Finnish Metal / April 2006

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This interview with Moonsorrow was done by Sankarihauta, Grave Sista & Socke
at Ragnarök Festival, Lichtenfels, April 7th, 2006

Well, first of all: How are you?

Mitja: Great! Really good, no hangover or anything. (laughs) Yeah, we just had a couple of gigs before this so we're still in good shape. Quite well.

Playing at the Ragnarök festival is one of the first times you play in Germany because most of your gigs take place in your home country Finland. What is the reason for that? Isn't there enough interest in your music in other countries?

Mitja: Well, there is quite a lot of interest but we haven't done any proper tours yet. That is kind of a first tour for us because of various reasons nowadays, when people are getting kids and stuff. We have to arrange so many things to get on tour.

Marko: We have been in Germany a couple of times, for example in Hamburg and Party San Festival last year.

What does it feel like playing outside Finland ? Do you prefer playing in your home country or anywhere else?

Marko: I prefer playing abroad.

Ville: Yeah, it's always different and we have seen Finland already. We have been living there for, 26 years is the minimum, so we prefer to be here to see new people and play for new people.

Mitja: Yeah, also at the moment the situation is that we are getting more offers from abroad than in Finland. We don't have so many dates for many Finnish gigs right now.

Marko: There are only like five or six cities where we can play in Finland, so it's not such a big deal actually. We usually do those cities once in a year. And that's it.

Mitja: You can do other cities but it's like playing at a pizza place. We don't want to do that.

What do you think about such big tours like “Heathen Crusade”, the one you're doing at the moment?

Mitja: So far so good! Yeah, it's great! And it's very nice. It has started pretty well. The first gig in Hungary was very good for a starter. Yesterday we were in Vienna at a very interesting venue. Very small.

Ville: Very small, less than hundred people... it was totally packed.

Marko: Yeah, right!

Ville: It was packed and maybe the first row could see the band actually. All the others were looking at the heads of the people in front of them.

You've played in Canada and the US in January. What were the reactions to your shows like? Have they even heard of Moonsorrow there?

All: Yeah!

Ville: Yeah, I guess they have, because we had about five or six hundred people in the States, so probably someone has heard the music.

Janne: Yes, obviously, because they wanted to organize that kind of gig. And Montreal was pretty surprising because it was Tuesday when we did it and there were over 200 people still and it was a very fanatic audience.

Mitja: Also in the USA we had people from all over the continent, even from Mexico flying to the very north part of the USA.

Ville: All the credit for this of course goes to this one crazy American organizer, Chris, who actually started the whole thing and wanted us to get there.

Janne: And now he's with us here, selling our T-Shirts and helping out.

How important is the communication with the audience through the lyrics? Because they are sung in Finnish and aren't understood in every country…

Ville: Well, I guess people don't understand them, of course. But it doesn't seem to be any problem. The people like the music, in many places abroad they actually even try to sing along. I don't know if they actually do know the lyrics and can pronounce them. But there are many people who are singing along. So it's very cool!

Are there certain rituals before the gigs? What about the blood in the face stuff for example?

Mitja: Well, yeah. That's really a sad story. (grins)

Who has been slaughtered? (laughs)

Mitja: It starts with killing a cow, somewhere in the butchery where we buy the blood, so it's very sad for the cow that we play.

So you leave some victims behind...

Mitja: Obviously yeah.

Markus: The trail of the death.

Marko: We have no rituals. It's just a stupid show.

Do you go on with being the persons you're on stage also in private life?

Marko: We see each other almost once in a week, drinking together. I don't know if we are so good friends to each other but... Especially I don't know Mitja at all! But he seems like a nice guy. (all laughing)

Mitja: Yeah, that's funny, we have known each other for six years and you still don't know me. I'm surprised...

Marko: Actually I'm not that interested. (laughing) Yeah, Mitja got professional and we just play with each other for the money. (laughing) That sounds kinky!

You've planned a new album. Will there be any new arrangements or elements on it? Will it be more epic or rather back to the roots? Can you already reveal anything about this?

Marko: It's gonna be epic as fuck.

Ville: And still back to the roots. It's gonna be surprising.

Mitja: Yeah, a nice surprise.

Marko: Always different than the previous one. Longer songs - again (laughs)... maybe only three songs lasting one hour. We don't really know yet.

So one song will last 50 minutes?

Marko: Well, some day that will happen!

Mitja: We are still at the pre-production of the songs.

Ville: We haven't made all the songs yet, so we can't tell what it's gonna be like.

Marko: It's gonna be somehow a concept album with some... I don't know... some themes?

Janne: Themes.

Marko: Themes. I don't know what they are but...

Ville: We haven't made the album yet.

Where does the band's name come from?

Marko: From Celtic Frost's song “Sorrows Of The Moon”. That's all. Put it in a different order.

Mitja: That's the whole story. There's nothing deeper behind it. It's just a Celtic Frost song.

Marko: Yeah, just a stupid band name.

All: Yeah!

Mitja: But a band name doesn't have to be good.

Ville: Bands just have to have names. So that people can differ bands from each other.

Marko: What the hell is Moonsorrow?

Mitja: It's a really bad name actually. (all laughing)

Ville: Credit to Henri, who came up with that name.

What are the lyrics inspired of? Are they related to something special in literature like for example Edda or maybe even the Finnish Kalevala story?

Ville: Mmmh, not really. The lyrics are inspired of that mythology and stuff like that, but I don't really take any straight stories from there. It's quite whatever comes to my mind. They are just the product of my uncreative imagination. At least I am very uncreative at the moment, I can't even answer this question. It is too complicated for me right now.

Marko (teasing Ville): Shut your mouth if you want and drink your beer!

On the ‘Voimasta Ja Kunniasta' album there is a quote from the Hávámal (Edda)…

Ville: Yeah, that's very true. But that's the only one. I stole it but it's not taken from any Finnish translation. I kind of came up with it myself. Tried to translate Icelandic which I don't have any clue about. (laughs)

Which parts of the Finnish history fascinate you the most?

Marko: Well...

Mitja: Civil war.

Marko: Yeah, that's actually very unspoken that Finland ever had a civil war in the beginning of the nineteenhundreds whenever it was.

Mitja: 1918.

Ville: You know, that's actually of course the Iron age and history that was in Finland before any region history. Times when nothing actually happened. People were just farming and hunting, living in the forests.

Mitja: We have very huge story to write about. About doing nothing!

Marko: Day one. I was hunting a reindeer. Day two. I have gone fishing – didn't get any. That's Finnish history. (all laughing) Then came the Russians and we fought them. Then came the Swedes – we fought them. Then the Russians came again – and we fought them. Went back to fishing. (all laughing)

Ville: Now, when there's peace we can concentrate on fishing.

Markus: And go into the bar.

Ville: Yeah.

Janne: We are proud of our freedom but we don't write lyrics about it. We are not that patriotic.

Markus: And it's been done so many times.

Janne: We leave that for Impaled Nazarene.

Which non-Finnish culture fascinates you the most? Are you also interested in Scandinavian mythology and stuff?

Markus: Israel. (all laughing)

Marko: Obviously, I like Irish. Like Ireland as a country and things about Celtic mythology and stuff.

And also the symbols you use for Moonsorrow – are they also from the Celtic Culture?

Marko: No, those are ancient universal symbols, used in many cultures. Whatever it was.

Ville: It's like every symbol we use has also been found in Finland in some period of history.

What does it mean to you to sing in Finnish?

Ville: Well, of course it means a lot, it's the whole concept of the band!

Marko: And it's the most beautiful language on earth, so why not?

Ville: With Finnish I can do whatever I want. I can't speak any other language so fluently. In Finnish I can express myself in the way I really want to do it. So it's very natural.

Mitja: It's a very usual language as there are so many ways to tell.

Marko: Yeah!

Mitja: And also if more or less the songs and music is still situated in the Scandinavian region it makes sense to sing in your own language rather than in English or anything else.

And I think that Finnish fits perfectly to metal music because it is sort of hard in sound.

Mitja: Yeah, that's true.

How important is the image and identity issue to you?

Ville: The national identity or to be Finnish?

Markus: This is controversal. Apparently we have no identity issues.

Mitja: I guess the national one is the most apparent.

Ville: Of course it is very important to us, we are all very distinctly Finnish, proud to be and stuff like that. Still not in any nationalist way. It's just something we have within ourselves. We are not really trying to spread it around. We are Finns – end of story.

Do you consider yourselves patriotic?

Mitja: Well, no.

Ville: Somewhat, but when I say stuff like "I'm patriotic, I'm proud to be Finnish... bla bla bla" it's always misunderstood. I rather prefer not to say anything.

What is your opinion on being compared to bands like Bathory?

Ville: That's always a great honour if someone compares us to Bathory.

Marko: Yeah, but sometimes it's getting annoying...

Ville: That's true.

Mitja: Well, I don't know, of course we still rip off some Bathory in our songs but...

Markus: Everytime.

Mitja: Everytime a little but not the riffs, but maybe the same feeling in the songs.

Ville: It is still not as annoying as to be compared to Finntroll.

Janne: Yeah. I hate it when we are compared to Finntroll, because there is nothing the same. Maybe the accordion, musically it's very different.

Mitja: And of course if you think of the songs, we have the same guy doing the music for Moonsorrow and Finntroll and he is been using the same keyboard sounds and stuff like that. So that might make people think that we are more related to each other than we actually are. Just musicwise we don't have so many things in common.

In which category of metal would you put the band yourselves?

Marko: Heavy Metal!

Mitja: Yeah, I hate this.

Ville: We always say pagan metal, that holds. It doesn't have any musical explanation to be pagan. It can be whatever. That's what we are, pagan metal.

Mitja: It doesn't matter if at least the people do call us folk metal, because in a way everybody knows how black metal sounds or death metal sounds but nobody can say what pagan metal sounds. So if we have folk elements then it makes sense that people call our music folk metal. But we don't. For us it is just pagan metal or metal anyway.

Markus: If you need any words.

How do you judge the rivalry throughout the Pagan/Viking metal scene?

Janne: Rivalry?

Marko: Is there some?

Ville: Well, everyone of us... we are like a bunch of people who actually spend some freetime drinking together, making music for our bands. No one is competing.

Marko: That's true.

Ville: Most of us are friends. That's all.

Mitja: Yeah.

Is it hard to compete with other bands and to be still innovative in this category of metal? What do you think about the hype going on at the moment? Is it a big chance or an unpleasant state to you?

(everyone thinking)

Ville: About the competing – we don't compete and...

Marko: Actually the hype has gone away in Finland. I don't know about Germany, maybe it's getting huge here, but in Finland, well, we were the first ones who were doing this kind of stuff, so the first ones among a few other bands.

Ville: There were three bands in the beginning: Finntroll, Ensiferum and Moonsorrow.

Marko: We're in the situation we don't need to think about those things. And it's important just to do our own stuff and not to think about what the other guys are doing, the other bands... so it wouldn't make any sense. Just doing what you feel is right. That's important.
We don't watch so much our record sales because we don't do short songs. Our music hardly gets any radio play, we don't have music videos, because if we would do a music video lasting 15 minutes no channel would show it.

Mitja: And it would be no good spending 10 or 20 thousand euros for a video that nobody shows.

But wasn't it you who made the video for the Suden Uni re-release?

Mitja: Yeah, that was done for free and it was supposed to start with the words “Now, this is spinal tap” but Henri disagreed.

Marko: We will never do that again. Any video.

Ville: We just concentrate on being ridiculous otherwise. We don't need any videos for that.

Marko: No.

What do you think, shouldn't there be more bands singing in their mother tongue?

Ville: Yes. Definitely. That's the answer.

Mitja: Yeah, I don't get it why people don't. They think it's easier to go abroad with their music and English sounds cool because it's the language of Rock ‘n' Roll music historywise. There is no point if you are from the Netherlands or from anywhere you wouldn't use your own language if it fits to the music.

How much can singing in English be linked to commerce?

Ville: It has a link because there are bands which have changed their language from their native language to English, mainly because of like one thing to break through abroad. I don't think that's honest in any way.

Mitja: You get a lot more exposure if you're doing it in English if you are a good band. But it's easier in English, I think.

Marko: I think some people abroad think Finnish sounds very exotic and they like it. I've seen it... when people in the audience at some places are singing our songs together, so what the fuck?

Ville: Yeah, I actually think that... (get's interrupted)

Marko: They shouldn't know any Finnish but may have studied something. In Hungary there are many who can speak some Finnish. They are very interested in that language.

Ville: Well, English could be aid our success abroad. I think at the same time the fact that we are doing the thing in Finnish has also aroused some interest abroad. There are some people who are coming to the shows buying the albums because of that. They got interested in the band because it did something different, whatever you want to call it.

You have this other "band" Lakupaavi, which seems to be rather kind of a joke band.

All (laughing, protesting): No!

Well… can you tell us something about that? What is it all about and who came up with the idea of founding the project?

Ville: Even to talk about Lakupaavi you need to drink forty beers and that's basically the whole story behind the band. We came up with the idea when we were drunk. We actually realized the idea and made the album – while we were drunk. It's the other identity of these (looks at his band mates) nice looking gentlemen here. (all laughing)

Marko: It turned out pretty good actually. I don't know, there are some very good songs in it. People just think that it's just a joke but it has a lot of black humour.

Mitja: Of course it's about humour but there are some deeper meanings in some of the lyrics. (some laughing)

Marko: In what way?

Mitja: In a political way.

Ville: There is a lot of political sarcasm, stuff like that. Actually there is, yeah.

Marko: It's about punk.

Ville: And it's a thing you do for fun after drinking 40 beers.

Mitja: And we will do another album and release it free on the internet of course, but I don't know when.

Is it something like you need a contrast to Moonsorrow? Like Moonsorrow is your serious band and you need another project like Lakupaavi to joke around?

Mitja: Nooooooo.

Ville: Not really, of course it's good therapy. We have our creative side also outside Moonsorrow. Everyone of us also wants to do different stuff, I think. Lakupaavi is not for that purpose. It's just what we do. If there is some pressure for any of us to create something that doesn't fit Moonsorrow then there will be a side project or another band or whatever.

Mitja: Yeah, we have always had lots of them, everyone of us.

Marko: Lakupaavi started as a joke but when we started to think about doing this whole album it became more serious. We even rehearsed the songs, but we recorded it totally wasted. We started the recording session in the morning by doing a cover song of Metallica, which is not released yet, but then during the evening we started making Lakupaavi stuff and a lot of the songs... many of them are recorded like 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. or 9 until 10 a.m. where everybody was so wasted that we couldn't even stand at all.

Janne: We couldn't even talk!

Mitja: He tried to play the drums and on some songs you can hear it like he even couldn't half do any basic beat. On the “Homo Jesus” song especially.

Marko: It's so hard to play. (knocks the beat on his thighs). You wrote so hard beats.

Mitja: I know! (laughs)

Is there anything left to say?

Janne: What should we say?

Anything you want to state to our readers?

Ville: Thanks for the bratwurst, we have eaten more than enough of it and there are still nine more days after this to go, and since six of them will be in Germany we will be eating more than enough of bratwurst.

Janne: And schnitzel! Every day schnitzel!

Mitja: That is how the day starts... with a schnitzel and fries and with a bratwurst. So it's a very unhealthy tour and diet. It could be Atkins diet because we drink beer and don't workout.

Markus: We drink booze.

Janne: Lots of meat and booze.

Mitja: Yeah, it would be actually a very good thing if you wanna lose weight. So you come to Germany on tour, you just eat meat and drink booze... not beer but strong alcohols so you lose weight at the method of Atkins. So that's what I recommend to every reader. That's very deep.

(some more discussions about this diet)

Thank you very much for the interview and have fun on stage!