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Metal Sound Magazine
(Interview was done by Marko Miranovic)
Answers: Mitja Harvilahti (Moonsorrow)
The interview was done in Slovenia (at Metal Camp) during July 2011
The new album (Varjoina kuljemme kuolleiden maassa) is actually the first concept album we've ever done. It consists of one hour of music but it's one storyline. It's a very cinematic album as well, everything goes hand in hand, the music and the pictures in the booklet. I don't know if people like it as our most important album or not, but it's our album that we're most satisfied with. Everybody in the band is very satisfied, there's nothing we want to change about it. The whole process was the most enjoyable making of any of our albums ever. So we are very proud of it.
Could you compare this new album with your previous records? I see many parallels and links between the two or three last albums, music-wise.
Yes that was a thing that we... The previous album, which only has two songs, was very... how should I say?, very epic, it contains a lot of stuff, and we didn't want to go any more extreme with the structures. We wanted to do something that includes both elements, some heavy metal riffing but also some artistic music in it. So it's a combination of new and old in many ways.
This album has a lyrical background concept story for the first time in Moonsorrow's history.
Yes. After the last album, Ville and Henri were discussing about making a sequel to the previous album. The whole theme of post-apocalypse during these times, when the world is really getting fucked up, sounded so interesting and so natural that we didn't want to let it go, we really wanted to do it that way. So we sat down to think about ideas, we looked at pictures from Chernobyl, all kinds of post-apocalyptic or destroyed world, and we realized we wanted to do this album and it made sense. It's very acute in a way to do it right now. Ville came up with the idea of a group of people after the end of the world. It's kind of a metaphor of—there's lots of metaphors in the album and—the group of people is a metaphor of humanism and humans right now, when they are so blind that they destroyed everything because of the greed of humans. We do everything for money, we do everything just to gain more material for ourselves, and in the end we detroy the nature around ourselves as well.
When it comes to the new album, there is such a grim atmosphere, and there is a strong link between music and lyrics. How did you end up with this really grim and cold atmosphere?
In our music we always have images. When they listen to our music many people tell that they see images in their head. That's the thing, when you get into the world lyrically and musically, and you have a visual reference in it, then you can combine both, and that's something we achieved with this album very well, I think. The storyline and the music go hand in hand together very well. We have done so many albums already that it's easy for us to write music and lyrics to make it fit conceptually.
How would you label now the music of Moonsorrow? I think you hear some black metal influences in your music, but there are also some folk elements as well, and there is always this kind of epic touch and approach in Moonsorrow's music.
yeah, well, that's pretty much it. We have the strong elements of traditional Scandinavian folk music, always, then the black metal background we all have together, then we have 70s progressive rock elements, and the emphasis changes in different albums, sometimes it's more black metal, sometimes more folkish, but we're a combination of all this. So if I had to label the music, I still would call it pagan metal. I don't know any better name for the music itself. If somebody asks what kind of music do we play, somebody who doesn't listen to metal, I just tell them that we play heavy metal with traditional music influences and very long songs. But the paganism and respect for nature are always in te core of our music. You don't have to say it in our lyrics, but you can hear it in a way.
You have such long songs. For example, the new album has four very long tracks, but the previous full-length album has only two tracks of more than twenty minutes. How did you end up with this idea?
It grew into that direction. We didn't want to go there, but after the fourth album it kept going on, more epic, and we learnt how to write that material, how to write longer passages, longer structures. And it's very hard to stop! I know we cannot go back to 7 or 6-minute songs, it won't happen any more, our format will be around the 15 minutes, I think. When I learnt how to make that kind of music it gets easier in a way, it's natural for us now. But it never was planned. Every time we say, okay, now we want new short songs, let's do some very short and grim and black metal and bla bla bla, but we end up doing longer songs than ever.
When it comes to these long tracks, is it hard to perform them live? Especially those two very long tracks from your previous record, which were actually more than twenty minutes long.
I don't think it is so difficult. We haven't played the first song on the album. We haven't had time to check it out and rehearse it very much. But the second one, we rehearsed it a few times and that was it. You just have to know what to... We only have one keyboard player, but he can do lots of stuff simultaneously, and when I play lead guitar I take some keyboard parts for the guitar as well. We have to divide it so that it will make sense. And I think it sounds alright. Many people tell tht they like it more live than on the album, actually. In a live performance you can choose what elements or what parts you have to take in front, some melodies or riffs, if you want to have this one in a more important role, you choose that one and you may leave something else outside, but we have so much sampling on that album that in a live situation there's no way to make it happen anyway. We have to combine the most important things.
Would you agree with me that the fourth album was maybe the most important album when it comes to Moonsorrow's history?
Hmm... yeah... in a way... For me it is also the most important. Of course the two first, or even three first albums, for many people defined Moonsorrow as a band, but then we changed direction on the fourth one, and that was a very good decision, because everyone got so massive, so orchestrated at that time, when we released Kivenkantaja we thought it was starting to sound really crazy, we had so much stuff in the music, so much orchestration, so much everything, and do we need a symphony orchestra for the next album? Then many bands came up with albums with symphony orchestras and we realized that no, no way, we don't want to have anything to do with this, we have to go into another direction. Not because of the other bands, but it wasn't interesting, really, just to grow in that level. So we realized that if you want to emphasize the roots we have, and the whole nature and pagan atmosphere and philosophy we had on the fourth album we have to go down to earth, a very organic album. And it was the best thing we could do. I would hate the album if we had orchestras or choirs or... A symphonic album with the same lyrics wouldn't work out at all. It is very important.
If I'm not mistaken, before the first full-length you made three or four demo records.
There are two official ones, the last one was very symphonic black metal, the previous one was more like... it sounded more like Moonsorrow to me, more simple, it was very simple and a little childish in a way, but it was still alright. We got the record deal with the last demo, but that was very different from the first album. After releasing the demo, which was very symphonic, computer-drummed black metal, we released the first album, which is already a very mature pagan metal album. It already had all the elements that we have nowadays: it had black metal, it had folk music, it had progressive music even... It's a complete change from the last demo to the first album within one year. That was a big surprise for me.
If I'm not wrong, you have made one or two promotional videos so far, but they were very tricky (laughs). Do you plan to have one video clip professionally done one day?
No, not any music videos. I mean, you can spend twenty thousand or more and usually it's still crap. If you have so visual music anyway, it's better to leave the music to the people's heads to make the images. But we will have a DVD within one or two years. It's been in progress for a long time and it will be a very massive package. We already have shot footage for three or four years at least, or actually five years, and there's a lot of crazy material. But it will be a double DVD, or double Blu-ray, I don't know what the format will be when it's out, but in general I hate bands that put out the DVD with one live concert and some extra material, you watch it once and then you throw it in the garbage. If you pay 30 € or 20 € for a DVD it has to have a lot more to offer. We want to give a double DVD including at least one professionally filmed live show, then there will be a documentary about the making of the last Moonsorrow album, that will be very interesting when it's finished, because it really shows how the album is made, not bullshit like a video camera going around the studio and the guys are getting drunk, but it really goes very deep in the production of the album.
You have done the vocals in the [???]
[Smiles] Yeah! There is very interesting material coming. And then there will be all the clips from five years of touring and this year as well, whatever we get. So it's going to be a long thing to watch and something that you can really watch many times. At some point we will have a campaign where the fans can send us questions—there will be interviews as well—so they can tell what questions they want to ask us and what they want to see in the DVD, so people can actually make a difference. We would never ask anybody about the kind of music they want to hear from us, because we only make music for ourselves, and if people like it, the better, but the DVD is something different, people can really send us requests, I want to see this and this on the DVD, and if we get good ideas we'll do it. And on the interview section many of the questions the fans will send us will be answered, so I think that kind of package is more fair for the audience. It gives something for the value instead of just one show and very crappy extra material.
And the last question: I would like to ask you about the band's name, because there is a song link between Moonsorrow as a name and a Celtic Frost song.
Yes, "Sorrows of the Moon". It's still a mystery for me if it actually is linked or not. I'd rather say that it is [laughs] but I'm not completely sure. The name Moonsorrow was invented in 1995 or something. But it's a unique name, nobody else has had it, at least I haven't found any other, so I'm happy with it.
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