a lot of the psychobilly boxes.

‘No Regrets’ has quite a heavy feel to it and sounds very European.

‘For Our Sin’ is more of the same.

‘Alcohol’ has that sort of offbeat feel to the guitar work. It is something of a plodder to be honest.

‘Blood Sucker Blues’ is a slow groover, with shouts of ‘hey’ that gathers pace before ending quite abruptly.

‘Johnny I Hardly Knew You’ is a fairly faithful version of this traditional song.

‘Where You Gonna Go?’ is a garage classic originally by Art Guy, but made famous by Demented Are Go’s version on Tangenital Madness on a Pleasant Side of Hell, this is a very competent version but it is unlikely to set the world on fire.

Overall, this is a good album that fits very comfortably in the modern psychobilly movement. Anyone with a taste for the slightly more metallic end of the billy spectrum will find much to enjoy here.

Nick Kemp