amorphis – santeri kallio im interview (englisch)

Dass das so schnell geht – momentan scheinen die Jungs wirklich noch etwas Zeit zu haben. Keyboarder Santeri Kallio jedenfalls beantwortete meine Interviewfrage innerhalb von drei Stunden!Also warte ich nicht lange und stelle hier die englische Version schon mal online. Die deutsche folgt demnächst, also no panic if your english is to bad 😉

RTB:   In 2013 Amorphis will be on stage since 23 years. Aren’t you a little bit tired after all these time?

Well, you have to see the good parts of it. Besides all the people working in the office or working outside are complaining all the time about the shittyness of their work. When I was around 8 years old I knew I want to do this, play music and tour around the world. It would be very stupid to not to see and realize what I have here now. Of course somethings you hate and feel boring like flying, waiting, hangovers and especially these stupid breaks between tours when you have to wait for the album to be released. Thats what I call fucking boring!

RTB:   AMORPHIS is one of he biggest names in metal scene. What ist he reason of your success?

There is some talents in our lineup and the vision is very strong. I think the way to a success and long career is a combination of talent, vision and ambition. Of course sometimes even that does not help if all the marketing is bullshit. Or if you come from Novosibirsk what I mean is the location and the business might overcome your ambition. But with us it was not the case. Because the marketing people in the early nineties in Finland sucked ass big time many bands signed to a foreign label. We signed to American Relapse records with a pretty bad deal. On the other hand the fact that they got most of the money was the way for a Finnish newcomer band to get a label to really push your music to the market and get you good package tours. We still love what we do, appreciate our fans, keep the mind clear away from rockn roll bullshit. I dont see what could go wrong.

RTB:   There are many metalbands from the north, from Finland, Sweden, Norway. And there are „nordic“ metal styles like viking metal. In your opinion, does this have a relation with long, dark winters and and nothing to drink but alcohol 😉

Yeah or just the fact that European people are very in to that kind of Northern fantasies? I dont really know about pagan-scene, sure ist fun but on the other hand you are kind of a prisoner of your hairy image. For us it would be too narrow to build up an vikingish image to promote our music. We almost got labeled like that at the times of Elegy and that is one of the reasons our musical and visual style started to change to Tuonela album. But to answer your question, yeah pagan and viking scene is very strong, there is lots of pagan package tours and ist lot of about having fun and meeting similar kind of people. Thats the biggest reason for a bands to go for pagan image. It’s not just the boozing cause almost every scene in Finland is all about drinking in darkness, well maybe reggae-scene is more like smoking and laughing-gas.

RTB:   For many other bands, AMORPHIS is a shining example. What are your influences?

I think the roots for our music comes from 70´s and 80´s prog, hard rock and heavy-metal. Surprise surprise! Bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Hawkwind, Dio, Pink Floyd, Motörhead, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Wasp, Kiss just to name a few and so on. Also the thrash scene was strong at our time. Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Morbid Angel, Napalm and even later bands like Faith no more have had strong influence for us. And who does not like marvellous Finnish prog bands like Wigwam, Pekka Pohjola, Tasavallan presidentti and Piirpauke? Legenday Finnish Kingston Wall was also everyones favourite in the early 90´s. That can surely be heard at least in Elegy and Tuonela.

RTB:   „Circle“ is your eleventh studio-album. I’m sure it will be another AMORPHIS-success, cause it’s great stuff. Can you tell something about the story of „Circle“?

We discussed we could try something more modern with our lyricist Pekka Kainulainen and he came with an concept which happens in the present time (or somewhere in the modern times). We read it through and actually it sounded much more interesting starting point than just another concept about an old story or classic Kalevala character once again.

Already with The Beginning of Times sessions we had realized that we may have to find more producer options to work with vocal harmonies cause Marko Hietala has duties with Nightwish which will keep him extreme busy from time to time. When Nightwish was on active period it was always very difficult to find period which suits for everybodys needs. I think Marko also have to spend some time with his family.  So we asked Peter Tägtren and he said Yeah! We had got pretty fed up of producing the albums by ourselves and needed some extra opinions and some experimental inspirations to the studio process. Last albums we did basically with a recording engineer who did not give any creative ideas. Now it was nice to have a 7th opinion every now and then.

Peter definitely gave a big effort and vision to bass and guitar sounds. And that was one major things we were hoping he would concentrate. He also arranged  the vocal lines with Tomi and the result is more than convincing. Top of all he created an unique sounding album for us in Abyss all this in a pretty short time and quite easily I suppose. Musicallywise we did not try to change everything. Someone brings the demo to the rehearsals and so on. We did have some sort of a feeling to make this album harder than The Beginning Of Times, but I think it was more like an general intuition. Now when I listen it when its mixed and mastered its definitely heavier than previous, the keyboards are more in the background, lots of heavy guitars and ultra low bass. There is a variation all over in the music, performing and production.

I´m happy we did not fail the process: ) For me the album sounds fresh, different, familiar and interesting at the same time. Of course from my perspective there could be more keyboards – on the other hand the guitarrists Esa and Tomi are totally excited about the loud and heavy guitarsounds. Its definitely great to have a different approach to out music to separate it from the previous albums. And I think if we think about it how it was made, in a tight time frame with 7 guys with opinions, we all should be very happy about the album. And we still have 5 more tracks from the sessions which is a nice thing for fans.

RTB:   If you look back, which AMORPHIS-album do you like most?

It is soooo hard to say, cause Circle is now „on the table“. It feels the best and most interesting at the moment. After a year and close to hunderd shows played I can have more objective vision about this opinion. Normally for me the songs come alive after 15-20 shows and you really start to see and hear what they´re all about. But if we exclude Circle now I would say my favourite is Eclipse. Not soundingwise, but the selection of the songs is very interesing and the fact that we demoed the same songs with Pasi and they were totally different then (read worse). Of course I also like Skyforger which represents well an album without weak spots.

RTB:   Your tourcalender for 2013 shows nearly 50 gigs all over Europe and two shows in Israel. Will there be more or do you have a chance for holiday?

I think the holiday is over soon, we´ve been lying home for months and months. First we do festivals in the summer 2013, then we try to go to South-America. We are also planning Australia and Japan trip in autumn and got some offers for a tour in Russia. In November we´ll do the first European leg and then make as many shows as possible in Finland. So maybe closer to 100 shows before any breaks. If we can we try also get to the US, maybe next spring and tour in east-europe. Lets see, the sofa-days are over baby! I see some hangovers in the horizon.

RTB:   In 2015 you will have „silver jubilee“. Are you even planning the „biggest AMORPHIS show ever“?

Some sort of an 25th anniversary? Oh please no, but lets see what the booking agents or management comes up (or the merch guy). We are not thinking that much of special events now thus we feel quite young as a band after previous party. The 20 years anniversary tour was a great way to celebrate certain point in career and I like the Magic Mayhem and the DVD release. But pleae no that every five years we´ll have some sort of a special party. Please not. Never say never, lets just wait and see!

RTB:   End of november you will play in Pratteln/Switzerland. Swiss fans surely will be there. Do you have any message fort hem?

Swissheads! Keep the bottles in the audience and dont waste the beer throwing it to us, even though we appreciate free beers! Haha! Last time Z7-people threw us bottles and cans due to the fact that promoter cancelled Watains gig. Which had nothing to do with us! And we´ve had our beers afterwards with Watain guys too. No, really we love Switzerland and Z7 and almost everytime it is The Best show of the tour. We´re naturally so looking forward to it. One of the best stages in the whole tour. There is also a washing maschine in the backstage so we will be definately looking forward that venue. And good food! And did I understand correctly the weed is legal in Switzerland nowadays? ; )

RTB:   Thank you very much for having taken the time to answer this questions, lots of success and fun on the 2013 „boards that mean the world“.

Thank you, see you in Geneve or Pratteln Z7! Rock on, check the new album „Circle“ (de NOT-solei) people „it is very good rock rol“ !