Interviews

Interview With Niclas Etelävuori: Talks AMORPHIS, FLAT EARTH and Life

Posted by Stargazer on June 19, 2018
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Interview by Mohsen “Stargazer” Fayazi

 

It’s always a pleasure to sit and have a chat with a metal friend, especially having had a chance to work with them. Niclas Etelävuori, an amazing bass player who has been in the heart of the rhythmic part of AMORPHIS music for seventeen years, is now busy with his new band FLAT EARTH. To know more about his past and present, I had an interview with Niclas from which an excerpt can be read below:

Perhaps you agree with me that mankind is a creature of habit and seventeen years is long enough to make it difficult for any person to change or want to try new things. So I asked Niclas how he feels about those years with AMORPHIS now?

– “It was great times, it was a huge part of my life. I mean I don’t know, sometimes you just have to move on. But I have good memories and bad memories, but mostly good memories.”

In April 2017, Niclas announced his departure from AMORPHIS via a post on Facebook, where he mentioned his decision as “the hardest decision he ever made”. I asked him about it and what exactly happened during that time which led him to make that decision;

– “It wasn’t a sudden decision, it’s been growing for many years probably, five or six years but then I don’t know. I felt like things were getting just worse and people didn’t stay to their words and you know, a lot of things didn’t match. So I don’t know, I’d just had enough. We had an agreement that we do changes but it never happened. So I thought ‘this will never happen, I have to do something else’.
That’s basically it in a nutshell. But it’s very complicated and a long story, it would take a week to tell it. There’s some personalities, their egos go before other things.”

FLAT EARTH, why and how was it formed? Niclas responded:

– “After a couple of weeks sitting outside drinking beer, I had to do something. Then I had this one song and my Spanish friend Juan came by and ‘yeah yeah I wanna sing on that one’, so we released this one song in Spanish with him. But I knew I had a lot of songs on my hard drive and some of them were pretty old, so I didn’t even remember what I had done. So it took weeks to listen to all of that.
Then later, I started to look for somebody to play with and then Linde came up through a common friend. I liked his style always and I knew that maybe he wasn’t going to do anything after HIM finished. So then I asked him over and he was right away into it. From there on we start to look for a singer and then I have forced almost Gas to be in the band, but now he’s really into it (laughs). But Gas and I go back, we knew each other almost thirty years now. It’s all good.”

If you know AMORPHIS and if you’ve checked the FLAT EARTH single, ‘Blame’, you will also have noticed the difference in the music. So let’s see what Niclas thinks about it:

– “I feel good about it. Actually now we can do whatever we want. So it would be pointless for me to play the same music that Amorphis is doing. This is our first album and there’s a lot of different music on it already.
I’m very excited when we get to play more and compose the second one.”

I was curious about the band’s name, you might be too. So I asked Niclas and he answered:

– “It was kinda from many coincidences. We had a day planned to set the name for the band at Linde’s house and it was kind of our first get together. And we were to come up with a name and we cooked food and had drinks and stuff. Linde has four hairless cats and one of them passed on as soon as we got the dinner, from a heart attack. In the end we couldn’t come up with a name that day. The next morning, we thought we have to come up with something and we had a couple of names and Flat Earth came up. Then we somehow felt that we had to give tribute to the cat, because he lost his life when we were coming up with the name.
Then we also heard a story that if the earth is flat, then all the cats would shove everything off it, so we had a lot of coincidences.”

You can listen to the whole of this interview on the SoundPlayer below:

FLAT EARTH online:

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Interview With WATERCRISIS’ Frontlady Caterina Salzano: “We want to convey a message of the individual’s revenge, a redemption towards himself. Because often, we are our worst enemies.”

Posted by tarjavirmakari on May 23, 2018
Posted in: Int. News, Interviews. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

WaterCrisis

Interview by Tarja Virmakari

Just recently, Volcano Records released “Sleeping Sickness”, the debut album of the young stoner rock band WATERCRISIS, that sounds in a way powerful and delicate. The band that just put out a first EP last year and shared stage with LACUNA COIL last summer, comes to this first full length release with an hypnotic impact leaded by an emotional and violent female voice.

Metal Shock Finland had a chance to interview the band’s frontlady Caterina Salzano, talking about the debut album, the band itself and their message to the world.

1. Hi WaterCrisis, welcome to Metal Shock Finland? How are you doing?

– Hi Metal Shock Finland and readers, we’re doin’ pretty well if you think that we’re playing a lot in this period!

2. First of all, please introduce me your band members and their best and worst habits…

– The band is composed by me, Caterina Salzano (vocals), Antonio Castaldo (bass), Francesco Coppeta (guitar) and Roberto Godas (drums). I’m a really sensitive and deep person but too susceptible sometimes. Antonio Castaldo has a great organisations capacities and he is really enterprising but sometimes it is cranky like a desperate housewife. Francesco is deeply empathicand it is always there for those who need some help but he’s actually very anxious. At last, Roberto! He he has a great willpower and a brilliant mind but sometimes he can be so “zen” to be unnerving.

3. Talking about your music, besides the genre, what is your special touch to it which makes it different than the other stoner rock bands?

– I think our music is really particular because we don’t compose thinking about a specific genre, we totally rely on our sensations that become one thanks to the strong empaty that has grown among us through the years. Anyway, all the member of the band are influenced by the music they listen to, so each of them brings his own taste, influences and ideas. Moreover, tha band’s singer is a woman, which is a really rare thing.

4. From where are coming your musical influences?

– We’re influenced by many different styles and kinds of music. Stoner rock bands, prog, metal, blues, jazz, grunge, doom… In particular, however, we refer to bands like Kyuss, 1000Moods, Black Sabbath that are a huge source of inspiration for us.

5. Your debut EP came out only last year, and last summer you played with LACUNA COIL. For a young band like you, it must have been quite an experience…

– We are young but we are very busy. I believe that satisfactions come from hard work and sacrifice. Our debut EP ‘’WaterCrisis’’ was a rough project that allowed us to start proposing ourselves and getting into situations like that of Lacuna Coil one. That one, has been the first experience on a big stage, with lots of people. It certainly allowed us to test ourselves and to test the audiences’ liking. It was wonderful!

6. How have you found your place, as female singer, in this “male-oriented” rock music world?

-I have always been surrounded by male friends in my life with whom I feel very well. We often do concerts with other groups (all made up of boys) they look at me with skepticism, as if they expected me to go there on stage to sing La Vie En Rose like Edith Piaf but, without too many scenes, when I start singing our songs their faces change and that’s the way I make room for myself between this stinking and prevented metalheads. Prejudices hurts, no?

7. Your voice is described to be “emotional and violent”, is it something you’ve studied for, or does it come out naturally?

– I study singing since many years but nobody has ever taught me how to sing this genre. It was a natural process that was born of itself when we started writing a certain type of music. It ‘s the most sincere way I can express myself as well as a real need now.

COVER-WATERCRISIS-px1000-web-big-

8. Your debut album “Sleeping Sickness” is coming out on May 18th (via Volcano Records), what can you tell me about the song-writing process and topics?

-Every trace of Sleeping Sickness comes from a riff that is developed by each member and to which, according to the mood and the atmosphere created, a text is added.

9. Why you chose “Sleeping Sickness” to title this album?

-We chose “Sleeping Sickness” as title of the album because it well encloses the concept of the album. Each track speaks and analyzes a ”sickness”, with this term we want to analize an uneasiness that the individual must face if he wants to survive, especially those generated by the monsters of his own mind.

10. Concerning the album coverart, what do you want to tell me about the story behind it?

-The album cover art symbolically represents the meaning of the songs. There are three levels: below, there is a host of corpses, defeated by their sickness. Lying on them, there is a demonic woman, seated on a throne, proud to have survived but with a sad look because she is actually chained by a demon bigger than her.

11. How would you describe the album generally? And what could be the message you want to transmit to your audience?

-Sleeping Sickness is an album characterized by suggestive, tensive and enveloping melodies accompanied by obsessive and distorted riffs, that are characteristic of stoner rock. We have sought and tried to reproduced esert, arid, occult scenarios that are well suited to represent the gloomy abysses of a mind that digs into discomfort and tries to express it. The message we want to convey is a message of the individual’s revenge, a redemption towards himself. Because often, we are our worst enemies.

12. Just recently you unleashed the first single/video “Mortal Lien” from the album, it’s a disturbed blues tune with desert and doom reminiscences. Why this choice (as the first single)?

– We choose Mortal Lien as a single of the album because it is one of the tracks that more explicitly speaks of the sense of imprisonment that the individual self-inflicts. Regarding the sound, I think it represents us a lot. It contains different characteristics that are often found in our music. A mix between stoner, doom, blues. Psychedelic and aggression.

13. As said, “Sleeping Sickness” comes out May 18th, so how will you support the album?

– Our label, Volcano Records and Promotion is very important for us, but we need to stay constantly focused. Making our album listen as much as possible. New places and new ears are the best publicity. In addition to radio promotion, reviews and interviews.

14. What are your future plans, dreams and targets to reach?

-Our wish for the future, after the release of our first album, is to carry around as much as possible. In fact, our creative process has never stopped and is an expressive necessity now. We will continue to write and play our songs, which will be the response of the world of music, for those who believe in our project. Obviously, our ambitions go beyond playing in our rooms and we are very projected towards the international market that best suits our genre. In Italy, rock and metal are always niche.

15. Thanking-you for this interview, what is your message to your fans and Metal Shock Finland readers?

Our message to our fans is just THANK YOU for all the support that permittus to believe in something. To Metal Shock Finlandreaders, we want to tell them to LISTEN TO OUR ALBUM and thank you so much for the attention you gave us and thanks to you, Metal Shock Finland for this opportunity. DO IT SLOWLY! -WaterCrisis

More information at:
https://www.facebook.com/WaterCrisis
http://www.volcanopromotion.com

Watch the video for “Mortal Lien” below:

Interview With Olli-Pekka Laine, AMORPHIS: “We’re open minded when it comes to new things”

Posted by aliblackdiamond on May 17, 2018
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Interview By Alison Booth

Finnish progressive metal giants AMORPHIS are seasoned veterans of the metal music scene, rapidly heading towards their 30 year anniversary. The band’s highly anticipated follow-up to 2015’s “Under The Red Cloud”, their 13th studio album “Queen Of Time”, produced by Jens Bogren will be released on 18th May via Nuclear Blast Records.

Metal Shock Finland Senior Manager Alison Booth caught up with bass player Olli-Pekka Laine, AKA Oppu, to discuss the epic new album and all things AMORPHIS. Look out for a special Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem radio show next week on http://www.totalrock.com starring Oppu and of course new AMORPHIS music! Some excerpts from the chat can be read below, with the full interview on the audio player:

On how the band feel about the forthcoming album release, Oppu stated:

“Well, it’s really exciting, it’s like being in a candy store or something! We’re even more excited than back in the day somehow. It’s like, wonderful – two videos out and one is coming next Friday from another song. And we have already played a couple of songs live in Norway and we will add a few more songs to our live set.”

Discussing “Queen Of Time” and the new areas explored this time around:

“Jens did a great job – he’s an amazing producer and he has great ideas. You can see from him that he kind of hears things in his head, in some weird way.

When it comes to the choirs and strings, that’s something Amorphis has used from Day One – even when we did our first demo, we had a human voice synthesizer on the album on a couple of songs. So in a way it’s not a new thing for us, the new things is that it’s done with a real choir and a real orchestra. We are known for wanting to explore things in our music and this is something totally new for us and yeah, we’re kind of open minded when it comes to new things and this is our way to do it this time.”

Regarding lyricist Pekka Kainulainen and the lyrical content of the songs, Oppu revealed his thoughts:

“I think that I even haven’t met Pekka, though I am his friend on Facebook and Instagram. I think he’s doing a great job, the guys have been working with him with previous albums as well and he is kind of writing the lyrics in the timeless way, that the Kalevala was written back in the days – the book which we have been using in the nineties. It’s kind of a good thing because our music is timeless as well, so the lyrics fit our music really well.

Personally, I kind of like the idea not to explain the lyrics too much, or coming up with certain themes too much because I tend to enjoy to find my own personal interpretations in the lyrics, so it would kind of boost the music. Everyone reads the lyrics in their own way and finds their own meanings.”

Talking about his favourite “Queen Of Time” tracks, Oppu explained:

“Yeah well Daughter Of Hate is great and The Bee, that has grown as one of my favourites and Grain Of Sand, which has a kind of Slayer vibe on it. They were one of the bands which inspired Amorphis in the first place, so it’s nice to have that kind of influence there as well. So maybe those three songs are my favourite and it’s really hard to pick up the top one – it could vary from one day to another.”

Oppu enthused about being back in the band:

“Well it’s great! It’s sort of familiar to be in the band but feel it’s kind of a new band, because it’s much more professional and we have a great background organisation. We have our own stage crew and the playing is much better and also the mood in the band is, I wouldn’t like to use the word ‘mature’, (laughs) but I think I will. We have all matured in a way and the guys are just great.

Everyone has developed in playing very much and for example I have discovered new kinds of music. I’m listening to a lot of jazz nowadays and I’ve played in a stoner rock band, so I play a lot more these days than I used to do. On a personal level, we were good friends, almost brothers, back in the day already and that remains. We had that spiritual connection throughout the years anyway. It kind of felt for me that I’m part of Amorphis even though I wasn’t in the band, so it was kind of a natural thing to enter again.”

On touring and the recent show in Norway:

“Yeah I’m sure we will tour like hell for the couple of next years, so it’s almost 100% certain we will come to the UK as well. We have our first European tour booked for next January.

Well, surprisingly good you know – I saw a few people singing the songs by the heart. It was kind of surprising because I wouldn’t learn any band’s lyrics before the show! But it’s great to see there are hardcore fans who are excited in Amorphis and yeah, they were received really well. We will have our first show in Finland on the 8th of June and we are playing plenty of the new stuff and also some classics.”

Discussing what’s coming up in the future for AMORPHIS, Oppu stated:

“Only gigs coming up, nothing that should be mentioned. There are some surprises which I actually cannot reveal. I’m not saying that they will happen in one year, but maybe next year there will be something special I think.

But for now we will go to tour and we will have our new stage set up. The first tour will be in North America with Dark Tranquillity and Moonspell which will be interesting to experience. We have several visitors on the album, I hope that at least some of them could join us on stage at some stage during the tour. It’s gonna take time because of the conflicting schedules, so let’s see!“

Official Website 

Official Facebook  

Official Instagram

 

 

Interview with Chen Balbus, ORPHANED LAND: “We’re already writing the new album”

Posted by aliblackdiamond on April 25, 2018
Posted in: Interviews. Tagged: , , , . 1 Comment

Interview By Alison Booth

Oriental metal trailblazers ORPHANED LAND released their critically acclaimed new album, “Unsung Prophets & Dead Messiahs” at the end of January and have been supporting it with an intensive touring schedule since February. The band have already performed for fans in Europe, Russia and Japan and are set to tour the USA with Faroese metallers TYR in May.

Metal Shock Finland Senior Manager Alison Booth caught up with guitarist Chen Balbus before they departed for the Russian leg of the “Unsung Prophets & Dead Messiahs” tour. The album and touring was discussed as well as an update on Chen‘s rock ‘n’ roll band THE SECRET SAINTS. Check out some excerpts below, with the full chat on the audio player:

Discussing how the album has been received, Chen stated:

“So far I’m quite proud with the reception of the audience – they loved it when we just released the first single and the second single and the third single. I did not expect that – I thought that people kinda won’t accept it ‘cos they liked the previous members and they were not trusting me and the other guys to bring something that is authentic Orphaned Land. And we pretty much succeeded to do our job and we brought if not the best Orphaned Land album.

So, people love it. People sing it in shows already, I’m proud.”

On the subject of ORPHANED LAND breaking boundaries of racial and religious divide, Chen explained:

“Yeah, pretty much every time we go in concerts we’re asking ‘alright, we’re Orphaned Land from Israel, are there any Muslims, Arabic people in the crowd? Lift your flags, tell us where you’re from’. You just see like, people coming from countries that are pretty much our neighbour countries like Lebanon, Syria, Egypt. All of those countries are like an hour drive from where I live and I can never actually visit there, but I see those guys in other countries. 

So it’s something that our politicians and all those ambassadors could never achieve with all that money they got there and all those fancy talks at the UN and we just did it with goddamn heavy metal! ”

On what’s coming up for the band after the summer, Chen revealed:

“We’re gonna plan the next leg of the European tour, maybe do some new locations, pretty much working on it right now. We’re already actually writing the new album as we speak. We don’t wanna let people wait five years again, so we better start. There are a couple of tracks here and there, like snippets, but we’ll get to there eventually – first we gotta rock the world!”

Due to adverse weather conditions today, ORPHANED LAND‘s official album release show at the Shuni Fortress in Israel has now been rescheduled to 13th June. Check out more information on the band’s official Facebook page.

Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem radio show aired an ORPHANED LAND special this week with the interview and lots of music – if you missed out it will soon be available to listen to again at this location.

Tokyo 2018

Official Website

 

Interview With SNOWY SHAW: “I like the diversity and variation…I need new adventures”

Posted by aliblackdiamond on April 20, 2018
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Interview By Alison Booth

Legendary multi-instrumentalist and vocalist SNOWY SHAW (well known for his work with KING DIAMOND, DIMMU BORGIR, THERION, NOTRE DAME, DREAM EVIL and more) is preparing to release his first solo album “White Is The New Black”, due for release on 23rd of May in Europe and Japan, and digitally worldwide. The album is all written, performed and produced by Snowy Shaw for Wunderwurld Music & Films.

Snowy will be hosting a release party for the forthcoming album, which is set to be live streamed to the world on Saturday 21st April. I recently had a long chat with Snowy about the album, release party, tour news, glam rock and more! Check out some excerpts below and the full interview can be heard on the audio player:

Snowy revealed the following details about his live stream release party:

“It will reach out to a lot of people, because people feel it’s nice to interact with the artist and get to know them more personally. A lot of bands in the past might throw a release party at a local rock club and invite a couple of hundred friends and that’s fine. But I decided to do it a little bit more personal, so I am actually inviting the whole wide world potentially, to my own home.

I will be interacting with people during the whole evening and we’ll play live, there will be Q and A’s, we’ll be selling the albums, I’ll be signing stuff and we’ll be partying! There’s gonna be a lot of friends that I’ve invited to my house, famous faces from the area of Gothenburg – which has tons of bands like In Flames, Mikkey Dee, Hardcore Superstar. We have a professional film team here, so it’s gonna be like Big Brother – those overview cameras placed in various rooms in my big house. So it’s gonna be in the basement, in the studio, in the drum room. I’m going to introduce you to our dogs – it’s definitely something you don’t want to miss.”

Discussing his solo work, Snowy explained:

“Life itself has a tendency of putting a lot of obstacles in the way, things take time. For me, I mean I’ve been with so many bands over the years, ranging from everything from black metal with Dimmu Borgir to Triple X which is like glam rock, more seventies style and everything in between – you know like progressive doom metal and doom and so on. It’s not a coincidence that I’ve been in all those bands, it’s because I like the diversity and variation and if I do something for too long I tend to get sort of fed up with that and need to move on to something else, new adventures and challenges and so on. I’ve also been in a creative mode in many of those bands and been writing the bulk of the material and so on.

So now when I decided to go sort of under my own flag with my namesake so called band, I couldn’t really make up my mind exactly what I wanted to do. I tend to be so intense that I sort of overdose on it or something (laughs). The ideal situation for me would be to have say, four different bands with different musical direction and lyrical concept and sound and all that. But then I remembered how difficult it is to pull that thing together with four or five people these days, so I ditched that idea for the moment.

Then I figured what stops me from doing it all under my own name and different projects and allowing myself that complete artistic freedom to do that. I wrote independently and went into those different little worlds and that’s basically what this album is all about. Let’s say they are samples, let’s say it’s twelve songs in total and it’s two songs from six different albums with different directions. So this is like samples from albums that are gonna be released every year from now on. It’s the ‘Essential Snowy Shaw’ or ‘Greatest Hits’ in reverse.”

Snowy‘s “White Is The New Black” album release party will be available to see on his official YouTube channel at this location from 21.00 – 00.00 midnight CET on Saturday 21st April. You can also join the Facebook event here.

Official website

Official Facebook

Interview With MARK TORNILLO: “We’re a different band at this point”

Posted by aliblackdiamond on February 16, 2018
Posted in: Interviews. Tagged: , , . 6 Comments

Interview By Alison Booth

Metal giants ACCEPT have been pounding the ear drums of metalheads around Europe on “The Rise Of Chaos” tour since early January. Metal Shock Finland’s Alison Booth had a chat with vocalist Mark Tornillo when ACCEPT were in Paris, for her Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem radio show, (which can be heard here) just before the band’s explosive and packed out show in London. Many topics were covered including the fans, Mark‘s love of vinyl and his thoughts on joining such an iconic metal band – you can read a few excerpts below and listen to the full interview on the audio player:

On playing the UK Mark stated:

“I wish we were dong more shows. At the end of the day, it’s not really up to us – it’s up to the promoters and powers that be and we’ll have to see what happens. But at least we’ve got one.”

When asked if there could be a more widespread UK tour, Mark answered:

“I hope so, I wouldn’t doubt it. I mean things really seem to be progressing, so we’re gonna be doing a lot of festivals this summer too. Hopefully we’ll be there for one of those, well you never know.”

Talking about ACCEPT fans:

“Makes me feel great, it makes me feel great that they accepted me into the Accept family, no pun intended! It’s been wow man, going on ten years for me now which is just insane. We just had an incredible run through Spain, three shows in Spain and they were just ridiculous – off the hook, you can’t even imagine! The fans are what make it happen definitely.”

Mark Tornillo
London 2018
Photo By John Lambton

One of the newest songs ‘Analog Man’, from “The Rise Of Chaos” is about Mark, so of course I asked him about it:

“I’m just one of those people who has issues with computers and all of that nonsense. I’m not totally crippled but just not computer savvy, put it that way. I get what I have to get done and that’s about it. But in the end it just annoys me, you know when things don’t work and things I can’t figure out. And I just get annoyed and I also look at them and I go look, see me – analog, analog man! You can have your digital work, analog man!’ And they just wrote the damn song!”

Moving on to vinyl, Mark expressed:

“I had a lot of vinyl at one time. I still have some of it, but over the years from moving, you know, living with different people and stuff, I guess a lot of it just went different places, but I still have a lot of my favourite records. AC/DC – I have the entire box set, I think the latest one in that was The Razors Edge maybe. I got them all on vinyl, I’m an AC/DC nut.”

Discussing when he joined ACCEPT, Mark revealed:

“It was frightening. When we first announced what was going to happen, there was really not many people on board with it. Online there was a lot of naysayers, a lot of badmouthing, it was very disheartening. We all sat down and said, ‘look, we have to make an amazing record or else we’re gonna die here’ and that’s what we did. We spent a lot of time writing Blood Of The Nations and a lot of time recording it and I think in retrospect, it paid off. If that album wasn’t what it was, we wouldn’t be here.”

On people who still don’t ‘accept’ today’s ACCEPT:

“Everybody is entitled to their opinion – I’m a purist too with certain things, I get it. But I think we’ve moved on, we’re a different band at this point. We still pay tribute to the old Accept by playing the old songs, I mean we have the two people that wrote most of the songs, we have to. That’s always gonna be part of Accept’s history, we can’t change it. All we can change is the future.

I wish them all well, I wish Udo well and his band you know. No hard feelings on my part, that’s for sure.”

Discussing the future for ACCEPT, Mark said:

“That’s a good question – it’s still up in the air what’s gonna happen the rest of the year after the festivals. We may continue touring all year, I really don’t know. After that, it remains to be seen, maybe do another record, I don’t know. We’re too old to take five years off (laughs). At some point we’re gonna have to call it quits or just go right back to the studio. It is what it is, or just continue touring.

We do as much as we can, but you can’t oversaturate either. You just have to pray for new markets too and thank God for South America – that’s become a great market for us, actually we’re gonna go back in May. Australia seems to be picking up for us, we just have to be consistent. It’s just like the old days, you have to tour consistently and hit those places and keep pounding ’em, that’s how you pick up fans.”

Check out the picture gallery from the London show on 8th February. All photos by John Lambton.

 

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For the rest of the tour dates, visit the official ACCEPT website at this location.