Briefly introduce yourself and what kind of music you make?

AUS TEARS is about us two expressing ourselves through music and stage performance. We take turns in singing and playing two synthesizers and a drum machine. We want to keep our musical gear minimal and to work without computers. In 2020 we self-released out 12" LP, "Levelled directions", limited to 500 copies which represent our first five years of activity by playing what we call "electronic post-punk": minimal, raw, in movement.

If Aus Tears took the shape of an animal, which would it be and why?

An opossum: maybe not liked by so many but actually pretty cool.

How did you become involved in making music and how did the group come together?

In 2014 we both bought a couple of synths - that we actually still use in our set - and started to mess a bit with them and all of a sudden we had a few songs done.
The same year we left from Finland for Berlin and got back one year after with a couple of gigs on our back and a bunch of songs done.

Our music tastes and ideas about how to do things were very similar so we quickly understood that AUS TEARS was evolving into a real thing that would not be going to disappear so easily.

You are currently based in Helsinki, Finland. How have your surroundings shaped what you do?

Yes, partly it is about immediate surroundings but we have been inspired by a much wider "landscape" which usually is not as happy and beautiful as advertisements and propaganda would like us to believe. Considering Helsinki itself we have been a part of quite an active scene which allowed us to interact with many creative people and to have several gigs. All of this has been shaping us into what we are now.

What kind of an influence is punk/diy mentality for you and what drives you to make what you do?

Punk/d.i.y. mentality is in everything we do. Unfortunately by the time many strong points that people had on a d.i.y. mentality are disappearing - crushed by a way too comfortable compromises. D.i.y. is not just printing your own shirt or patch, it is about considering all the aspects of doing, keeping them in your own hands.

We never had or never will have a manager or a promoter, we want to self-release and distribute our own material, we like to keep in touch with people personally and often arrange gigs by our own. We don't do all this for money, dreams of fame or a respectable place in this society, we simply have things to say. Eventually it is nice to think that something from all our work will remain also when we won't be around anymore.

What’s the balance between the recording process and live performing for you? Does either play a bigger part?

We think that our strength is in the live performance. Performing live is not just for reproducing your recordings perfectly. Live performances are done also by spontaneous improvisation, aggression, hate, sweat, sights, expressions, mistakes, movement and a lot more. So to us, the recording process is a bit more boring part since the energy of a live gig is something not projectable on a record.

What kind of equipment do you use and does it play an important role in what you do?

Our gear is very minimal and we like to keep it that way to stay compact and mobile. We have been using quite inexpensive instruments all the way and it has been enough for us to do what we want to do. We have an AKAI MiniAK, a KORG Microkorg, an ALESIS SR18 and a Beatstep pro as sequencer. In general, to have some limits with your sound library is a good thing because time doesn't go to unnecessary things like going through millions of options - you just create with what you have.

What is going on with your music at the moment / do you have some future plans?

At the moment we are either playing live and working on new material. We just went to record some unreleased songs which will be issued on our next vinyl release so possibly we will have some new album coming in the near future..

What would you name as the biggest highlights or hardships in your musical history?

We are still thinking a lot about our tour in 2018 in Lithuania, Poland and Germany, it left us with very nice memories. During the tour, we had gigs that had a lot of audience and then gigs with 10 people but the amount really didn't matter since the atmosphere was great on each one of them and the crowd was there for the music, really feeling it and showing it openly.

Certain 80’s aesthetics are still quite strongly present overall in synth wave and post-punk. What kind of an influence is that era in Aus Tears and how does it resonate with you in this time?

I-Sofia: Music-wise, what is there not to like about the 80's? Melodies and lyrics were full of emotion, desperation and love, and the sounds were great and I think a big reason for this was also that people in those days actually had skills and trained ears in mixing and mastering, very different from nowadays when people rely too much on to computer programs to do the job and think that no skill is needed. I got to listen to 80's stuff from a very young age, thanks to my siblings, so it has been with me the most of my life and therefore, it is also natural that it comes through in AUS TEARS.

Andrea: For me, it is THE influence, not only musically speaking but also as a matter of attitude. However, I dislike very nostalgic blabberings I hear often around because we are living now and not 40 years ago, ergo, I do things my own way now and I don't need to rip off any 80's band, person, or way of being. I feel I'm stuck in the past and that is true but on the clock at Pasila railway station it reads 2022 and I must deal with it.

How do the visual aspects of Aus Tears come together and what kind of a role does it have for you?

Our visuals are made by us alone. It is important to us that we can stand behind everything we produce and that is why d.i.y. also in this case is the only option. Sometimes it can be a struggle to find something we both totally agree with, but at least until this point we have always found a way. In practice, the debut record cover was made by I-Sofia and T-shirt and other merch graphics were made by Andrea but we don't have any strictly decided divisions with the works.