Finntroll (2000)

Hello there. This is Somnium (guitars) from Finntroll answering your questions. Ok, let’s get into the business then…

1 – Hail! Hope everything is well with you! Tell me, how has been the reaction of the media and fans to your sound? Any concert in mind? What is a Finntroll concert? Are you planning some outside Finland?
-Everything’s fine right now, we’ve just finished the mixings of our second album, “Jaktens Tid”, and we’re very satisfied with it. Reactions from our debut, “Midnattens Widunder”, were great. We got huge loads of good feedback from all over the world. As for gigs, we’ve played about 40 of them since the release of the debut, one of them was in Party.San open air in Germany. It fucking ruled! I just loved Germany, and we’re going back there this summer also. Hmm, how could I describe our live appearance? Full of energy, frenzy and madness, I guess… Playing live is the thing that I enjoy the most in this business.

2- Could you give us a glimpse about Finntroll’s members? Was it hard to find them? I now that Somnium and Katla were the first ones that envisioned Finntroll... What is your background in music? Have you or do you all play in some other bands?
-When Katla and I started Finntroll, we weren’t thinking about adding more members to it, as it was more or less a strange project for us. But after out demo and the deal with Spikefarm we began to look for more people to join our ranks. Most of the guys were found among old friends and were pretty easy to lure in. All of us have and have had other bands too; I play also guitar in Impaled Nazarene, Katla and Skrymer have this stoner rock project, Trollhorn has a shit load of bands, from which Moonsorrow is probably the most important one for him. B.Dominator plays in Rapture (Tundra also beats his bass in this one) and Shape of Despair.

3- Will you be always drunk in your rehearshal room so to create more great songs as you seemed to in your debut cd? Hehehe
-Heh, this time we concentrated more on song writing than we did last time. New songs still have that frenzied, drunken athmosphere that the old ones had. Altogether our new album is far more tighter, heavier and weirder than our first one. To put it short: far more better.

4 – How the deal with Spikefarm came into the limelight? Will you release any more cds for them?
-I gave our demo to Sami Tenetz soon after it was out and he liked it and offered us a deal, simple as that. Second one will also come through Spikefarm, and after that we’ll start looking for a better deal.

5 - Are you completely satisfyed with the recording? Was it hard over there or didn’t you encountered any problems? When will you enter a studio again?
–We’re quite proud of our firstborn, we had played together just few months before we entered the studio. Studio session included more or less heavy drinking, and I guess that it was only thing which you could call a problem of any kind. Then there were few fights between me and Katla, nothing major, just minor fist fights. We recorded our new one in December and mixed it in January.

6 – Tell us about the concept behind Finntroll... Have you always wanted to do a project like that? Are youngsters in Finland introduced to folk music at an early stage?
-I guess that we don’t have a single concept that could be easily pointed out, well, we have lot’s of trolls, but I wouldn’t call that a concept, heh! We have a very antichristian attitude in our music and lyrics, and in a bigger scale, we deal with heathen ideologies. The good thing with Finntroll is that there are no restrictions of any kind for us. We can do just the type of music that we want to, fool around with different music styles and ideas. And folk music is a great area to dwell in. I wouldn’t say that our youth is that much introduced into folk music, but if you like it, there are lot’s of folk bands to listen to.

7 – Your lyrics are in swedish although you’re from Finland... Why is this? Will you ever think to sing in english so to be more understood by a majority of the underground followers?
-There is a small minority of swedish speaking finns here in Finland, and Katla belongs to this group. When we were writing our first song, we just thought to give it a try. And it fitted into the music perfectly, so we decided to continue this way, and always will.

8 - Tell us more about the tales portrayed in each song ( I, as an horror maniac was greatly inclined to them; hehehe )... Do they come to you through imagination or are they a transcription of old folkish tales as Amorphis try to project?
-They are pure fantasy, although some text might have some historical event behind them, but they are just stories made up by Katla.

9 – What were your influences in metal and in classical music that made Finntroll what it is today? Letting the brilliant songs out of the matter the intro and the outro are simply fucking great...
-Whoa, I hate this question. I don’t think that I could point out a single source of influence, as I get influenced by everything that I see, feel or hear. I think that I’ll let anyone decide by themselves what could have influenced our music.

10 – Will Mistress Helga appear in more of your releases? Playing accordeon I mean... Hehehe Do you intend that Finntroll stays always brutal and melodic ( excelency ) or do you see it gaining more influences from softer ( mainstream ) musical styles? Plans for the future...
-Mistress Helga will always stand by our sides… Brutality is one thing that will always play a part in our stuff. But I’m not a clairvoyant, so I can’t tell how we’ll sound like after let’s say ten years or so. I’d guess it’s pretty safe to say that we’ll always stay wicked, fucked and frenzied…

11 – Even if yours isn’t a great Cd cover, I liked it a lot... It induces us to think: “ Beware of what lurks in the shadows!!! Beware of Finntroll!!! “ Who came with the idea for the cover and the whole lay out?
-It was done by Skrymer and Katla and turned out the way it did by an accident…

12 - What do you think about the majesty in horror? Could the underground nowadays be easily shocked ( amazed ) or what’s in shadows isn’t horrofying enough after two decades of raw, crushing, superb metal?
-I guess we did somewhat amaze people when we included humppa into metal… But I’d say that it’s damn hard to come up with something new and “shocking”, if you wish. Almost everything has been tried out. But luckily from time to time some new bands with fresh and original ideas pop up. But plain horror as a concept does not affect me that much, although I enjoy the soundtracks of horror movies.

13 – Well, as you may be fed up with all these questions I’m going away once more to the shadows... No! Don’t need any light! It’s warm over there! Just your final words...
I wish you the best and that you may give us some more majestic pieces of art as your debut cd! Until another moment...
-Thank you for this enjoyable interview, hopefully we’ll see you all in a tour some day. Our second album “Jaktens Tid” will be out in April, go and get it!!!