MK: Far too good if you ask me! =) All the medias have praised the album a lot and we have gained very good feedback even from the biggest metal medias. Reviews have announced us to be something like a new wave of melodeathmetal or something.. Metal Hammer magazine for example featured us on their issue “New Wave of European Death Metal” with bands like Opeth, Soilwork, In Flames, Haunted.. I guess that the album was also the album of the month in Rock Hard Germany and something like that… That`s quite cool indeed as we`re still the bunch of lazy dudes.

Satisfied? Hell yeah, the year 2003 have been very successful to us and we have achieved a far more limelight than I had ever expected on behalf of “Spirits..” album… Now it finally seems that our thing is heading somewhere outside our training bunkhouse walls!

Infact the band was founded because we heard the In Flames´ “Subterranean” album and Dark Tranquillity`s “The Gallery” and all the other Swedish death metal things.. So, I guess our goals went wrong as OG turned to be something original.. hehee! But our style and sound have refined a lot from the early days to be far more faster and heavier stuff nowadays… And that`s a fact that you don`t want to do the same stuff over and over again..unless you ain`t playing in a band called AC/DC that won`t work in a long interval.

As I said on the last question In Flames and Dark Tranquillity had a huge impact to me in the beginning as also other bands on Swedish death metal scene as for example At The Gates, Edge Of Sanity, Katatonia, Entombed… Nowadays I listen a lot bands like Soilwork, Opeth, Emperor, Annihilator, Death, Devin Townsend`s material and basic 80`s heavy stuff… All dudes in OG-gang listens also a lot to non-metal stuff, so the influences comes from a large field. Some review summed OG quite nicely; if you put At The Gates, Death, Judas Priest and Katatonia together there comes OG.. So our name describes our thing very well; Omnium Gatherum = peculiar mixture, miscellaneous collection/gathering, freak circus etc. Those are characterizing well our crews musical and also non-musical, personal side… The name also means quite the same than the name Mötley Crüe, we founded that out lately…

It differed that way from our former “writing sessions” that now also our second guitarist Harri composed two songs from the album (Writhen & Cure A Wound…) as formerly I had composed all the stuff, and also the whole band was arranging stuff this time so it gives more alternation and versatility to our sound. There are also few re-arranged old songs on “SAAL” from our demo era, for example “The Perfumed Garden” is from the year 1998 and from our “gardens, temples…this hell” demo..

I guess the main reason is really that the quality and amount of Finnish metal bands have increased a lot in the 90`s. Tarot and Stone are really really cool older bands and actually I think that they are still the two all-time best Finnish bands. That`s also true that the internet and “piratism” have given a large amount of popularity and availability to Finnish bands. In our case, I guess that our album is better available in internet music downloading programs than on record stores.. Our label Rage Of Achilles have also noticed the quality and potential of Finnish metal; the label have signed many Finnish bands in last year, for example such great bands as Elenium, Amoral, Kiuas, Manitou, Fall Of The Leafe etc… Sweden have been so long ahead Finnish music industry so I guess now it`s the time to respond to them! Hehee..

Yes and no, I mean here is huge subscription to metal at the moment and metal is more popular than ever, the bands are on national charts etc. , but that leads naturally to oversupply. But I guess if you are a good band (…as OG is, hehee) it is a good time to be a metal band in Finland…

We`ll see, ya never know. However, at the moment our new stuff sounds more aggressive and heavier than before, we are heading more and more to that “good ol´ death sound”… So, you ain`t gonna find any poppytrendyclean-vocals-on-choruses and definitely NOT synthesizer solos… We are still going towards HEAVY sounds! But I don`t want to draw any certain limits to make our music, If we wanna do trance or country album under the name Omnium Gatherum then we do it. But I guess we ain`t gonna do those things at least in the short run… =)

We use keyboards for atmosphere, then here`s Children of Bodom who use synth for Nintendo-like synthleads and for example Moonsorrow who uses keys for folk influence.. I don`t know, maybe it`s a coincidence that Finnish bands like to use keys… Our keys are quite minimalistic and they just paint the atmosphere in the background.

So far we have only played shows in Finland but in December we are doing our first abroad gigs as we are heading to neighborcountry Estonia. We had a small Finnish tour at spring after the release of “SAAL” and have played few shows here and there after that. I guess the most memorable show have been the sold-out gig at Nosturi, Helsinki when we were supporting Children Of Bodom.

Maybe that Children Of Bodom, or Diablo or Zyklon…

Not in the near future because at the moment it would be really impossible to organise due that we are quite small band on a quite small label… Hopefully we can at least come to play few shows to The States in coming years as we would be very eager to kick some ass and show Finnish rage and boasting to Yankees.. =)

We have about half of the material ready to the new OG album, which is planned and scheduled to record at June/July `04. At the moment it seems that the new album will be a little more of that “old-school assault”, pure battering heavy stuff with OG melodic touch… Right now there are also plan to make a “live collage” video from the song “Deathwhite” and the tapes are on the cutting table. We made also a promo video from the song “Writhen” while ago, you can check it out for example from our netsite, however the mpeg there on our site is quite small and not so good quality... That video is also released on a few DVD sompilations.

Check out our homesite at: http://omniumgatherum.cjb.net and buy our album, and prepare to a new OG metallic assault at late 2004! CHEERS! …and listen to AC/DC or die!