Urkraft magazine / May 2001

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May 8, 2001
w/ HENRI URPONPOIKA SORVALI
Conducted by Stefan Lejon

Start by giving us a short retrospect of MOONSORROW´s career so far.

[Henri] The story of Moonsorrow began in autumn 1995 when I and Ville decided to create a band singing about old times and heathenism in general, drawing musical inspiration from such creations as the first Enslaved mini LP or the first Ulver album. It didn´t take us long to record our first demo tape, "Thorns of Ice", which however was never released because half of the material was accidentally destroyed and we didn´t want to release a demo only with just an intro and one song. Then, the project was more or less laid on ice because of all the other stuff we had back then to do for a year, and after that we decided to do another demo called "Metsä" ("Forest"). Soon after it was released we also made a promo tape, but it never left our home stereo equipment for the public because of the terrible sound quality and maybe a bit too experimental vocals (imagine something like Attila trying to sing clean while suffering from a bad stomach-ache and diarrhea...). Then, in early 1998 we begun to record our last demo, "Tämä Ikuinen Talvi" ("This Winter Eternal") which took us nearly a year to finish because of numerous problems with the studio etc. It was the tape that gained us the record deal with Plasmatica, who a year later paid our little trip to Tico-Tico studio in Kemi, Finland, to record our debut album "Suden Uni" ("A Wolf´s Dream") which is now finally released.

"SUDEN UNI" is out now. How has the response been so far?

[Henri] The response has been very good indeed! Of course some people have complained the material to be a bit too "slow" or too "mid-tempo", but basically we don´t care for such complaints as we are very satisfied with the album by ourselves.. Most of the people I have been in conversation with have only given positive comments concerning the album. How has the media been responsing to the album I don´t know yet, ´cause it has been out only for a couple of weeks now.

Why did you decide to write and perform all your lyrics in Finnish? I read somewhere that since you sing about Finnish history, you think the lyrics should be in Finnish.

[Henri] The language of the lyrics is not so important, but the message is. However, when we started the band we wrote (for it was me who was responsible for the lyrics back then) all the lyrics in English. Then, when Ville started to make the lyrics he wanted to do them in our native language and I had nothing against it. Of course the Finnish lyrics help us to create more "heathenish" atmosphere and I think when Ville has stated the abovementioned comment he has been partially right, but when asking my opinion, I don´t think it´s so important to write Finnish lyrics just for the sake of the topics but for the whole image and atmosphere.

Have you considered singing in English?That would perhaps help you to spread the history of the Finnish people, and most importantly - your music...

[Henri] As I told before, we did have English lyrics in the beginning, but I don´t think we are going to use them in the future. It is pretty obvious that most of the listeners can´t understand a rat´s ass from the texts, but that is why we have on our album also included short stories of what the lyrics are all about. In the future we are going to include also direct translations of the lyrics to the booklet, so it will help foreign listeners to understand the whole package. But I honestly don´t think it will affect to the album sales whether the lyrics are in Finnish or in English as long as the music is good.

Tell us a bit more about the source of your lyrics. Where do you find inspiration for them? Are they all based on actual historical events or are some fictional? What are they about in general?

[Henri] The lyrics of Moonsorrow are inspired by paganism in general, be it historical events such as great battles against the crusaders, Nature, Gods or the "good old times" and everything related to the topic under Heathenism. As Ville is responsible for all of them I really ain´t the right person to tell about his inspirational sources, but I suppose he is inspired by occasional events being happened and different emotions.

You are obviously very inspired by Finnish folk music, but when all is said and done it´s still black metal we are talking about. So you must also be inspired by black metal. Any specific bands that have inspired you over the years?

[Henri] NonononoNOOOOO!!!!!!!! IT´S NOT BLACK METAL, FOR ODIN´S SAKE!!!!!!!! Why can´t people stop calling us and other pagan metal bands BM????? Black Metal is satanic, and we most certainly are not a satanic band. Well, I basically got your point, but you really can´t call Darkthrone Viking Metal either, can you?
The artists within BM-genre have of course inspired us during the years, but as none of us is not and has never been a die-hard-blackmetaller, the bands who have inspired us through the years are maybe Enslaved, Bathory (The best....no,the only band in the world!!!!), Bal-Sagoth, Einherjer, Ulver and zillions of others I don´t know. However, these were just the bands who have been affecting to our sound during the years in a way or another. The bands I listen to with great pleasure nowadays are e.g. well.... Bathory (ehh...), Cannibal Corpse, Black Sabbath, Marduk, Samael, Thyrfing, At the Gates, Autopsy, Black Widow, Pekka Pohjola, Frank Zappa, Garmarna, Pohjannaula, Annbjörg Lien, film scores (and other classical music) such as Braveheart or Conan (and everything by Danny Elfman), Slayer, Napalm Death and tons of others. Mostly 70´s Prog, Folk and Metal.

How has PLASMATICA been treating you so far? What do you think of the label?

[Henri] Plasmatica has been treating us very well, but veeeeery slooooowwwly. I think if they just got rid of their laziness it would be a promising label in the future. I sincerely hope the best for Carlos&co as our co-operation has now basically ended (we made the deal only for one album) and I´m sure they will succeed as a record label well in times to come.

What does future hold for MOONSORROW? Any plans for a tour? Are you writing new music, etc?

[Henri] New material has been written, yes, and some demo recordings of the new stuff has already been sent to certain people for a possible record deal. And we are the most definitely trying to get one before July because we have already booked the studio for the new album then. (You can never be too optimistic conserning the band,heh...) No tours are coming at the moment because we all are too busy with other things (job,education,other bands etc.) but we gig occasionally of course. The latest one we had was a Bathory tribute gig in Helsinki 13.4.2001. We played with Finntroll (my other band, go visit us at http://finntroll.darkgod.net), Gandalf and Hellbox (an awesome Venom cover band from Turku, Finland). And what comes to the gigs in general, we are maybe not the most active band in the world at booking any. Usually someone asks us to come to play and then we either go or we don´t go. It depends on many things, as always.

I heard that you also have a record company of you own. Could you perhaps tell us a bit more about that?

[Henri] Meat Hook Productions was created in 1995 just for fun ´cause we wanted a "pseudo-label" to publish our own demos. Later we expanded our activity from a demo tape publishing company to a distribution service and our very own Meathooked ´zine. (However, Meathooked had basically nothing strict to do with the label except for the likeness of the name.) We made two issues of the magazine and there are still some copies of both left, so if you are interested in quality interviews, irony and something else than your average toilet paper, don´t hesitate to contact us immediately. Anyway, the story of MHP is going to reach its end, as we have found out that there is only 24 hours in a day, heh. But we are now selling the last distro items pretty cheap, so once again, you know what to do if you are in need of demo tapes, 7-inches, ´zines etc.

Thank you for the interview and good luck with the album! Last words?

[Henri] Tack för den intervjun, det var mycket bra! Hoppas att vi kan komma till Sverige för att spela i framtiden. Supa, knulla och lyssna på METAL!!!!!!!!!! Och hälsningar till Tommy/Bloodshed, Patrik&Tumppi/Thyrfing och Micke och den jävla club Aggression!!!!!!

[Yeah, this is Swedish. - Grilo]

(Thanks for the interview, it was very good! Hope that we can come to Sweden and play in the future. Drink, fuck and listen to METAL!!!!! And regards to Tommy/Bloodshed, Patrik & Tumppi/Thyrfing and the fucking club Aggression!!!)