SOURCE – Ensiferum has a very defined sound, but there’s always something slightly different with each album. How would you characterize this one?
Petri Lindroos (Vocals, Guitar) – Well, all the albums are done in different studios with different producers/recorders and we always try to get some new amps for guitars and new instruments as well to create slightly different sound. This time the sound came from Anssi Kippo (producer/recorder) through analog mixing console and he did amazing job with that. The sound is warm, very detailed and it has balls like no other. We used a lot of time to get the sound right before we started to record and it was definitely worth the time.
SOURCE – Orchestration and choirs have become a large part of the Ensiferum sound. Who composes the arrangements and how are they performed?
Petri Lindroos (Vocals, Guitar) – Yeah, those have become a big part of our sound and we have the ideas what we then forward to Mr. M. Mustonen who is the man behind of the orchestration and choirs, he does those in his own studio. Orchestrations are done with computers and choirs are live recordings every time.
SOURCE – Did the band find that fitting these type of elements into the sound was relatively easy?
Petri Lindroos (Vocals, Guitar) – Relatively easy is a nice way to say it. We started to use those elements on “From Afar” album and that was little bit going over the top so on the next album we knew better that not to use them that excessive way and on this One Man Army album we pretty much nailed it. Now we know how to balance them in the right way and not over use them anymore.
SOURCE – Your album art is always very distictive. What is your collaboration process with the artist?
Petri Lindroos (Vocals, Guitar) – Same procedure as with orchestrations and choirs, we have the initial idea and after that more ideas and changes are sent by emails until the art work is satisfying. And that process takes about one month.
SOURCE – What are your thoughts about Spotify and the whole fact that you can stream? Now everybody is putting their record out there a week before streaming it online on like iTunes.
Petri Lindroos (Vocals, Guitar) – It’s little bit tricky thing and depends on what side of the table you are sitting on. In other hand it´s great that you can listen the album fully before buying it or you don’t even have to buy it nowadays cos it will be on Spotify.
From the artist point of view that isn’t so great, selling albums in digital form does not support the bands like selling a physical album so we are old-school in that way. It is a good thing but not for the industry itself.
SOURCE – How involved are you and the rest of the band in social media?
Petri Lindroos (Vocals, Guitar) – We try to be as much involved as we just can but it’s a lot of work and like I said, we are old school types so it is new to us but we are slowly getting the hang of it.
SOURCE – The initial response to the album has been almost universally positive. Does that change your expectations for when it is released?
Petri Lindroos (Vocals, Guitar) – Of course it gives a nice and warm feeling for it but we try not to have big expectations, when it´s finally out then we´ll see for real.
SOURCE – With each new album does it get more difficult to choose your set list?
Petri Lindroos (Vocals, Guitar) – oh yes it does. Now we have 6 albums out and we always try to play songs from every album and that means that the set is long so during festival shows, making a set list is a pain in the butt, average length for a song is around 6mins so in 45min set, we can squeeze 7 songs in it and play it really thight.
SOURCE – You recently shot a video for “One Man Army” What was the experience like? What is the concept behind the song and the video?
Petri Lindroos (Vocals, Guitar) – We did this video with Grupa13 (they made “In my sword I trust” video also) and they made the concept and we liked their ideas for it so we flew to Poland for a day to shoot it in a old brewery and just to mention, there was no beer left.
SOURCE – Now that you’re getting older and have families, is it more difficult to pick up and go on tour for months at a time?
Petri Lindroos (Vocals, Guitar) – Yeah, there is that part of life coming for everyone so we need to make hard decisions of what tours we are going to do in the future. Time is valuable and it goes by so fast these days so it´s not easy at all. Thanks a lot guys.
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Ensiferum
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