Rauta / September 2021

SOURCE

 

"Moonsorrow is one of the most inspiring Finnish epic pagan metal bands out there. Jerry had the pleasure to talk to these guys at Nordic Metal Cruise 2021. Tune in for some 30 min of talk."

 

4-Sept-2021

 

Metalluminati / September 2012

SOURCE

"Mitja talks about the difference between touring in the US vs Europe, the latest tour, and the importance of baby wipes on tour."

 

 

Would-be The Breathless Sleep / February 2015

 

 

 

TRADUCCIÓN AL ESPAÑOL (aproximada)

¿Cómo va esta mini gira?

Estuvimos, sobre todo, viajando y esperando. Parece un solo día muy largo. Tocamos ayer y hoy parece el mismo día por los vuelos y demás. Estamos muy cansados.

Oí que Marko tiene un problema en la rodilla.

Sí, lo operaron al principio del año y puede tocar siempre que tenga cuidado.

Hace poco sacasteis la tremenda caja. ¿Cómo surgió la idea? ¿Estáis satisfechos con el resultado?

Creo que fue hace unos dos años cuando empezamos a hablar de ello. El sello Blood Music quería hacer este bicho y nos moló la idea y nos pusimos a recopilar material. Quisimos hacerla de modo que nadie se pudiera quejar.

¿Y te gusta cómo quedó?

Sí, es tremenda. Tengo una en casa. Estéticamente chula, pesa mucho, suena guay. Hay cosas inéditas. Dos maquetas perdidas y luego recuperadas. El material perdido sigue perdido, aún hay dos canciones que grabamos pero no existen, pero juntamos todo lo que teníamos para la caja.

Thorns of Ice se perdió, pero ¿por qué no sacasteis Promo en su momento?

El sonido era horrible, como se puede comprobar. Henri hizo lo que pudo con ella. El sonido era horrible. No sé qué pasó. Pero no teníamos mucha experiencia aún. No pudimos sacarla, era horrible.

La caja era muy cara. No discuto que el precio esté justificado, pero ¿no es un poco injusto que quien no se la pueda permitir no tenga acceso a esas maquetas?

La verdad es que no creo que sea difícil encontrarlas en internet si alguien quiere escucharlas.

Lleváis años reuniendo material para sacar un DVD en el futuro. La caja incluye un DVD. Supongo que eso no es todo lo que teníais, pero ¿esto iba a ser parte del DVD grande futuro?

Sí, eso se suponía, pero decidimos meterlo aquí porque se centra en la gira del quinto disco. Es un año de gira. Digamos que completa el paquete. Ya haremos otra cosa para el DVD. Tenemos mil movidas, pero ni idea de cuándo saldrá. Somos épicos por una razón: todo lo hacemos despacio.

Hablando de lentitud, ¿cómo va la composición del séptimo álbum?

Pues por fin tengo buenas noticias. Ya tenemos un 60-70% listo y lo vamos a grabar este año. O sea, que saldrá. Ahora lo sé y puedo confirmarlo.

¿Va a ser conceptual? ¿Retomará el concepto del anterior?

No, será distinto. Conceptual, puede, pero con historias diferenciadas, para mantener el interés. Hemos hecho discos muy pesados.

Hace menos de un año que empezasteis a tocar Aika, a pesar de que la canción tiene catorce años. ¿Por qué no os decidisteis hasta ahora?

Sinceramente, no lo sé. Cuando planeábamos repertorios el año pasado decidimos que había que añadir algo, aunque no tuviéramos material nuevo. Entre las canciones que no habíamos tocado, elegimos esa. No sé por qué no la tocamos antes. Creo que suena bastante guay.

Pocas quedan que no hayáis tocado, ¿no? Varjojen virta...

Esa no la vamos a tocar nunca. Demasiado compleja. Y aburrida.

Hiidenpelto...

No creo que metamos mucho esas canciones de 30 minutos, porque queremos tocar más temas. Sí, Hiidenpelto es otra... Pero no quedan muchas. Haaska es otra. Hemos hablado de tocarla. Ya veremos.

Espero que tenga más éxito que Karhunkynsi. Me encanta esa canción. Creo que me dijiste tú que a la gente no le gusta.

No fui yo, fue Mitja. Está convencido de que no gusta. No sé. A mí me gusta tocarla. Pero igual se hace pelín aburrida. No sé.

Tiene una parte súper rápida... Bueno, es igual.

Súper rápida y súper larga.

¡Sí, pero mola!
¿En qué se inspira Aika?

Tiene que ver con el fin de la Era Vikinga. El año está mal, de hecho. Debería ser 1066.

Sí, esa era otra pregunta. ¿Fue un error?

Probablemente. No lo puedo decir. Seguirá siendo un misterio.

Ahora mismo, en este momento estamos muy cerca de Stamford Bridge [el lugar donde se libró una importante batalla en 1066]. ¿Pensáis visitarlo?

Nah, no tenemos tiempo, por desgracia. Hoy nada fue como planeábamos. Tuvimos que esperar un montón para el hotel, esperar un montón para la prueba de sonido, la cual fue bastante mal por fallos técnicos... No tuvimos tiempo para hacer turismo hoy. Es una pena. York es una ciudad interesante.

Y ahora están con el festival vikingo anual. Mi pregunta es si para vosotros es especial tocar en este festival aunque no hayáis tenido tiempo de verlo, pero formar parte de él.

Sí, claro que es especial, aunque no hayamos podido ver nada. Pero mola ser parte de los eventos. Para acabar con el tema del turismo: hay que aceptarlo como parte del trabajo. Nos pagan para dar conciertos, no para hacer turismo. Si hay tiempo lo hacemos, pero si no, trabajo es trabajo. No parece trabajo, claro.
Y viajar... Viajar es peor que trabajar.

Otra canción de tema vikingo es Tulimyrsky. Por lo que sé, la canción cuenta una historia. Háblanos de esta historia. ¿Es real? ¿Dónde tuvo lugar?

No, no es real. Para el álbum Voimasta ja kunniasta me inventé una historia sobre un ataque a una ciudad vikinga, y Tulimyrsky es la continuación. Los vikingos van y se vengan. Es todo inventado, cero elementos históricos.

O sea, ¿que el Voimasta es conceptual?

Sí, eso se supone.

Ya que sólo son cinco canciones, ¿puedes decir brevemente de qué va cada una?

Va de dos hermanos. Uno se deja cegar por el dinero: en un saqueo se queda en el pueblo saqueado, se pone a negociar con los locales, les da consejos tácticos sobre cómo saquear su propio pueblo y le pagan por esta información. Luego, en Tulimyrsky, esta gente va a vengarse y continúa la sangría.

¿Volveréis a hablar de vikingos algún día? ¿O ya os llegó de eso?

No sé. Los vikingos son interesantes pero creo que ya hemos hablado bastante de ellos. Puede que hagamos otras cosas en el futuro, puede que no. Ya veremos. No quiero adelantar nada del nuevo disco, pero probablemente no habrá vikingos.

¿Alguna vez os apeteció hacer algo acústico, o sinfónico, o alejado de lo habitual?

Si lo hiciéramos, sería con otro nombre. Si alguien tiene interés puede hacerlo como mejor le parezca. Probablemente sería Henri el que hiciera algo así, pero no sería como Moonsorrow. Nosotros tocamos rock and roll.

¿Qué piensas de la loudness war?

Es una bobada. A mí me gusta el sonido de los 70.

Aun así, el rango dinámico del Hävitetty es bajísimo.

Sí, ya sé. No fue decisión mía. Estoy muy disgustado con eso. Pero es lo que hay.

¿Fue cosa del sello o del grupo?

Henri es el que se encarga de la producción, así que eso hay que preguntárselo a él.

Pasando a cosas menos serias: ya no sales desnudo al escenario. ¡Pobres mozas!

Yo creo que es mejor para ellas. Podrían traumatizarse de por vida.

Para acabar, ¿qué podemos esperar hoy?

Canciones. Un buen e intenso repertorio munsorriano. ¡Nada menos!

Nordic Metal / February 2020

LINK TO THE WHOLE ARTICLE with report, photos, videos and whatnot.

Folk-Metal.nl / June 2019

Source

Our reporter Assia, flew to Denmark for Udgårdsfest 2019.
Besides the beautiful festival itself and many great acts, she had the pleasure to interview Ville from Moonsorrow.

Metalpresse / April 2018

Rauta / May 2018

Impact Metal Channel / April 2018

23 · IV · 2018
Barba Negra Club, Budapest, Hungary

Tales of Touring Terror (Pure Grain Audio) / February 2017

SOURCE and also SOURCE

While onboard the 7th annual 70000 Tons Of Metal Cruise we caught up with the guys in the Finnish Pagan Metal band Moonsorrow and asked them to tell us about their most frightening tour story ever. The result is this tale of terrible events leading up to the bands first show in Lithuania.

The Offering / August 2016

SOURCE

Power of Metal.dk / February 2015

Link

February 27th 2015, Joensuu, Finland. Interview by Haydee G.

TRANSCRIPTION

How is it going?

Pretty good. It's been a busy week or, how would I say, three weeks? We've been touring quite a lot. We're mostly recovering from last weekend. It was fun, but a lot of shows and a lot of travelling. But it's right to finally tour in Finland as well.

What about Marko, your drummer? I heard he got hurt doing martial arts or something. How is he doing?

He's still limping like an idiot, it looks stupid but he plays pretty well. It doesn't really affect his performance, it's just that we cannot do the fastest songs, he cannot do that kick drum thing very fast for a long time, but otherwise... yeah. Ville is sick today, he sounded like an old granny, with screechy voice, forty degrees of fever and so on.

That's why you're doing the interview.

Well, yes.

What can we expect from the show tonight? What are your expectations? I mean, you haven't been here [in Joensuu] since Ilosaarirock in 2003.

Yeah, it's amazing how long time it is. One in 10 years, and it seems like only 5 years passed. We are as enthusiastic as I hope the people are here as well. So we're gonna give our best show.

You've been touring so much, after this you'll be heading to Jyväskylä and after that you'll be going to lots of festivals abroad and of course Nummirock. Which of the coming events excites you the most?

I'm not lying if I say all of them, because I don't have any preferences, it's just that we get to play—for example, we have a couple of shows in Italy and they're both headlining shows, so of course they're exciting for us. And then the summer festivals always have a special atmosphere. Nummirock especially is a midsummer festival. Festivals in Finland are different from, let's say, German festivals.

How so?

There's something about Finnish summer and the nature and everything, when you finally get to play in such remote places like the Nummirock festival, which is in the middle of the woods, and so on. It has some special thing.

Will you be touring more after the last festival in June?

Actually will be just concentrating on recording the album, which will happen in August or something, so we're pretty busy with that. I don't think we're gonna tour that much before we release the album, and that's going to be either very late this year or early next year.

That's nice to hear, because I will ask you more about that. [laughs] By the way, how do you make the fake blood that you put on before the shows?

It depends, because usually we use real blood, but it gets bad after a certain period of time and you can't really use it unless you're playing in Watain, so then we use theatrical blood on tours. But in Finland, or if we're just a couple of days abroad, then we're just using real blood.

Wow.

It's much better actually, because the fake blood sticks in the pores of your skin and you look like a cancer patient after a couple of days. It's really horrible how people are looking on the tour, like they're terminally ill or something.

I was expecting you would give me some kind of recipe. [laughs]
Your lyrics are mostly in Finnish and when you're playing the crowd sings along. Which country do you think sings the most accurately outside of Finland?

Definitely Hungary.

Hungary?

Yes.

Wow.

Because there's a small link between Finnish and Hungarian languages, very small, very remote, but still they have been the most enthusiastic at learning Finnish. When we were there for the first couple of times we could hear so many people singing completely accurately all the lyrics. That was impressive.

What are some of your activities when you're not touring?

Well... living from the music is difficult and... I Never thought that we should live from the band or anything, because I have many other interests in life as well. I work as a cameraman and photographer, I do lives for all kinds of TV stuff. And then I have hobbies like sailing, I have a boat with a friend of mine, and I'm travelling quite a lot.

Do you still do the camera stuff for TV shows?

Yes, actually...

What TV shows?

Everything from the news to TV feature films and some commercials. And I also do commercial photography, when I can.

How have things changed since you signed with Century Media in terms like touring, making the current album and such?

You know... nothing has changed, because we still haven't released an album with them! We're still on the process of releasing the first album for Century Media, and then things might change, but we're waiting to get ready and they're waiting for us to be ready to release. We've met them, they're really nice people, and they seem to know pretty well what they are doing and how to work with this band. It's been very enjoyable to discuss with them.

Last year you released a boxed collection through Blood Music. It must have been so satisfying to know that your work from '95 to '08 is stored in one compilation, and it kind of re-introduces your beginnings to some people. How was that experience, and what was involved in making that happen?

I met the owner of the company about 4 years ago and he brought up the idea, we were just discussing something in a bar. I thought it was a crazy idea, that it wouldn't work, but he was very persistent. He had already done the Strapping Young Lad box, so he had an idea of how to work it. Then he approached the whole band, we started working on it, putting things together, seeing how it would go. It was a lot of work, it all took two yearsand a lot of involvement from the band and from him. Every single detail has been checked and redone, and it's a very particular way of working when you have to go through everything so many times, there are so many box sets, every layout is different, every set is different, millions of factors that have to be right. So we have a lot of respect for him.

Is it true that it's limited to only 100 copies?

No, there were about 400. There are 4 different sets, each 100, and one of them is 150. The "die hard" set is 150. It sold out pretty fast. I would never exp—

It sold out already?

Yeah, it sold out just... within a month or two the last copies were gone. There are still some few copies at some stores or eBay, but they are really expensive, so I don't know if they're ever gonna move.

Is it true that you've spent most of 2014 writing your new material, or do you think you'll be writing more?

We did and we ditched a lot of material. We had a lot of songs ready but it just didn't click. We thought that it wasn't perfect, we can do better, and we just ditched those songs and then started all over again. That was good, now the material is really good, it's gonna be a great album. We're all really satisfied with the material so far.

You mentioned that you don't want to do the same formula over and over again. Black metal, traditional Scandinavian music, progressive rock and nature: those elements will always be a part of your music. What are some new elements that will distinguish the new album?

Once again, there is a new kind of mix of those elements. It's hard to say how it's so different. The whole tonality of it is different. It sounds different compared to our last album, or any of them. But it's more like... There are so many elements. It's not as streamlined as the previous album, that was produced in the same kind of mood all through, but this time there are a lot of passages, there are a lot of metal parts and a lot of very black metal-ish parts. So I think it's going to be quite interesting for many people, actually.

[in the most unexcited voice possible] This sounds exciting, definitely.
I read that the new songs won't reach the usual epic lengths of the old songs. Is there any truth to this?

Depends on how you look at it. There are no 30-minute tracks, but mostly they are 15-minute tracks. It's not going to be any really short songs or anything. We're trying to have actually one shorter song also, because...

You're actually trying to make short songs now?

Yes, but we don't want to force it, it's stupid to try to force yourself.

Will you tell us if it's going to have any kind of cover, like on Tulimyrsky?

I don't think we will... We don't really like doing those, unless there's a perfect match that we really want to put out, but definitely not with the album. It will be some bonus.

Any estimation on when we can get our hands on the new album?

It's still in the talks. I would say very early 2016. It's possible to have it this year, but I'm not sure it's wise, because it needs a certain time for promotion, or preparing the cover art and everything, so it might be better to have it next year.

Your side band, Lakupaavi—how's that coming along now?

It's coming along all the time. It's stupid how many songs I, for example, have written during all these years. I have some 30 songs or something. Most of them I already have forgotten, or I really have to think to remember them, but there is some brilliant stuff. But we just never did it. Right now we are discussing that we should do it.

So you never had time since the last?

Or it just didn't feel right. The Lakupaavi album was done very spontaneously, it was just an outburst of whatever shit we were feeling and wanted to bring out. It should be done in the same way, or maybe in a totally different context. Maybe it won't be a Lakupaavi album, but something else. But I really wish to do it, because I have some really great songs.

Maybe different from Moonsorrow.

Yes, of course. It's this punk/grindcore stuff.

I read online that you're not drinking any more, well, you're drinking right now, but...

Who said that?

It must have been from an interview, I can't remember, that you don't drink any more... but you are drinking.

[looks at his beer can with sadness in his eyes] Yeah... I mean...

Who stopped drinking?

Nobody! (laughs) What the fuck is that?

Must have been a joke, then.

Yeah.

So, last question. Is there any message to our readers, your fans, out there? 

Yes, there definitely is, because we are really waiting for having the opportunity to tour again all over the world, so wherever you are, if we are coming near you, please come to say hello and come to the show.

Pagan Storm Radio / March 2015

Brescia, Italy, right before Bixia Obscura Festival.

TRANSCRIPTION

Welcome to Pagan Storm and thank you for your time. Let's start from the future of the band... You've always worked silently to your albums: how is it with the writing process and the preparings going? Are you pretty satisfied yet, or not?

Mitja: Yes, we've been working on it for a long time actually, and we even almost composed the whole album, and then we deleted it completely and started again. Right now we're again pretty much on the final run of the songs, 30% of the album is still unfinished, but other than that it's going great.

Can you tell us a period in which you think will the new album came out?

Ville: Not yet, but it's probably gonna be out a year from now.

 

A year from now?

 

Ville: Along those lines.

In the next fall, something like that?

Ville: Fall... or winter.

Mitja: The timelines are so long. If we go to the studio in summer, it means it's gonna come out late that year, or even next year.

During the years, you actually have forged your very own trademarks: what do we have to expect from the new album? Maybe something new from this point of view?

Mitja: I would say, we never try to find an album and repeat it sound-wise again. It's gonna be very different from the last one, and again, it's going to be a very different mix of elements completely. That's something we always do, and the time we find out we cannot do it any more, that we cannot find a new approach or a new aspect to the music any more, then it will mean that we have come to the end of... But so far so good, it sounds great.

Ville: I'd say the new album sound-wise is gonna be more black metal than doom metal.

In the latest stuff of your career, starting from Verisäkeet, one of your trademarks are long timing and structured songs. How will the new songs be under this point of view?

Mitja: It's not gonna be that long songs this time. They are long for sure, it's very hard to get out of the 15-minute format that we found on Verisäkeet, but it's not going to be 30-minute songs or anything. We really didn't want to repeat ourselves in that aspect either.

Ville: Definitely, on our scale there are gonna be radio hits. [Something something] is gonna be a real radio hit then, compared to our previous works it's gonna be more accessible.

Good for us, because we are a radio and it's very difficult to share your songs, we have to cut them. How do you work in creating new stuff, usually? From what do you begin? Do you work all together or each on his own?

Mitja: We don't.

Ville: The magic just happens. Nah, it's Henri who does most of the work, and he does it at home.

Mitja: Everybody can contribute to that process and give riffs and songs and ideas, and usually we either just send him the material or we go to his place and we have sessions with him, or we start arranging the songs. It might be that the next day everything that we did is gone already. He's very fast when he's working, when he starts building up a song he can write five or six minutes in no time, with all the orchestrations and instruments, but if he feels "nah, this isn't good enough," he just presses delete or puts it in some folder that's hidden somewhere. It's amazing what kind of stuff you can find there over the years.

Ville: Years of folders.

Mitja: Yeah, if you find them.

Ville: Legendary riffs that will never be released. For the good of everyone.

I think from the deleted part of Moonsorrow maybe seven or eight good bands can grow and publish a lot of good albums.

Ville: Maybe seven or eight bands, but I don't know about the "good" part.

One year ago, your "Heritage: 1995-2008 - The Collected Works" came out in only 100 copies. Why did you choose to press them on such limited quantity?

Mitja: Actually it was 450 copies, there's just 100 of each edition, because there are different ones: plain black vinyl, white, splatter, and then the diehard one that was 150 copies. The whole point was: if you make such a deluxe item, it's very costly to produce anyway, there's no point in pressing two thousand units or something, because if even 100 of them don't get sold, the company would go bankrupt completely. It was done based on the demand and assumptions of how many people would buy it. And it was very carefully planned in every stage of it.

But it sold all copies, I think.

Mitja: Yes, it sold out pretty fast. I would say, if we had 50 more it would be still be sold out, but I think it was very cleverly calculated how many would move.

It would be interesting to know your favourite bands, and then the ones that in your opinion have influenced Moonsorrow's music the most.

Ville: Venom. (laughs) No. I don't even like them.

At all?

Ville: No, I really don't. Bathory I do, they copied Venom a bit in the beginning and then they copied Manowar. It made it so much better! One fo my favourites definitely, and you can probably hear it in Moonsorrow's music as well.

Mitja: When you hear Manowar in Moonsorrow's music it means we've been copying Bathory. There are lots of bands, like Enslaved, that influence us all actually, very much. Also the language thing, that you don't have to sing in English. It was one of the first bands we came across that actually made us think: wait a minute, you don't need to sing in English, you can do this in your own language or... Well, it wasn't their own language, it was Icelandic or whatever they were using, but...

Ville: Their ancestors' language.

Mitja: But it's much more interesting to do it in different ways than the other bands. Of course we all have our personal preferences, like Slayer and so on, which doesn't have anything to do with Moonsorrow, and then King Crimson has been very influential for many of us, you can also hear it in the music, we have this progressive rock element and that's definitely from there. But I would say Scandinavian black metal is the key, like many bands.

Ville: And Satan.

Mitja: Of course.

It is not a band, so...

Mitja: It IS a band! From the UK!

Ville: Very true.

Are there any bands born after the year 2000 that you enjoy or usually listen to, or even non-metal bands?

Ville: There's so very few of them, because I don't follow music any more. I just listen to what I used to listen to when I was a kid. I don't find that many new bands. There are a lot of interesting bands, of course, music is constantly evolving, it's not like all the music after 2000 has to be crap, there's a lot of good bands, but I'm just too lazy to check them out. I know a few, but...

Mitja: For me it's the same thing, unfortunately. For example, in 98 or 99 I grew tired of the black metal explosion, because there were so many bands coming up that I couldn't follow it any more, and then I realized most of those were crappy anyway. Then, after a few years I started to listen to the new bands again and I think black metal is still doing very well right now, for a few years already. That's interesting. But it's very hard when you've lived the years where you find your favourite bands and all these things to follow all the time some new forms of metal, for example. I do listen to a lot of other stuff also, but it's very hard to find new metal bands that would really catch me.

In the end of the 90s there was a blast of new bands coming out from Scandinavia, something similar to what happened in the 60s in Great Britain  for the Rock Music. Why, in your opinion, this situations occur?

Mitja: There are many reasons, but one thing... Well, I can only speak for Finnish bands, and I know that we didn't have a national identity in what comes to music or metal or rock music really, we had some really good local bands singing in Finnish but we didn't have any breakthrough internationally until some bands started to do what they really wanted to do in their on way, and not trying to copy Swedish or American bands or something, and they started really gaining attention, and other young upcoming bands realized they could do that in their own way, they could do this a bit similarly or something and take influence, and suddenly they're just growing and growing en masse and you get this huge scene that's lifting up. In Finland it caught on during the early 2000s.

Are there not economical reasons, in your opinion, or political ones, social...? Only musical?

Ville: I would say that Finland has always been a very safe and boring country when it comes to economy and politics, there are no big uproars anywhere in our history

Mitja: And if you have a band and want to make money with it, you're already going on the wrong track, because none of the bands who formed and became successful and influential started it for the money. It would be the worst business move to form a band. (laughs) Anything is better than that.

You can just go to pop.

Mitja: Even that is difficult. You have to be really talented to make it in pop music.

Ville: My advice would be to work for bands.

 

Not for money?

 

Ville: Not work in a band, but work for bands. Like the technician or whatever, outside the band, so that the band pays you, and you get money. The band doesn't get money.

Thnk you, this interview is Finnished, thank you very much.

 

Transcribed on March 15th 2021. Thanks for appreciating the phonetic license I took at the end, glad you noticed what I did there. Aren't I hilarious?

Hel Rocks / September 2014

Link

September 13th, 2014 right before the band's longest concert ever, in Helsinki.

No really long songs this time: Moonsorrow talk the new album, inspiration and staring at vinyls

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Nikky Holmes in Backstage, Videos // 0 Comments

We tracked down Ville Sorvali and Mitja Harvilahti from Moonsorrow before they played the longest live Moonsorrow set ever in Virgin Oil Co this September. Sitting outside in the dying light of the day, editor Rachel Roth set to trying to find out how the new album is going. Some time markers:

• The album writing process & inspiration: 3m50s
• Moonsorrow’s sound and Paganism: 6m45s
• Touring, Live shows and Laziness: 9m30s
• The success of the Finnish Folk Metal scene: 12m30s
• Replacing furniture with the Blood Music box set: 14m35s
• First band shirts: 18m45s

TRANSCRIPT (edited for readability):

I’m Rachel with Hel Rocks, and we are here with Ville and Mitja from Moonsorrow. We’re going to have our signature Having a Pint interview without the pints today, but that’s ok. I think we’ll live.

Mitja: Yeah, I think so.

Ville: We have just changed our habits, we don’t drink anymore. This is proof.

That’s terrifying, I can’t handle that, I need to leave now. So we’ve been hearing that the new album’s had some delays, and we drew the conclusion that you guys aren’t really willing to compromise on what you’re putting out so we have to ask, what is Moonsorrow all about for you? What’s this next album going to be all about?

Ville: You actually answered the question, while asking it.

I did?

Ville: We aren’t willing to make compromises.

How do you think that’s going to come across?

Mitja: Well at the moment it’s coming out great. We had a lot of delays, and also we had to ditch a lot of ideas and songs. A lot of material was erased that we had already written. It took a long time to find a direction and we still are working on it. It’s something that’s going to be tweaked until the very end of the process but, it’s coming good now.

So you feel like you’re making those big steps that are necessary.

Ville: We have some good stuff coming.

Awesome. Can’t tell us any little sneak peeks?

Ville: No.

 

OK. Fair enough.

Ville: But it’s not going to be those half an hour songs.

Oh, that’ll be a change. Henri mentioned a while back that Moonsorrow was never meant to be a household name. How has the success you’ve had kind of contradicted that?

Ville: I don’t think it contradicted it in any way. Any success we got just happened. We didn’t really aim for anything else than creating the best music possible.

Mitja: It’s a thing that I actually really like about our so called success, because it’s kind of honest. We never marketed the band to be able to go to Japan or America. Everything, all the demand, came from outside instead of us pushing us all the time. Of course when we switched to a bigger record label and booking agency and managers, then people are working for you and trying to make the band more visible. But the groundwork was done just by demand from the people who like our music.

Was it kind of a big surprise though? From when you initially started out?

Ville: Kinda, yeah. To start with, our lyrics are in Finnish. When we got the first offers from abroad, it was quite amazing. We were just thinking like, ‘someone actually listens to this outside of Finland?’ and they want us to come there and play.

Do people like sing along at the shows?

Ville: They try.

Mitja: In some countries they really can sing along like in Hungary for example, at least at some point, they really knew the lyrics but there are a lot of mumbo-jumbo happening in the crowd that’s not really accurate, but…

Ville: Like in the States. They are keen to sing along.

And the efforts got to be like, it’s got to feel really awesome.

Ville: I appreciate it. Definitely.

With your last album, Varjoina Kuljemme Kuolleiden Maassa, that was a huge success and it brought a lot more international attention, how was the development of that different than the new upcoming albums?

Mitja: Well. It was quicker. The development of Varjoina was actually…

Ville: …quicker? Still four years since the last full-length album.

Mitja: Well we had Tulimyrsky in between. But when we had the idea, the concept in mind, it just started taking off very fast and we came up with pretty much everything, like the musical concept, pretty fast. So it didn’t take that long to compose, compared to this time when we really are searching for the right way to go and right things to emphasise in the music.

Where do you think the bulk of the time goes during the process, is it the recording, the lyric writing, the composition?

Ville: Ah… getting the ideas together. The so-called ‘divine inspiration’ takes most of the time. When we actually have started working, like when we have a good basis for a song, it usually happens pretty fast.

Where do you find that you can kind of get that inspiration from?

Ville: Forest.

Mitja: The forest is good answer. Yeah.

Ville: I don’t know really, It just happens.

Mitja: And something that creative people usually have is that they don’t have to actually go, to the forest or anything. If you have a lot of imagination, then you get the inspiration from there. To be able to sing about the forest you don’t need to go there all the time to get the inspiration, it’s more of a metaphor.

Ville: And most of the inspiration is still just hard work. It’s quite irritating when big artists talk about inspiration in a way that it’s just something that happens to you and you just have to wait for it. It actually might never happen if you just keep waiting. You have to push yourself to work.

So your philosophy is more, reach out and take it than wait for it to come to you? It’s a good philosophy.

Mitja: Well I’m not very creative in Moonsorrow, I haven’t written a lot of stuff, and the stuff that I write for example is not very Moonsorrow. So I cannot talk so much about that, but I also notice that the more you create the more you will get inspired. And you start creating more, so…

Ville: It feeds itself.

The sound has definitely developed a lot, you’ve gone from melodic black metal to folkish black metal and it’s been developing and changing all the time. How is that kind of changed or continuing with this next album? Without giving too much away.

Ville: No, we still keep doing what feels right at the moment. And that’s probably why we have always, kind of “changed” our style, because we always did what we felt like doing at that very moment.

I mean, a phrase that gets tossed around a lot is Pagan metal. What does that mean to you guys?

Mitja: Well, the word ‘pagan’ that’s the answer. It’s a core of the band beliefs. None of us are very religious even in a way of being Pagan, but there is something like, the core of Paganism is nature for example and that’s also in our music. You don’t even have to read the lyrics and you will hear that the nature is the source of it in a way. At least, I feel like that.

It’s more about the way the music speaks and comes across and conveys that rather than it being about any sort of school of thought.

Ville: Uh, yeah and about how nature speaks to us, and we channel it to music.

It’s a good way to look at it. You have a lot of bands that are really obsessed with, well, one specific aspect of it and that can get kind of frustrating.

Mitja: Yeah, and when it comes to music we never want to find the perfect recipe of making Moonsorrow music, we always want to challenge ourselves and we kind of almost hate the previous albums, we always want to clean the table in a good way. I mean, we want to clean the table and do something completely different. Like for example, after Kivenkantaja we didn’t want anything to do with that kind of music and that’s how Verisäkeet came along because we turned our back on it completely.

Ville: That’s progression. We could always do the previous album twice. Because we already did it, we know how to do it again. But, it wouldn’t be fair to us or the fans.

Do you have anything that you’re working on now that kind of encompasses that, that you’re really excited and it’s a bigger change?

Ville: Hmmm.

Mitja: I don’t know.

Ville: Yeah, the material is still quite kind of spread across in my head. Really can’t grasp it just yet. Like what would be the focal point.

When you think about getting up there on stage and playing one of the new songs, what about it makes it so exciting for you?

Mitja: I think it’s just the joy of playing the new songs, or something we haven’t played before. It feels, I mean we played the other songs we played so many times for so many years, it’s really refreshing to have something new to play.

Ville: And it starts from the rehearsals actually. For example, I’m, I can be quite a lazy person. But when I get a new song, and I know that I have to practice it because we are going to play this live.

It lights the fire.

Ville: Yeah. Be it, whichever band I’ve played with, it’s always when I get some new material to rehearse, gives me a kick. Makes me feel useful again.

Do you have anything like that? That kind of lights the fire?

Mitja: Well I’m even lazier than Ville. I practice the songs the previous night. So, day before is my method. But yeah, it’s the same, I mean I really enjoy playing live. It’s, I would say, the most inspiring thing in my life is to play shows.

Why is that?

Mitja: First of all, touring is a lot of fun. You get to travel with your friends and you get to play your music for people, and when you enjoy playing shows and you enjoy travelling and so on it’s something that nothing can really replace in your life. It’s something that I thought just a couple of days ago, if I don’t play in a band anymore, what am I going to do in a way? Because you get used to having, getting sort of kicks out of playing shows and the adrenaline, all the funny times that you are having on tour and you can’t really do that at home. Breaking stuff!

You don’t have people shouting your names.

Ville: In just a normal job, you probably wouldn’t have that job for a long time.

No, maybe not. I would not think so, I guess the fans probably give back a lot too. Are there any specific countries that you just keep going back to to capture that? There’s a lot of talk about Brazil.

Mitja: Well we haven’t been to Brazil actually.

Is that a goal?

Mitja: Yeah.

Ville: We would definitely like to go there. Anywhere basically.

What are some other kind of untapped markets? You’ve been to Asia?

Mitja: We’ve been to China and Japan, but places like Thailand and Indonesia would be interesting and well, anywhere, I don’t really care where.

Anywhere you roam. Well the Finnish metal scene went through several years of this kind of fanaticism on the international scene stemming mostly from the Folk metal. How was that kind of impacted you guys personally? Do you think you owe any success to that?

Ville: It felt weird.

Why?

Ville: Weird knowing that you actually played a part in that. Our band actually played a part in that and it feels weird.

It’s going to be in the textbooks one day. In these music history books. How does that feel?

Mitja: Well, at there is a mark somewhere.

Ville: Yeah, exactly like sometime way back, people used to think that there is no point in life if you’re not mentioned after you’re dead.

Mitja: We have already been in a museum.

Ville: I’m kind of happy if I’m mentioned after I’m dead.

In a nice way.

Ville: Well actually, I won’t know because I won’t actually know because I don’t think I can be happy or not happy when I’m dead, but you know what I mean.

I gotcha.

Ville: I’m happy now knowing that I might be mentioned after I’m dead.

Mitja: You already are in a museum in Hungary.

Seriously?

Mitja: Yeah.

What did you do?

Mitja: In some, I don’t know, ethnographic museum of Budapest but there was a poster of Paganfest and it was about Finnish people and how people see Finland, and one of the things in the exhibition was…

Ville: How people see Finland… Hello! *waves*

Mitja: Korpiklaani and Moonsorrow in a poster.

Well, I mean, years ago when I first moved here, people thought that Finland was in Sweden to be very honest, I don’t know what that says about Americans. But now, people are like ‘Oh yeah!’

Ville: They think Sweden is in Finland? No? Ok.

I wish. No, nowadays people actually know some of the big bands, they’re like ‘Oh yeah, that’s where Korpiklaani is from, that’s where Moonsorrow is from.’ Kind of make me a little prouder, they’re educating themselves. One other thing I’ve been hearing a lot about was the release you guys did with Blood Music, vinyl box-set. How did that come about? That was a really strong response.

Mitja: Yeah, it was a long process.

Ville: Like two years or something?

MS: Yeah. I met the owner of the company and he was just starting the label when I met him and suddenly the whole label took off very fast. And they started releasing big records like this Strapping Young Lad box and I think that was the biggest so far and got a lot of attention. He started talking to me, ‘Hey, can we do a Moonsorrow boxset?’ and it was a great idea. And I never thought it was going to happen actually, because it was such a big project to put it all  together is hundreds and hundreds of hours. I don’t know, maybe thousands for this guy.

What’s the process like for that, converting audio to vinyl?

Mitja: The process is… well the audio is one thing, the other thing is all the cover art, all the details. Everything and DVD and like there are millions of factors.

Ville: Everything has to be made new.

I mean one of my friends told me that she had a friend who had a jar on her desk at work, and people were like donating money to that because she wanted it so bad. Did you hear any other stories like that? How does it feel to hear that?

Ville: It’s humbling. Seriously.

I guess it would be, that’s huge to hear somebody saves up.

Ville: I can understand why some people really wanted it so badly, because it is one of a kind thing.

What made you guys decide to do that.

Ville: And it’s like this big.

Yeah, I’ve seen it, it’s monstrous.

Ville: I need to get rid of some furniture if I get it home.

What did you get rid of?

Ville: I haven’t decided yet. I’m probably going to get it next week, so I have to be quick in my decision.

Did you get rid of any furniture?

Mitja: Um, yeah, but I emptied one of my terrariums so I could maybe put it there.

Ok, see that works. I don’t need a crib, I’ll just keep my Moonsorrow boxset there and the baby can sleep on top of it.

Mitja: Also very good.

Ville: There is one problem, you can’t put anything on top of vinyls. It really can’t serve as a chair or a table. Even if it’s a quite fitting size for that.

It has to be just like a sculpture in the home.

Ville: You can replace your TV with it. Just stare at it.

Ok, I’ll do that.

Ville: I don’t even have a TV to begin with so…

Well you’re going to get the vinyl.

Ville: Yeah, I can start staring at my vinyl collection.

Trippy. So we’ve heard that you guys are going to play your longest set ever tonight, so that’s going to be like… six songs?

Mitja: Six hours.

Ville: No no.

Are there any songs you had to kind of practice extra to remember? I mean your songs are so long, it seems like quite a challenge!

Ville: Everything came together really easily. I was really surprised when we got together at the rehearsal place and just started playing these songs we haven’t been playing for years. Everything just like…

Fell into place?

Ville: Yeah. There was a flow.

Mitja: But it’s a bad sign.

Ville: It’s a bad sign, yeah.

Uh-oh. Why?

Mitja: Because if everything is so easy in the rehearsals, you will forget something during the show. It’s the same as having soundcheck with a perfect sound. You know that when you go onstage again to play the show it’s going to be horrible.

I remember one soundcheck where it went so bad the guy couldn’t capture my violin or anything like that and then the show went perfectly. I don’t know.

Ville: Usually it happens that way.

Well you might trip on the way to the venue, it’s probably fine.

Mitja: From there.

That’s a lot of stairs!

Mitja: Yeah.

Well a fun question we always like to ask, what was the first band shirt you remember buying? For me it was David Lee Roth, and for Nikky it was definitely Pantera.

 

Ville: Hmmm. First. Could have been Amorphis.

How old were you?

Ville: Uh… when was Tales released? ’93?

Mitja: or ’94?

Ville: Thirteen or fourteen.

I was like four. What about you?

Mitja: Well, I don’t know if it counts I wanted to have a Beatles shirt when I was four. So that’s my first band shirt.

That counts. That’s a good one. So is there anything you’d like to share with our listeners?

Mitja: Should we?

Ville: Alcohol?

Mitja: No we don’t share alcohol.

Ville: No we don’t share alcohol.

Why can’t we share alcohol? I mean, I can’t but you guys can.

Ville: It’s too expensive in Finland.

Mitja: Yeah. In Germany we can share it.

And, Bourbon or Scotch?

Ville & Mitja: SCOTCH.

Dammit. She’s winning.

Mitja: I mean Bourbon only with Cokes but.

You don’t need Coke with Bourbon.

Mitja:That’s the only way I drink Bourbon.

*dejected* ok.

Ville & Mitja: I’m sorry. [unison]

Finnish Undergröund Rädiö / August 2012

...interviewed by Narri
with Ville Sorvali of Moonsorrow
filmed by Nick Knudsen
@ Rocky Point Cantina, Tempe AZ
August 15, 2012
US Tour 2012





TRANSCRIPTION


The tour started out kind of crazy, how is it going so far?

We had a lot of good times, it's been great so far. At this point we are getting [tired?], but we had two days off.

Are you working on anything new?

We never do any new work on tour. I know bands who actually compose new material on tour, but I don't feel comfortable with the idea. I just like to concentrate on the shows.

A lot of Finnish bands that are beginning to have global success are starting to write lyrics and sing in English. Is that a trend Moonsorrow might follow?

Never. We will always stick with Finnish.

What are some themes or inspirations behind your lyrics?

I guess the main thing is that the lyrics, whatever they are, they always have the pagan undertone. You can't describe it in one word, but it's like... I'm influenced by the old traditions and the old culture before Christianity, and the respect for nature that our ancestors had, stuff like that. It's basically that I want the lyrics to be somehow apart from this fucked up society that I don't even want to live in, but I have to. I don't even have a choice, because there is no time machine. The lyrics for the new album actually take place in the future; this isn't tied to any period in time; they just have the same undertone [incomprehensible couple of words]. On this new album is what happens after the end of the world, when almost everyone died and there's just a group of survivors. It's a story, it has a beginning and an end, and it's basically that these guys have to find their way, because the whole system collapses, so they have to go out into the wild and try to find [ruins?]. The story is a bit less than one year and in the end everyone dies, so they don't survive even for one year.

Does Finland or Finnish culture influence your music? How so?

I always felt that I am Finnish, and I'm very interested in everything that people before [?] how they were thinking abouit the world. Finland is a very special place. Every winter we are like, "why the hell did Finnish people think about settling here?"

What is the strangest thing that has inspired you?

I have absolutely no idea. They just kind of pop up in my head. I have been writing, for example, when I was travelling alone in a train, looking out of the window, and grabbing my notebook.

How do you think Moonsorrow's music has evolved from the first album?

Quite a lot, I think. [laughs] Of course. Some of the others might disagree, but we have been taking huge steps forwards with each album and we always try to explore some new territories without forgetting our roots. Every time we sit down and start writing material for the new album, that is the turning point where we actually know what it's going to be like. Maybe we had some rough ideas, but it's only when we start writing that we know.

It's been said you consider yourselves Epic Heathen Metal. Can you explain what that is?

We don't want to describe our music, it's alive all the time. But it's metal, that is for sure; it has the term "epic" because it's kind of... You know, "epic" doesn't mean long songs or anything, as most people think. Epic as a word means "telling a story", and our songs are... it's a cliché to say it, but our music is more than just music, it's supposed to paint a picture in the head of the listener. So that's the "epic" part. And the "heathen" because we are heathen, we don't really like this Christ dude. [laughs] We want to describe our music as heathen or pagan metal because we don't want to tell too much about the music, we want to tell about the influences that we have.

Your fifth album, Viides luku: Hävitetty, is comprised of two 30-minute songs. How do you get inspired to write such lengthy tunes?

No idea. Why did we do that? It was how it felt at that time. We started writing and realized that Henri, who writes most of the music, had the intro for the first song and it was already six minutes, so we kind of knew that this was going to be something very extraordinary. We didn't stretch it intentionally, it just happened. Then we were like, "ok, we have one 30-minute song, let's have another one as well, let's see where we can go with this." It was a thing we had to do.

Throughout the years of the band, was there ever a time where you felt like you wanted to throw everything out and just start over?

No. All of us have had our moments, especially on tours, where we think "is this really worth it? I'm flying home, you carry on," but it's never that serious. We are a tight unit, every one of us is basically married to this band.

What's one thing you have learnt about people while being on the road or travelling?

More than about people, I've learnt a lot about myself, especially when I'm spending time alone in some foreign place. That's what I'm aiming to do, actually; I want to... I think everyone needs to know themselves; not everyone wants to, but I do. I take these experiences as an opportunity to get closer to myself by seeing other places and people who live there. When it comes to the people, [cuts abruptly and ends].

 

Transcribed on 23·II·2021.

Die Metal Krieger / September 2012

13/09/2012 CA - Santa Ana, The Observatory (USA)





TRANSCRIPTION

Hello, this is Markus from Moonsorrow and you're watching Der Metal Krieger!

This is Carol from Der Metal Krieger and we are here at The Observatory in Santa Ana, just a few hours before Korpiklaani's headlining Manala tour, and here with us we have Moonsorrow, who are supporting them tonight. We have Ville, Marko and Markus from the band. How are you guys doing tonight?

[Various jokes]

I think you are a little more than halfway done with this North American tour. Tell me a bit about what you've seen as far as the energy of North American crowds versus what you guys are used to out in Europe.

Ville: I wouldn't compare, because I can't remember that far, but on this tour the energy of the audience has been outstnding.

Marko: Even quite fanatic at some venues. In San Francisco it was mad.

Markus: Way better than in the previous tour.

Marko: I don't know what the reason is, maybe it's our setlist.

So did it surprise you? I definitely know that sometimes, especially here in L.A., one kind of gets the feeling that people are sitting there with crossed arms, but it seems like you guys have definitely gotten good responses.

Marko: Yes, very intense, with moshpits and all.

You had moshpits here?

Marko: Several.

Really? That's very interesting, considering some your newer material, which we'll certainly talk about later. Your newest album is called As Shadows We Walk in the Land of the Dead, it was released in February via Spinefarm, and since then you've had some time to get some feedback. What has been the general feedback?

Ville: Critics like it, and audiences like it as well, judging on...

Marko: Even we like it!

What do you guys think?, you have evolved quite a bit from your folk metal roots, in your  Chapter V: Ravaged album you took on this huge black metal. How are you guys feeling as far as the evolution of Moonsorrow goes?

Ville: We just do what we want to do.

Marko: It's been very natural since the beginning, the whole development of things. For example, on the third album we got those progressive rock elements besides all the traditional folk stuff or metal in general, and during 2005 or so we just got the idea that we had to make our sound much rougher and grimmer. Then we sort of went back in time to the roots of Moonsorrow, to the demo period...

Markus: Yes.

Marko: ...and we are still continuing in that way, that path of mixing the sound of the early days, that was based on mostly symphonic black metal, and... and... I don't know, there is this blacker stuff and progressive stuff, and lately, the traditional influences have been put away a bit.

Ville: They appear in a different shape. We still have a lot of that folky stuff over there, but...

But it's harsher, it's something like Chapter V, where there was this distinctive very black metal.

Ville: Yes, but it had folky elements as well, it's just not as prominent as with the other bands in the same league.

Marko: It's not that happy joy-joy oompa-oompa fiddle fiddle. It's darker, it's more intense... In Finnish traditional folk music, the majority of it is very dark, very sad and melancholic, and we always took our folk influences from that kind of music. So that's why we sound so depressive. :)

Ville: We are depressed.

One thing that does add to the depressive mood is the length of your songs. I was going through your discography and you realize that once you get to album 4 you guys started to get bold and brave with your 12-minute, 15-minute—the longest is 30 minutes and 25 seconds, I believe. How do you keep your energy when you're playing to live audiences, and how do you keep the energy of your audience too?

Ville: It just happens...

Marko: Eating healthy food, [everyone laughs] try not to drink so much before the show...

Just say that alcohol puts you in a trance or something so that the 12 minutes go by.

Marko: I think people, the crowd, are just acting very naturally to our songs. The energy from the crowd comes very naturally. We almost don't have to do anything. If we just stood there, shoegaze, whatever, they would still be doing the moshpit.

They did moshpits here, that I find very interesting.

Marko: But then again, we don't shoegaze. We headbang a lot and...

Ville: We have a lot of energy on the stage.

Marko: It's like doing exercise or something, like workout, really, for me.

Markus: For all of us, somehow.

Marko: It's good sport, you lose weight and everything.

All your records have been released on Spinefarm. However, you've recently made the switch in April to Century Media. Why did you make this change, and what do you think Century Media is going to do for your future records?

Ville: The answer to the first question is that sometimes you just...

Marko: The contracts run out.

Ville: ...you need a change. Contracts ran out several times and we re-signed to Spinefarm a few times, but sometimes you just need a change, and we felt that this was the right time.

Marko: I would confirm the Spinefarm era as a marriage that after certain years is just not going anywhere, you know... I don't know if you're married or not, but... [in a mocking voice] I've been married for one year and I can feel it now! It doesn't go anywhere! [everyone laughs]

There's a whole other interview to tell Marko's personal life!

Marko: But you know the expression. We somehow felt like it didn't go anywhere. The promotion was always the same, very... there was something, but not really anything special.

Okay, I totally understand you.

Ville: With Spinefarm we all have to realize that they certainly helped to establish the band, they actually made us what we are now. It's not out of disrespect to them or anything, but we felt that we needed a new kick to the butt, and we all thought that with Century Media it might be possible. They have been really interested, we had a few meetings before they even directly asked about the signing.

Now comes a question from a fan on Reddit. Asator wants to know if the shift from the folkish sound was fully intentional and if we can expect a return of your folk elements in the future.

Ville: You never know. [laughs] We never know ourselves. We just do what we do.

Marko: I think on the next material there will be more dynamics. The way I see Chapter V and Like Shadows, they're very like... you put the CD on, they are like CHVVVVV [separates his hands vertically, moves them to the right while he makes this low-pitch "white noise", joins them again at the end] and then it ends.

Ville: Yes, it's a crushing wall of sound.

Marko: But for the next one I'd like, we would like, to do something more like this [moves his hand from left to right drawing a wave in the air].

Something more unpredictable?

Marko: ...probably...

We never know! You know what? Who will come and interview us, they will know! [or something like that]

Markus: That's true.

Marko: At the same time, we want to have our listeners crushed under the wall of sound and fierce blackmetalish blast beats and everything. We want to include as much as possible. But still to keep it within some limits and not to go too far, too psychedelic-progressive or too fast, I don't know, Darkthrone.

Oh, no, please! We'll have an intervention if that happens.

Marko: In Moonsorrow it's easier to say what we cannot do than what we can do.

Ville: And we can do a lot of things.

Marko: It's easy to say that there will never be any kind of industrial elements in Moonsorrow, or electronic.

Ville: But it's as easy to say that in Moonsorrow you haven't seen anything yet.

But we're all looking forward to seeing it and seeing you guys progress! Thank you all so much and good luck with your show tonight.

Transcribed on 22·II·2021.

Onslaught Radio / August 2012

Link


10·VIII·2012
Bloodstock Open Air, UK






TRANSCRIPTION

You played on the Ronnie James Dio stage earlier today. What was the experience like for you?

Playing on a stage with that name is an honor, and we don't play in England too often, so that's a very special occasion for Moonsorrow. Although it was an early show, 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the audience was full of energy and we were very warmly welcome, as usual in England. We like it very much in here.

What are the English crowds like compared to the rest of Europe? Here we have a reputation for being a little bit crazier.

It's hard to tell, because we played so early. Considering that, it was fantastic, but if we had played at 9 o'clock in the evening, who knows what kind of havoc there would have been! But as for comparison... There are good audiences everywhere. There are different types of, let's say, fanaticism, for example in Mexico, or last October we were in China, and on one show we did there, they had never witnessed any Western rock and roll band. It was in a city called Harbin. And well, obviously, because they never saw any rock bands, it was very easy, Ville just told them "let's go fucking crazy" or whatever and people were spilling beer and whatnot. But it doesn't really matter where we are playing, in what conditions we are playing. Of course, playing here is top notch...

We had a good weather today as well, didn't we?

Yeah, it's better than in Finland! This is very rare during summer.

To us too... So, if somebody was to find Moonsorrow for the first time, how would you describe your sound? What makes you unique? I've heard the term "epic heathen metal".

We made that up ourselves some years ago. But then again, the word "epic" nowadays... Do you think it's a bit overused?

It is getting that way, yes, but it's still very much relevant.

It is, yes. You could say Moonsorrow being epic as fuck. Can I say that? [laughs] Yes I can? But some words... We're definitely Finnish, because we sing in Finnish and we're not going to change that, it's gonna be Finnish or nothing.

Superb, that sounds fantastic.

It's very hard to tell. We are the band that does very long, boring songs, for some people, for most of the people, but those who understand what it is all about get it very easily. Even my father, he's 70 years old and...

Big metal fan?

No, not at all, he sings in a choir and... But he respects a lot what we are doing and he comes to our shows in Helsinki. It's crazy.

Pretty awesome, actually. So, your last album was released in February 2011 — are there any sort of plans for a new album in the near future?

Yes, we just secured a new record contract with Century Media, and Henri, our main songwriter, he's also in Finntroll, as you perhaps know, he's doing a new Finntroll album first, and after that, and after whatever stress vacation he must have after that, we will slowly start to write new songs. Or actually, maybe we will start with Ville and Mitja and Markus even before the whole Finntroll stuff is finished. We're just trying to go to our rehearsal place and do it the old school way, because that's not really the way we have done the albums in the past. It's normally being Henri or myself, at home, doing MP3s, sending them over, "I have these ideas", or even whole ready songs. But this time we really wanted to do it the more old school way, just have some... well, maybe jamming is not the right word, but just on a normal way, "I have this riff, what do you have?, oh, maybe those could fit together". We try to approach it a bit differently than what we have done before.

Superb. So...

As for the schedule or whatever, I would say late next year for a release.

I look forward to that. Do you have any more shows lined up after Bloodstock in the UK?

Actually, tomorrow we are going to do our first show ever in Ukraine, in the Carpathian Mountains, there is this metal festival about which we don't have much information beforehand, but from what we heard, it's located in the mountains, over a thousand metres high, so I'm looking forward to the view and everything. That will be our last festival for this summer, and in three weeks we will start the North American tour with Korpiklaani and Týr and Metsatöll from Estonia. It's going to be a 4-week tour covering the major cities in the States and something in Canada also.

Are you going to be due back in the UK anytime soon?

I hope we can do some mini-tour at least next year, because we regret we have been skipping the UK all these years. But, I don't know, you must push your local promoters more, because we play everywhere. Last October we did China, four shows in China with very primitive equipment, but we had a lot of fun. We were totally tourists there. But hey, we played in Shanghai for 600 people, we played in Beijing for another 600, and we never thought we would play for that many people in China. It was awesome.

That sounds very awesome. To wrap things up, do you have any messages for your fans, anything you'd like to say?

In the UK? Well, uhm, I don't want to be sorry for not playing here more often...

No, don't be sorry.

...but be patient, push your local promoters and whatever. I hate to play only every four years here. It sucks that most of our tours are skipping the UK for some reason. We will make a correction for that next year or... Yeah, next year.

Superb. Thank you very much for your time, it's been an absolute pleasure, and [to the camera] catch you guys later!

Transcribed on 19·II·2021. I was in that Ukrainian festival up on the Carpathian mountains, the name was Carpathian Alliance, and it was fucking awesome. It was terribly cold for August and the sound in most of the concerts was horrible, but the general atmosphere and especially the location were amazing. The place was a ski resort called Zahar Berkut, in a village called Volosyanka, few hours away from Lviv. Other bands in the line-up were Arkona from Russia, Týr, Carpathian Forest (in an actual Carpathian forest!), Inquisition, Dark Funeral (who gave me a lift to the hotel the first night) and a few smaller ones, including a then-promising but eventually short-lived Ukrainian act called Viter. You can check some of my photos and videos here, here, here and here.

Moon TV - April 2002

This is Moonsorrow's first ever appearance on TV. It features the premiere of their first video clip, "Sankarihauta", and an interview in Finnish (subtitles are welcome!) with Marko and Ville. Originally broadcasted on April 15th 2002. More info in chapter 3.2 of the Unofficial Moonsorrow Biography:

More info in English
Más información en castellano



(Note: the pitch in the first half -the videoclip- has been raised in order to avoid copyright issues.)

Hall of Metal / November 2011

LINK


Recorded in Bilbao during the Dead Tyrants Tour, November 2011.

[Most questions written by me!]

After some festivals, this is your first club tour in Spain, right? How were the gigs so far? Better than expected, worse, different?

Ville: It was great. The Spanish audience is very lively, they have always welcomed us well.

You're introducing some songs from the latest album. How has the response been, both in the tour in general and in Spain?

Mitja: Sometimes you can really tell that people know the new songs. In Spain I think people don't know them so well. I can tell that especially the first song of the album, people are more listening to it, not knowing what's going on, but the last song usually works very well.

Ville: Actually that was a big surprise for me, how well it fits the situation. People always seem to go a bit nuts during the last song, even though it's slow and it's not the hit song kind. But people seem to like it a lot.

I saw you in Madrid for the first time and you didn't have blood! It looked very much like ink! What happened?

Mitja: Hmm. Maybe someone put too much water in the mixture... [laughs]. We have to use fake blood, we cannot use real one on the tour, it would get so bad in a couple of days, so we have to make it from artificial blood and put some water in it, and sometimes you make it too loose. That's what happened. But it also depends on the light: if there's red light on the stage you won't see it at all, if there's blue light it shows very well.

Did you choose Crimfall as support yourselves?

Mitja: Yes.

Ville: Yes and no. They were one of those that were offered, and in the end we didn't really choose it, because it was the agency's decision, but we voted for them, we can say that.

And why Crimfall, why did you vote for them?

Ville: They are cool guys and deserve to be in a long tour. It's their first tour, and immediately five weeks long... It should educate them pretty well!

I also noticed this is the first tour you're not playing Pakanajuhla...

Ville: ...and not the last. [laughs]

Why did you make this decision? It was omnipresent in the past.

Ville: It's kind of haunting us. It's not a song that we like that much. But I can understand why people like that song, there are the elements, but for us it's a bit too different from what we want to do nowadays.

And you are playing Sankaritarina in every show! This wasn't so usual either, no?

Ville: We found out that this song really works, both for us and the audience. The audience always sings along, feels like being in a footbal match, and we all enjoy playing it, it's a really fun song to play.

And now you started to play it in its full length.

Both: Yes.

Ville: You can blame Marko for that. He wanted to have the ending. And I think it fits.

Which are your favourite and unfavourite songs?

Mitja: It changes all the time. I would say my favourite song at the moment would be something from the album Verisäkeet, maybe Jotunheim; or something from the new album, right now the last song, Kuolleiden Maa.

Ville: My absolute favourite has to be Kuolleiden Maa. There's something personal in it, especially when playing live it gives me an extra kick of energy, and it's definitely my favourite of all the songs we have done.

And the one you like least?

Ville: You can't really discriminate between your own kids... But I can still say it's Pakanajuhla. [laughs]

Mitja: Yeah, I would say it's Pakanajuhla. I'm also a little disappointed on the song Kaiku, because it didn't turn out as good as we wanted. [Ville makes signs of agreement.] It works, but it could be a little bit better. Some of the vocal lines are a bit off... If we had more time it would be better.

Ville: We kind of wanted to have an authentic five-guys-around-the-bonfire feeling, very simplistic, but I think we overdid it and it's a bit too naked now.

Cameraman: I just wanted to say that the album in my t-shirt [Hävitetty] is the best in the world.

Mitja: Travis Smith is the guy who designed the cover artwork, responsible for this image too.

The next question is an angry one: Y U NO HUUTO???

Ville: [laughs] You're not the first one to ask that!

I'm sure!

Ville: [turns to Mitja] What is the answer?

Mitja: Marko! That fucking asshole refused to play it.

Really?

Mitja: Yes.

Ville: Angry question, angry answer. I don't really know what is the exact reason, but...

Mitja: Some people in the band think it's not a good live song. I think it would be a great live song. But there are very big differences in opinion about this subject and about this song in general. I would definitely want to play it. Some people don't... We also didn't have much time to make it work and rehearse it for playing live, it's a huge challenge.

Ville: It's a very complicated song to learn for live situations, and we would have to make some new arrangements for the keyboards and stuff. But I can promise that in 2021, in the 10th anniversary of this album, we will play that song. [laughs]

Hopefully before that!

Mitja: If we're alive!

My perception may be wrong here, but I think you grew exponentially after the year 2007. You had some albums already, but after that, your popularity increased a lot. Am I right?

Mitja: That's very hard to say. If you look at the record sales, they have been pretty much the same since 2007.

What about attendance to concerts and everything?

Mitja: That's hard to say, because we have done so many of these Paganfest tours where there are loads of bands, and you get to play for 2000 people in a night every night, but that doesn't tell where you are exactly, only where the package is. But yes, there has been a lot of increase, especially because we have toured a lot in America lately, and there you can really say if... We were there for the first time in 2005, and the increase from there on has been very big.

When I started listening to you, I searched some videos on Youtube and there were three and a half pages of videos; now there are more than fifty, and this happened in very few years.

Ville: Yes, because of pocket cameras and stuff became so popular nowadays, everyone has them!

Well, but also the original songs...

Ville: Of course, yes. People seem to... There's a loyal bunch of people who really seem to care about the band, that bunch also seems to be growing, and it's really nice.

You have recently been in China, in four cities, Moonsorrow 4 - 0 Metallica...

Everybody: [laughter, laughter, all I hear or see is laughter]

...tell us about China, how you got there, how come their first Western band is such a difficult one to listen to.

Ville: I could probably write a book about it. It was... an experience, definitely. Something completely different.

But why do you think that, instead of getting AC/DC or any more popular, easy-listening band , they took you?

Mitja: It always depends on the promoters, and there's one promoter in Taiwan, Soundforce Entertainment or something, who has been bringing metal bands to China: Lamb of God, Arch Enemy, what else... I'm not sure... They already wanted us some time ago, and now it finally came true. It was one of the most interesting experiences ever, to play for a crowd who hasn't seen so many metal bands...

Ville: ...and to play for a crowd who has never seen a band from outside of China.

Mitja: Yeah, in Harbin and Changchun.

Ville: No, in Harbin they had, some years ago there was an Italian band, so we were actually the second non-Chinese band to play there.

Mitja: And it was very hard to know what to expect, but when the intro started and the crowd started to sing along the melodies we just knew that it was going to be great.

Ah, they knew the songs and all?

Mitja: Yes, yes.

Ville: This is the point where I'm going to make an anti-anti-piracy statement, because without them having access to illegal downloads they wouldn't know the songs. I'm pretty sure that no one sells our CDs in China at all.

Maybe by mail?

Ville: Yes, of course, a few people, but the import CDs are so expensive and they don't have so much money there.

I think it was you who said that you wanted to be like an antithesis of folk metal, with different pictures, not dressed like Vikings and everything... Tell me about it.

Mitja: We kind of became one, because we never... We have those in the early days in the pictures, but we didn't take it to the stage imagery. When the trend went to where everybody was wearing furs and harnesses and looking like knights, we weren't so interested in that any more. When we started we were pretty young anyway, and we really liked having all these swords and stuff, playing with the idea, but then we realized that... When Turisas and all our friends, they did their ways... we decided that maybe we should go somewhere completely different.

Ville: Also because musically we always kind of made our own path. All the albums are different. We didn't choose to be folk metal, people just put us in the box. I mean, it is folk metal, but not in the way most people understand it.

When you changed your image, you also changed your music: in the first three albums, the songs are very epic, we are warrior kings, bla bla, but then they got darker. It's a very big difference suddenly.

Ville: It's quite easy to say now, when time has passed, that Verisäkeet was actually a conscious counter-action to all this folk metal thing. At that point we wanted to separate ourselves from it  as much as possible, and go back to the roots, because our demos are quite much black metal, more than this Viking thing. So we wanted to take a step back, or a few, and see where that would take us.

You also talked about filming a DVD. Have you been filming songs or something in this tour?

Ville: [points at Mitja] He's always filming.

Mitja: We have material coming all the time. It's just that when we can put it out, that's a different thing. We still need a proper concert to be filmed in a proper way. We have been planning it for two years and it's still on the way. We hope to do it in the winter, but we never know.

Ville: Mañana. [laughs]

Aren't you filming individual songs?

Mitja: Yes we are.

Ville: They can make some clips, but...

Mitja: From the tour it's going to be pretty much just clips of certain songs, then some on-the-road material, and then again some clips. Because that's not a proper way to make a DVD, just with two cameras. I don't want to release anything like that.

Ville: The bottom line is that we have to put a lot of money in it to film a proper concert.

Mitja: And it has to be the perfect timing.

Ville: We have to hire a crew of... I don't know how many people, you know better.

Mitja: Well, pretty much... a huge crew.

What about parallel bands? You had some, right? Vere, Section 8 or something like that...

Ville: Yes, I have some projects going on.

With Mathias from Finntroll, right?

Ville: Yes, but we just did that one demo and after that we've been talking that we should make another one. We both have songs, but we never find the time, because when I'm not touring, he is touring.

Has that demo been released?

Ville: Only in the internet. On Myspace. myspace.com/vereofficial [it's actually myspace.com/officialvere].

Finally I wanted to talk about the fact that you never take pre-recorded material onstage. In your albums you have a lot of things going on, but on the stage you never... Why?

Ville: That is one thing that we won't compromise. I think everyone in the band agrees: there are no backing tracks.

Do you limit yourselves in the studio not to do things that you won't be able to take live?

Ville: No. In the studio we do exactly what we want, and that is the fun part of it, because then we have to challenge ourselves again to make the songs work live. But fundamentally, when we play live we want to be a rock band with five members and do as much as we can with five members.

I've heard that sometimes Henri plays in Finland with Finntroll and they have two keyboards on the stage. Haven't you thought of doing the same thing with Moonsorrow when you play in Finland?

Mitja: Actually we have... not maybe...

Ville: Not two keyboards, but three guitars would be an interesting idea.

You've never done it yet, right?

Both: No.

Mitja: But we might make a DVD with three guitars, and if it works out... Depends on how we see it, how we want to make it. We really have to talk about it and sit down and try it. Three guitars will also be very challenging to make it tight enough for a DVD release, and we have to rearrange everything in that sense. There's no point in three guitars playing the same riff and it all sounding mushy.

Ville: There are a lot of options and arrangements.

That was all from me. Anything you want to add?

Ville: We have to thank the Spanish promoters for finally fixing us here for more shows than just one.

 

Transcribed on 18·II·2021. I should have waited three more days and do it on the 10th anniversary of the album. I doubt anyone cares anyway. Or anybody ever reads this.