Finnish metal turks, Santa Cruz, know how to bring the party. With its recent self-titled sophomore release (out now via Spinefarm Records), its North American opening slot for Amaranthe and its recent major broadcast deal with ESPN, the band’s recent popularity has been exploding exponentially. Santa Cruz’s brand of Americanized arena rock and ’80s metal, done with a modern and fresh edge, pays homage to seasoned bands such as Guns N’ Roses, Skid Row and Bon Jovi. The band is garnering some well-deserved headlines, and not just in their native Finland, but in North America as well. Santa Cruz guitarist and co-founder Joonas “Johnny” Parkkonen spoke to BraveWords’ correspondent Kelley Simms about the recent buzz surrounding the band.

BraveWords: I hear that Santa Cruz has inked a deal with ESPN allowing your music to be featured during many major sporting events. 

Johnny: “We met this guy Ray at the New York show when we played there last December. He happened to work at ESPN and asked if we needed help getting our band out there. So he arranged the whole thing, and it was so huge. There’s going to be our songs on drag racing and X-Games, hopefully. It’s going to be awesome. We have four songs that will be played before commercial breaks and you can see some of the clips on our Facebook page.” 

BraveWords: You’ll also be returning to North America to support Amaranthe in May. How do you like touring the US and what are some of your fondest memories?

Johnny: “The first show in New York was insane! We’ve never played in the States before and there were like 400 people screaming, singing all the lyrics and creating mosh pits. And we were thinking, ‘’What the fuck is going on? Why haven’t we been here before?’ (laughs) So now we’re coming back for three weeks. Which will be fun because Amaranthe is also getting bigger in the States and they are playing theaters for 2,000 people. So it’s going to be fun.”

BraveWords: What kind of wild parties are you hoping to be a part of here this time around?

Johnny: “Hopefully we have time to party, but I don’t know yet, as I think our schedule is pretty tight. I believe the tour is going to end in Los Angeles (June 3), then we will have a party!”

BraveWords: The band has been labeled as a new-school ’80s hair metal band. What about this time period, its music and its vibe that attracted you to play this style of metal?

Johnny: “I don’t consider us as a new-school hair metal band. We just want to respect our roots, but still bring something modern and fresh. As you can hear from the new album compared to our first one. It’s more metal I think, and the lyrics are pretty deep and dark also. Not so much like ‘Lets drink Jack and go to the bar,’ though the album should bring that feeling to you when you listen to it.”

BraveWords: You have a very Americanized sound with obvious similarities to Guns N’ Roses and Skid Row. Did you grow up listening to this type of music?

Johnny: “When we were young and started the band, we of course listened to a lot of metal like Guns N’ Roses, Bon Jovi and Skid Row. We actually toured last summer with Skid Row in Germany, which was pretty cool and we played “Youth Gone Wild” on stage two times with those guys. Of course we love music from that era, but we also listen to a lot of older stuff like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple and then much more newer stuff like Bring Me the Horizon and Avenged Sevenfold. Also from the grunge era (such as) Alice in Chains. I think all of those bands’ influences are combined with the new album when you listen to it.”

BraveWords: Hanoi Rocks was the biggest band to come out of Finland. Were they role models for you?

Johnny: “Of course. They are legends. They are the only real rock stars from Finland. They were the first ones who got out of here and that’s why they are legends. Of course they made pretty good albums, too.”

BraveWords: How would you compare your debut album, Screaming For Adrenaline, to the new album?

Johnny: “With the first one, there were songs on there that were already written seven years before we came out. There were really old songs and a couple of newer ones, but now we’ve cleaned the table and these songs are from the last two years. It was a fresh process for us also because the songs felt more fresh to us and much more newer, and still feel like that than when we made the first album.”

BraveWords: Songs “Bonafide Heroes” and especially “Wasted & Wounded” could be the new ”Youth Gone Wild” for the modern era. All the tracks have big choruses, big hooks and lots of shredding. This seems to be what Santa Cruz is all about.  

Johnny: “Absolutely. We want to play arenas some day! We love that big arena sound. But combined with the newer and fresh elements, like we have these layered vocals on the song “6(66) Feet Under.” And on “Bonafide Heroes,” we wanted an epic sound. Because It begins really quiet with the chorus and then suddenly this double bass kicks in. So, we wanted to have this ‘What The Fuck’ epic sound when we play live. That’s what rock should be. Even Alice In Chains is stadium rock to me. Think about the chorus on “Man In A Box,” it doesn’t have huge backing vocals but it still has a huge chorus. That’s what we love about music and what we want to add with our own music.”

BraveWords: Speaking of shredding, there’s some tasty lead guitar parts on the album from yourself and Arttu “Archie” Kuosmanen. How did you guys come up the leads and how do you divide the solos?

Johnny: “We usually decide by Rock-Paper-Scissors (laughs). That’s usually the most diplomatic way to do it! We have a couple of twin lead solos. On “Bonafide Heroes,” we have this cool, dark Yngwie Malmsteen double lead going on. And on “Can You Feel The Rain” we do octaves that we play together at the same time. When we go to the studio we usually don’t have the solos ready. There are a couple of solos that are totally improvised with the first take.”

BraveWords: There are a few radio-friendly and more commercial numbers on the album. Are you concerned with being played on the radio or which stations are playing this type of music?

Johnny: “Not really. If a radio station wants to play our music then that’s cool, but we don’t think about that when we’re making the songs. Even though we have a couple of songs that are perfect for the radio because they start with a big catchy chorus, those songs came naturally for us. We didn’t plan to do those kind of songs (for the radio), they just came out like that. We also produced the record ourselves and I even mixed it by myself, so there was no producer saying we should go to radio. It all came from us. No one can blame us that someone else made our songs. What’s on this album is Santa Cruz. It’s nothing else but true Santa Cruz showing it’s colors.”

BraveWords: I saw the behind the scenes of the video shoot for “Wasted & Wounded.”  That must have been a blast shooting it!

Johnny: “It was a fun day. We first went to film in this legendary club in Helsinki to do the performance scenes. Then we rented this apartment where we had a huge party with like 30 people. Of course we drank and had fun.” 

BraveWords: What’s next for Santa Cruz?

Johnny: “Do as many gigs as possible; tour our asses off. We will make a third album that will have even better and more bad ass songs. We want to play shows all over the world. We’d love to go to Japan; do another US tour this year. Hopefully South America, and Australia would be fun also. I’d love to go there. So that’s what we’re looking for and are waiting out for.”