A: Thank you!

J-V: Much greetings to you all.

A: Hmmm…Metal, great metal, fucking great metal and the fucking best. Was that four? I’ll give a sixth or the tenth. Bloody brilliant!

A: We are feeling excellent right now. Of course the record isn’t that new to us anymore, because it was mastered already four months ago, in November. It’s nice to have it finally out there.

J-V: Of course we are excited to see how the new stuff is received. Luckily we can finally start touring again, because that is the best thing about this whole thing.

J-V: Absolutely!

A: Yes!

Why?

A: Because it has our best songs to date.

J-V: Sounds too simple, but it is just true.

A: Well, the song is about dumb people, to be blunt. So definitely not about us boys in the band, because we are a bunch of damned rocket scientists *laughs*. You can usually find these ignorant persons from every corner bar in any given town. Of course they are everywhere but bars and pubs seem to have strange concentrations of these dummies. It’s about the kind of people that aren’t willing to accept you as who you are, how you look, etc. and say it out straight to your face. They cross this very delicate line by blurting things out in the open. Of course we all dislike other people, I know I do, but I don’t cross the line by getting in some ones face with it. I keep it to myself. I don’t seek conflict with a purpose, where you’d be head to head with some clown.

A: The lyrics themselves are about how hard it is to get some label off yourself once you have received one. If you are stuck with some kind of label, that’s what you will be remembered for. For example, if you play metal for years and then switch to jazz, people will still know you from that certain thing. It’s like a shadow that never leaves you. As a matter of fact the song is about our band. I haven’t met an interview yet that would not have had any mentions about Iron Maiden. Do you have any questions concerning Maiden? I would assume so.

Well, actually, there are not. Would you have wanted some because we can improvise?

A: *laughs* No, no, no need for them. It’s great actually have an interview like this for once.

J-V: It was a natural progression for us and a necessary change for the band. It just felt good to head down a heavier path and in retrospect it was definitely the right decision.

A: During recordings there was a feeling that we had a lot of suppressed anger waiting to burst out. We were talking among the band that after the gigging for Elegies had been completed, we would start writing more aggressive stuff. It was indeed natural because when we are live on stage, our old songs have sounded much harder than on record. The riffs started turning meaner and so did the lyrics.

A: Our drummer Jarno is still the main songwriter. He makes all the music at home, sends me mp3s, that may have some suggestions for vocal melodies done with guitar. When we head to rehearsals, a song is usually 90-percent done, so we don’t need to do that much arranging at that point. If there was an outside producer, he could possibly have a lot to say about the songs, mut if we produce an album ourselves, it doesn’t change much once it’s brought into rehearsals. If it works, it stays till the end. If not, then we just take the parts that we like, scrap the rest and build a new tune.

A: There really wasn’t much left outside the final product. Even parts that didn’t really with the complete picture, were moulded to do so. So in the end, I could say nothing was left out but used accordingly.

A: For this album, the lyrics became much more personal. Then it is much easier to stand behind the stuff that you wrote, if compared to completely fictional stories. Of course, the new album is full of stories, but they were built through personal experiences. For example, you might have heard something that happened and that thing was built through ones own mind. What could have happened? There are also more stories about myself and the band as well. It’s much more comfortable to sing stuff like that.

J-V: Looking good. March is spent burning through Finnish clubs, the biggest cities and some smaller ones too. Then in the end April we join Tarot, Finntroll and a couple of other heroes to make a gruelling but fantastic sprint of Europe. 17 gigs in 17 days.

By George, that’s quite the pace. Is your voice shuddering already?

A: Well, it is right now because of a flu, but hopes are up that come April, everything will be in top form. The summer is beginning to look awesome as well, especially the special guest honor that we have warming up for Heaven & Hell at the Helsinki Ice Hall in June. There we will have a wet dream of us all fulfilled. I mean, warming up for Black Sabbath – it just boggles the mind.

A: Personally, I don’t consider it that hard. In the end, you want to play those new songs as much as possible. With some older ones of course, but I don’t think it will be hard.

J-V: This is a good point to consider how nice it would be to have longer playtimes, as then we could cram in more tunes, older ones too. The relations will be seen on stage but we are more pumped up to break out the new material.

J-V: Not really, they are more spontaneous than anything else. Although in hindsight certain moves have been repeating themselves in certain parts of shows without one even noticing it while playing. But there are really no trademarks.

A: I guess you could say that a certain trademark of ours is bumping seriously into eachother during shows. Whenever someone trips over another ones ankles, you know it was choreographed. *laughs* No, in the end it doesn’t pay off to think those things over too much. I think a show can become so phony and plastic that way. It would look in a way too good if you knew every second of what you were going to do on that stage. There has to be spontaneity. It’s a bit hard to explain but I’m sure you get the point.

A: It depends. If youre going to have the crowd sing along and shout like all hell, there better be some people out there. Personally, I don’t see the point of doing the grandiose shout-alongs if there is not a considerable amount of maniacs in the crowd. If there are ten people out there, then what’s the use? Out of those few, five are probably at the wrong bar and the other five are just waiting at the counter to finish their beers in order to get out. Then if the audience is with the show and going crazy, there are plenty of good reasons to have a little crowd-karaoke.

A: Hmm…now, this is not to make fun of anyone, but since natural disasters like earthquakes don’t really happen in Finland, the song could be called Out Of Reach.

Then how about unemployment?

A: Freedom.

How about a horde of porn stars?

A: Freedom II *laughs*

Then nuclear war? Remember, Nuclear Winter has been used.

A: Damn, youre right. Although surely Freedom has been used too…well…damn, why do you ask weird things like these?

Well, I thought that you were bored with Iron Maiden-questions so I made these instead. *laughs*

A: Yeah, youre absolutely right. Tarnation, I cant think of anything about nuclear war. We’ll have to go with Out Of Reach II *laughs*

Well, we will be somewhere out there if it goes kapow. Then, one last topic: choclate pudding.

A: Chocolate pudding? Makes me think of our bass player, who likes junk like that. Puddings, gummi bears and such. I got it! Thin Lizzy!

J-V: Man, that’s a tough one. I’ve never thought of this. Damn, I can’t really say. I enjoy listening to heavy music, but I don’t know what the essence of it really is.

A: To me it is something very ultimate. It is a way of life. It just is. It can’t be put to words. Other things just try to be, but heavy music is.

J-V: Speaking of duels, in the evening we could hold our regular Gandalf vs. Hobbit wrestling match. Our hotel room number is 666 so I think something interesting would be inevitable.

Seriously 666? You didn’t ask for that specific room, admit it?

J-V: No, honestly we didnt. I went alone to the reception to book us in the hotel and the guy at the desk laughed a bit when grabbing the key, and handed me number 666.

A: Otherwise just big greetings to every one reading there. Keep metal alive and kicking. Machine Men is coming your way!

A: Thank you!

J-V: Thank you very much!