Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

SKIRMISH is a heavy metal band from Kajaani, Finland formed in 2005. They have released their debut album “Through the Abacinated Eyes” by legendary Violent Journey Records 31st Aug 2011. Some has categorized Skirmish to death or even trash metal but what has driven the band forward has been to stay outside of different categories to be free of making good music in a tight leaning position.

1.You’ve released your debut album  “Through the Abacinated Eyes”  now. How do you feel about it?

Right now we feel relaxed because the album is finally released, we are satisfied about the final result, and the response so far has been mostly positive.

2. How long did the process of creating this album take?

Everything was done in a relatively short period of time. We started to write the music for the album around September of 2010, although some of the riffs were there already, and the album was recorded and mixed in the beginning of April ’11. We did spend loads of man-hours to get all the music and lyrics ready and prepared for the studio, but the recordings were done in about a week. The writing process was surprisingly easy, even the last songs was finished just couple of weeks before we hit the studio.
3. What has the album release brought you so far?

A lot of mainly positive feedback, and some recognition in the mainstream metal media. MetalHammerUK -magazine released the song “Death Beyond” on a collection CD with the August issue, Inferno magazine in Finland published a short interview, Imperiumi.net selected our album as “album of the week” right upon release etc. We just hope the gig promoters start to recognize our name more easily now.

4. How are you planning to promote this album?

The record company off course do their best, but as a band and apart from all the non-musical aspects, we look forward to do a quite a bit of gigs during the next winter. Let’s hope we just get to play as much as we wish!

5. Are you happy how it turned out to be?

If by “it” you mean the album; extremely happy. Reflecting back to it, yes there are some things we could’ve made better, and there is definitely room for improvement, but it is a hard-ass debut nevertheless. There are a lot of changes in the mood throughout the whole disc, and the musical style varies sometimes quite a bit from the usual deathrash hammering, but end of the day it is a brutally hard and heavy album to headbang to!

We could’ve made a longer album, but we stayed with these eight tracks to keep the package tight and aggressive. So yeah, it works for us, hopefully it works for the public too.

6. I read from your website that you part ways with your drummer Mr.Palo earlier this year and now Waltteri Väyrynen is playing drums. How did you find him? Can you tell us a bit about the situation?

Basically our ex-drummer was more interested in the non-musical aspects of the hard rock life, which created a very difficult work-environment even before and during the studio session. We gave him at least five “second-chances” to clean up his act and show up to practice in time, but since he was more interested in other things, we let him focus on them. I mean, none of us won’t spit to the glass, but things have to do and rock’n’roll train has to keep on rolling.

Waltteri showed up to play two gigs in the beginning of June, and took things in control just in few hours of rehearsing. But already then we had a choice between Waltteri and the drummer who we officially now got in the group, mr. Panu Heikkinen (also known from Perfect Chaos). Panu is the drum teacher of Waltteri, and we had to make a tough choice between two outstanding characters and amazing musicians. I mean, what an amazing opportunity after a long time of uncertainty with one drummer, to get to choose from the two best drummers possible for us. We started to rehearse with Panu, and seemingly chose him to become the full-time drummer, and everything is going great at the moment in the rhythmic side of the group. All heil to Waltteri who helped us in a difficult situation! I bet you will hear from this dude sooner or later.

7. What are your thoughts about Finnish metal scene? Is it an easy land to step in?

Yes and no. It is great to make metal in a country where everybody listens to metal. So you’re bound to have some people like your music quite easily. But that also creates the problem, the metal scene is bloated with usually quite interesting groups, so it makes it hard to stand out from the mass! As far as Skirmish goes right now, we are very happy with the material we have to offer for the public. We just need to find the opportunities to let the public hear it.

8. What inspires you to make music?

Cold dark winters, vodka and the usual stress from the grey weekdays. Life itself.  And ladies of course. Tits.

9. What has been your worse gig so far?

All of them has been great in a way or another, but of course we have had our Spinal Taps too. Like one roadtrip to Helsinki when our van’s backdoor was lock-frozen and we need to play Tetris by pushing all the
instruments and players to the cabin. Or another when the whole band had to work on the construction site at the gig day, so that we got persuaded a local sound engineer to do the evening show. Total commitment!

10. Now, what would you like to say to our readers around the world?

Drink your milk, stay in school and eat the asparagus! Beer is good for you, remember to listen to Skirmish and force your friends to listen to it too!

Thank you for the interview! Nelli

Interview by Nelli “missnellisofia” Perkkiö

Skirmish – Death Beyond