NEW NOISE
BLIND CHANNEL
The former Eurovision contestants reinventing nu metal for a new generation
WORDS: ELEANOR GOODMAN • PICTURE: RAUNO LIIVAND
“NIGHT AND DAY doesn’t exist,” says Blind Channel co-vocalist Niko Moilanen. “You might be working for 24 hours straight, and then the next day you might be working for one hour. You don’t get to decide what happens. You might be like, ‘I’m hungry’, or ‘I’m sleepy’ – nobody gives a fuck.”
He’s describing the gruelling, twoweek regime artists must submit to in the run-up to the Eurovision Song Contest final. Last year, Blind Channel represented their native Finland and placed sixth, in a banner year for heavy music that saw Italian rockers Måneskin take the win. It might look like a big, campy party from the outside, but for its participants, it’s more like a survival nightmare akin to The Hunger Games.
“You wake up at fucking 7am for make-up,” the band’s other vocalist, Joel Hokka, picks up. “After that you pose for the fucking 200 cameras, walk the red carpet, do interviews, you don’t eat nothing. After that you go to the fucking arena, you have the monitors in, and there’s a count of 10, 9, 8… here we go, pyros on, it’s rehearsal number 70-something. And after that you go back to the fucking bubble, do interviews, go back to rehearsal, you sleep two hours. It’s a human fucking test…”