Writing The Entire Song In Your Mind

The Rasmus

Cris Cohen: When you get a song idea, what instrument do you personally reach for to craft the melody?

Lauri Ylönen of The Rasmus: Nice question. If possible, I always play guitar. I have my backstage guitar with me and I spend like 10 hours a day with a guitar hanging on my neck. I’m constantly writing songs on tour, especially because it’s so inspiring to be there among the fans… that energy, everything happening in the middle of life.

Sometimes I can do it with no instruments, too. There’s a legendary songwriter, Max Martin, who once said he never touches an instrument before he’s finished the song in his head. That’s pretty cool. Sometimes I’ve done that and it really works, because when you start putting the chords in, you sort of lock the song… that’s how it’s going to be. But you have more options if you just have a good melody or a hook before you touch the instrument. It’s like teasing yourself.

Cris Cohen: So you try to get it in your mind the way you want it before you actually put it down on instrumentation?

Lauri Ylönen: Yeah, because when you write a lot of songs and you’re very much making music all the time, it’s easy to hear the chords… at least for me. I can arrange it a lot in my head and hear harmonies and sort of hear how it’s going to be. But that would be impossible to try to explain to a producer. I need to practice my skills.

The Rasmus website: https://therasmus.com/