Interview with Micragils, August 2006

NB - Please introduce yourself.
M - Hello, I'm Katariina from the band called the Micragirls. I play organs in our band. My english is quite miserable, I hope that it doesn't matter and you can find out what I'm trying to say...

NB - Tell me about Micragirls - how you started, who are the members...?
M - The Micragirls are three girls from Finland that decided to get a guitar, an organ and a drum kit and start a garage band! It was summer 2001. At first it was only the decision that we are the band, then we started to practising. When that summer was ending we played our first gig, and then another and then another and... We play our own songs and lot's of unknown cover songs from 60's.

Members are:
Mari: guitar, screams
Katariina: organ, shouts
Kristiina: drums, howls

NB - Why name Micragirls?
M -
Because we love Nissan Micra -car.
And we are small and we are girls.
And it sounds simple and silly.

NB - Was any of you in other bands before Micragirls?
M - No, we didn't even know how to play before Micragirls.

NB - Any plans for new releases? An album, maybe?
M - We have recorded new material and we hope that we can get it out soon. Our plan is that it's gonna be 10" vinyl with new material, 5 own songs and 4 cover songs, and cd with this new material and 3-4 hit tunes from our earlier 7". We hope that it's gonna be out before this year is ending.

NB - I would say - Micragirls are baby girl that was born out of wild orgy with The Mummies and The Cramps. How would you describe your sound, which bands did influence you most?
M - Sounds Great! We love The Mummies and The Cramps!
We like also The Trashwomen, The Sonics, Tom Waits, The 5,6,7,8's... And finnish bands like Larry & the Lefthanded, Sweetheart, Chop Suey, Aavikko, Cosmo Jones Beat Machine, 22-Pistepirkko...
We hope that our music is obscure 60's garagepunk and trashy rock'n'roll. Old rock'n'roll collection series like "Back From The Grave", "Sin Alley" and "Born Bad" are very important to us, because those are great and we can find there fine songs which we can learn to play.)

NB - Where in Finland do you live? Tell me about your life, what you do except for playing in Micragirls, how you like to spend your free time...?
M - We live in Kuopio. It's quite small town in the middle of Finland (and in the middle of nowhere too).
Mari, our guitarist, is nowadays home with her son.
Kristiina, our drummer, got own business, she design and sell clothes, and sell weird records&comics etc. You can look at her very great homepage: http://www.daigadaigaduu.com, http://www.polkkajam.com
Sometimes I got some job, and sometimes I'm unemployed. I got a son too.

NB - 3 things you like most:
M
- listening strange music
- reading interesting books
- watching bizarre movies

NB - 3 things you hate most:
M
Just now:
- bubblegum, it's sticky. Aargh, I get always it to my trousers, and it wont get off...
- mosquitos, at the summertime they are driving me grazy
- waking up early, it's always so hard

NB - Your favorite food?
M - My favourite food is almost every vegetarian or fish food where is also cheese. Like lasagne, pizza, tortillas...

NB - Your favorite albums of all time?
M
22-Pistepirkko: Kings of Hong Kong
The 5,6,7,8's : Bomb The Rocks: Early Days Singles
Larry & the Lefthanded: Diabolika
V/A: Wavy Gravy, collection where is songs like Lone Twister, Go Go Gorilla (we are playing those songs also with Micras)

NB - What do you like about Finland and what you hate about it?
M - In Finland here is some magnificent bands. I like finnish language. I don't know what I hate about Finland... Winter is too long here...

NB - Do you play lot of shows in Finland and the rest of Scandinavia and do you plan to come to Holland?
M - We play something like 20-30 gigs in year at Finland, and out of Finland always when someone arrange something for us. We would like to come also to Holland, but there is nothing for sure yet.

NB - The funniest thing that happened on your show/tour?
M - Funny things happens all the time when we are on tour. We laugh a lot on stage, because we make a lot's of silly mistakes when we are playing. I don't know is this the funniest, but...
Couple of years ago we were playing at Stockholm. Mari got some problems with her guitar strap. It was stuck on to the guitar with gaffer tape, but the gaffer tape wasn't strong enough and guitar kept coming off. There was a friend of us at the stage on his knees from time to time trying to hold guitar up and gaffer it back on at the same time. We didn't want to interrupt the gig for that, so we play nearly whole gig like that.

NB - Anything you want to say to No Brains readers?
M - Thank you for reading this and hope to see you dancing at our gig someday. Keep acting like you got No Brains!