For those unfamiliar with MOONSORROW, their sound can best be described as “Epic Heathen Metal”. Their lyrics, written exclusively in Finnish, are heavily influenced by Finnish legends and poetry. Since the release of their debut (Suden Uni) in 2001, they’ve been on a steady, albeit slow, upward trajectory. I [Greg, aka General Zod on various Forums] recently had a chance to chat with Ville Sorvali, vocalist and bass player for MOONSORROW. We discussed MOONSORROW’s songwriting process, exuberant Mexican Metal fans, the impact of file sharing on bands like MOONSORROW, and their forthcoming headlining appearance at Minnesota’s Heathen Crusade III.
Greg: With each new release, it seems your songs continue to grow more and more epic. The last disc (Viides Luku: Havitetty) was two songs, which combined, run nearly an hour. Do you see yourselves continuing to evolve this style or do you see yourselves returning to a more traditional song format?
Ville: Well actually, we’ve never planned anything. Even when we did these long songs, it happened
accidentally. We just make songs. The song kind of tells us, in the process, if it’s ready or not. And it just happened that we made these long songs. What we do in the future, might be anything. We have been discussing with the band that we should try and do some shorter songs so we won’t have to make compromises in live situations.
Greg: I didn’t get a chance to catch you on your most recent tour. Were you able to perform either of those two songs live?
Ville: On the last tour we didn’t play either of these songs. But in 2007 we played the second song on the album (“Tuleen Ajettu Maa”). We shortened it to something like 20 minutes.
(laughter)
Ville: It’s still quite long.
Greg: So if you move towards a more traditional song length, do you think you’ll end up with a similar style, just shorter, or do you think the style will change if the song lengths change? Or is that something you won’t really know until the writing process begins?
Ville: All the material we have done has surprised us. When we start to do something, we just have a rough idea. The songs develop in their own direction. And I think everything we do still sounds MOONSORROW… certain characteristics.
Greg: It seems to me that bands like you, and maybe someone like ENSLAVED, have a lot in common; an intriguing blend of Black Metal and less traditional Metal elements. And both bands seem to be slowly moving further away from their more traditional Metal roots. Could you see your sound evolving to the point where Metal isn’t the primary element?
Ville: We will never get completely away from Metal. If we were ever to do something like that, it would be under a different name. We have different projects for different kinds of expression already. I think this development, with us and many other bands, like ENSLAVED, it’s because the people behind the music have been growing up. And I’m not saying that Metal is immature. But growing up in the sense that they realize there is much more to employ when expressing themselves. The progressive music, for example, has been with us since childhood. Our fathers used to listen to progressive music, so we got used to it as kids. I think I heard KING CRIMSON before I heard any Metal bands. But we just didn’t employ it in our music until some years ago.
Greg: Your first U.S. performance was at Heathen Crusade I. Was playing the U.S. any different? Did you feel any additional excitement or was it just another date on the tour?
Ville: When you go to a new place you haven’t been to before, it’s always exciting. We were really looking forward to it because it was our first time out of Europe. So it was completely different in that sense. Of course, it was also somewhat different to play there, because of the exhausting flight and the jetlag and everything.
Greg: I was at that show and I recall talking to you guys the night before the performance. If I recall correctly, you had been up for something like 54 straight hours?
Ville: Yeah. We woke early in the morning to catch the flight. We had already been traveling for a whole day when we got to the states, and it was afternoon. And we had a party at the hotel. So we didn’t even go to sleep when it was evening in U.S. time. So we had been up for a quite a long time.
Greg: Well, it didn’t show at all in your performance the next day. That performance was excellent.
Ville: Thanks. Well… we’ve been practicing that, so that partying the night before doesn’t show in the performance.
(laughter)
Greg: Your next U.S. performance is going to be at Heathen Crusade III, did you expect it would be so long between U.S. performances?
Ville: We had hoped to be back. But we realized, it’s a whole different world, booking-wise. It’s really expensive to get bands there. You have to build up a name. So when we were making plans with our booking agent we decided to concentrate on Europe.
Greg: You did Paganfest in Europe, and ENSIFERUM, TURISAS and TÝR did a U.S version of Pagan Fest. Do you expect the success of that tour will help to open doors for a band like MOONSORROW?
Ville: Definitely. The point is, you have to do a lot of touring to prove yourself. We’re trying to get on a U.S. tour… maybe next year, but I don’t know if it will be possible or not. I hope it will be, because that’s the only way to get a name somewhere.
Greg: In 2007 and 2008 you guys did a lot more touring than you’ve ever done. Is this a trend fans should expect to continue?
Ville: I hope it will continue. What happened, two years ago, we hired an actual booking agent. Before, we did most of that stuff ourselves. When you have to play in the band and take care of everything else as well, you 
really don’t have the right resources for booking your band. So we decided to hire professionals to do the work for us and that’s why we got a lot more shows. And I hope that will continue. Of course, there will be a point when we have to concentrate on the new album.
Greg: With all this touring, have you played a city or a country where you were just blown away by the crowd response? Where you had no idea there were that many MOONSORROW fans in a given place?
Ville: (laughter). Always. All the shows surprise you. But the most recent was Mexico.
Greg: Really?
Ville: We kind of knew that it would be insane, because we’ve been talking with fellow bands who have played in Mexico. We kind of knew to expect it, but it still surprised us how insane it actually was there. At one of the shows, security escorted us to the stage and there was a reason. Because we would have been ripped apart if security wasn’t there.
Greg: That’s interesting. I’ve always wondered about musicians in a position like yours. To a certain segment of the population, you guys are a rock stars. You play the big Euro festivals, your last CD was #2 on Finland’s charts. But as I understand it, you work normal jobs. And I would suspect when you’re not touring you have a fairly normal life. Is it ever strange moving between those two worlds?
Ville: Yeah. Actually, it’s very strange. Because most of the time, we’re living like any other person. But during the weekends or on tours, we can let that go for a while, and hang with our good friends and play in front of a lot of people who are interested in our music. It feels a bit strange, of course. But it’s very rewarding and a welcome break from every day life.
Greg: Are you surprised, at how successful you’ve become, given the genre of music you play and given that you write 30 minute epic songs? Obviously you’re not a radio-friendly band, you don’t try to be. But as I mentioned earlier, your last album went to #2. Does that ever surprise you?
Ville: Yeah. Even the first chart entry… I think it was the 3rd album (Kivenkantaja), went to #16 or something. It was one of those, “what the fuck” moments.
(laughter)
Ville: But… we’ve been working for it. And in a way, I’d like to think that we deserve it. It’s exactly this kind of music that should be sold to people.
Greg: I couldn’t possibly agree with you more.
(laughter)
Ville: Then again, when it’s not commercial at all, it’s kind of surprising… how can it actually sell and hit the charts? Then again, in Finland, we have Metal on the charts and that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. So when you’re talking to a Finnish Metal band, you could easily think that they are something special in their own style. But you just have to look at the charts and there are ten other bands on the charts in the same week.
Greg: You mentioned the commercial aspects of it. And I know you’ve been asked this question forever… the question about writing lyrics in English. And you’ve always said, “No”. And I understand why. So my question is, do you almost feel that at this point, if you were to consider transitioning to English lyrics that you wouldn’t be true to the idea of MOONSORROW? Has it gotten to that point? Do you feel, almost as if, you’d be “selling out” if you wrote your lyrics in English?
Ville: Especially at this point… when there is some success. I mean, we’re still not talking about big numbers 
but… we can see that the band is kind of breaking through from the underground. It’s basically at this point, if we changed the language of the lyrics it would be so obvious that we were trying to get more commercial and make the music easier to access. We’ve never thought about it anyway. But if we did it, especially now, everyone, including ourselves, would think that the whole thing is a sell out.
Greg: In past interviews, you’ve expressed a strong appreciation for PRIMORDIAL, and specifically Alan. Could you ever see a collaboration between some of the folks in MOONSORROW and some of the folks in PRIMORDIAL? Has that ever been discussed?
Ville: It would be interesting. I think, some years back, there was some kind of talk about doing something with Alan and some other Pagan Metal people. But, there wasn’t anything, because we live in different countries and there’s so much to do for each of us. It would be fun. But it would be just for fun.
Greg: It seems that Metal musicians are just as likely to be listening to Jazz as Metal. What kind of music is your CD player or MP3 player these days?
Ville: Half the stuff I listen to is Metal. Mainly because of my work… I work with Metal music. The other stuff I listen to could be anything. I listen to a lot of Progressive Rock, as I already mentioned. I have stuff by MICHAEL JACKSON and JOHNNY CASH.
Greg: You’ve been asked a lot about your influences, and obviously BATHORY is one where there will always be a strong association. However, is there any one album… I know you said you grew up on a lot of Progressive stuff because of your parents. But is there any one Metal album, that you heard that first time and were like, “Wow, this is it for me?”
Ville: The first Metal album I think I ever heard was Seventh Son by IRON MAIDEN. I was eight years old and I was completely struck by it, because I obviously didn’t know about anything harder than KISS. So it was a real experience. And I still have that album with me. It’s a very important part of my musical identity.
Greg: In my last question, I mentioned MP3s. Do you feel that digital music and the internet has helped or hurt MOONSORROW?
Ville: Helped… definitely. I think this whole MP3 thing is mainly hurting big bands, like METALLICA. Or not even Metal bands, because the Metal audience still likes to buy the albums. For instance, the new METALLICA album sold 50,000 in pre-sales in Finland. I think it mainly hurts these big commercial Pop artists like BRITTNEY SPEARS. For us, it’s definitely positive. The people who download the albums, if they like it, they buy the album anyway. And even those who don’t, they come to the gigs, buy t-shirts. So it’s a good thing that people can access the music through the internet.
Greg: So… you and Henri (Sorvali ) began MOONSORROW in 1995, is that right?
Ville: Yes. A long time ago.
Greg: Looking back on it all and knowing what you know now, is there anything you wish you had done differently? Is there anything that makes you think, “I wish we had turned left, where we turned right?”
Ville: No. Definitely not. It’s really been a good ride with this band. I can only speak on my behalf of course, but even outside of music I got a lot of good experiences. Even when I was starting, I was learning to play and I really got a lot from it. When we were in Mexico, it struck us, all of us again, when we were starting out playing our first shows in 2000, there was no way we thought we’d be in Mexico in 2008. So it’s definitely been a good ride. I think everyone only has positive feelings about it.
Greg: If I understand correctly, Henri writes a lot of the music, correct?
Ville: Yeah. Most of the music, yeah.
Greg: But he does not tour with MOONSORROW outside of Finland, correct?
Ville: That’s correct as well. He’s always been like that… also with FINNTROLL. He just doesn’t like to tour that much. He has work, he has a little kid at home. And I think he enjoys being in the studio, making music.
Greg: And Janne (Perttilä), who tours in Henri’s place, is he involved at all in the recording process or is he purely a touring musician?
Ville: Well, he’s in the studio when we’re recording choirs. Other than that, he’s not involved in the actual process of making music. But on tour, he’s the 5th member of MOONSORROW, or the 6th member because Henri plays sometimes. And he’s really invaluable in what he’s doing.
Greg: So you mentioned earlier, that when you started this all, you never thought it would bring you to where you are in 2008. Do you have any goals or anything you’d like to accomplish with the band, with the music, before you guys call it a day?
Ville: I don’t know what the correct saying is in the English language, but it’s something to do with “appetite growing wet when you’re eating”. Of course, we always have some sort of new goals. If we look back on it… where we were in 2000… if someone would have asked me, “What will you be doing with MOONSORROW in five years time?” I would have said, “We are going to be a big band. One day we’re going to play the biggest club in Finland.” Which we already did. We didn’t have an idea how it would turn out. Well, we achieved a lot, and now the goals we have are not related to sales or anything, but we want to go to those parts of the world we haven’t been to before; to be everyplace people want to see MOONSORROW, at least once. That’s the goal, but it’s not really realistic, because there are so many places and it’s really expensive to go anywhere outside of Europe.
Greg: Have you begun the writing for the next album?
Ville: We haven’t actually even discussed it. We had some rough plans about maybe making it towards the end of 2009 or something like that. We’ve been talking about sitting down with the band, and going through all the plans and making some sort of schedule, because we never have… we just went with the flow. Now we have pressure from the booking agents, from all the labels we have in Finland and in Germany. They’ve been pushing to at least make some sort of plan… to set something in stone.
Greg: Has there been any discussion about shooting a DVD?
Ville: We’ve also talked about that, but we don’t know about that either. It’s going to be an expensive project, because we don’t want to do anything half way. If we’re going to do something it has to be the best we can offer. So we’d have to invest a lot of money and we’d have to plan it very carefully. It might happen.
Greg: The Heathen Crusade III set list, will it be similar to the festival dates or will you be able to do some additional songs because you’re the headliner?
Ville: There are a lot of possibilities. The biggest advantage with MOONSORROW is we’re always changing our 
set list, according to the show we are playing, according to our feeling at that time. So, we might even surprise ourselves. I don’t know what we’re going to play there.
Greg: So you guys don’t rehearse what you’re going to play? You just show up on stage, have someone tack a set list to the monitors and just play?
Ville: Mostly, it’s decided one hour before the show, someone decides the set list. With the festivals this summer, we made an exception and made the set list when we were rehearsing. I don’t know why we did it that way or why we used to do it a different way. This band doesn’t really go with any long term plans, we just go by the feeling. And the strongest example of that is the set list, which changes almost every night.
Greg: Well, that’s all the questions I have. I really appreciate your time and I wish you guys nothing but continued success.
Ville: Thank you very much. I really didn’t even notice the passing of time. Thank you as well. All the best, and see you at Heathen Crusade III.
Greg: Definitely.
Heathen Crusade III is November 13 and 14 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Tickets are still available. But going fast. Be sure to get yours now to avoid disappointment!
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