The third song of this year’s Uuden musiikin kilpailu (UMK) is now out. Listen to the song Jezebel by The Rasmus here:
The Rasmus is one of the most internationally successful Finnish bands. The band was founded in 1994 by the vocalist Lauri Ylönen and the bass guitarist Eero Heinonen when they both were still teenagers. The first single of The Rasmus came out in 1995, and their debut album Peep was released in 1996. After that, the band has published nine studio albums and achieved numerous gold and platinum records in several countries, and their records have been sold over 5 million copies worldwide. Besides Europe, The Rasmus has been on the charts in for example Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Japan. Last summer the band’s biggest hit In the Shadows broke the 100 million stream mark on Spotify.
Nowadays there are two original members still in The Rasmus: the vocalist Lauri Ylönen and the bass guitarist Eero Heinonen. The original guitarist Pauli Rantasalmi left the band in the beginning of this year, and the band got a new guitarist just before UMK. The new guitarist of the band is Emilia Suhonen, who is familiar to the Finnish music fans from her former band Tiktak, which was a popular female group during its career between 1998—2007. The fourth current member of the band is the drummer Aki Hakala, who has been the member of the band since 1998.
According to Yle, The Rasmus’ UMK entry Jezebel was written in just a few hours based on the demo of Lauri Ylönen, and after that Ylönen told the other band members about his plan to submit the song to the UMK. The band says that Jezebel is a song to the strong and independent women who blaze their own trail.
Jezebel was a biblical troublemaker, who did things her own way and really shook things up. We wanted to introduce her to the modern-day world. The song is also a bit tongue-in-cheek, which is pretty unusual for The Rasmus, says Ylönen.
What do YOU think of Jezebel by The Rasmus? Do you think it has what it takes to win UMK and do well in Turin next May? Let us know in comments or our social media channels!
