SOURCE – What should the fans expect of this new album Chaotic Nation and how would you describe it to the fans that have not listened to it yet?
Aksu Hanttu (Drums) – It is definitely our most diverse album. There is a lot of nuances. There is rocking stuff, metal stuff, electric stuff, quite a lot keyboards, tough guitar riffs and of course full of melodies. From the songs you can find a lot of new colours but there is still some old Entwine as well.
SOURCE – Will the pieces and parts you didn’t use for this Chaotic Nation album be used in the future, or do you throw them away?
Aksu Hanttu (Drums) – Hard to say it now. We don’t throw them away but usually we start the new album from the fresh ground and we don’t think about what left over from the previous album. But from this session there left quite a lot of good stuff over so who knows.
SOURCE – What song on the Chaotic Nation album do you feel is the strongest and best represents where the band is now?
Aksu Hanttu (Drums) – I think it’s the first single Plastic World. At least if I should pick one favorite song from this album, then it probably would be this one. There is quite many different sides on this song and I feel it’s an interesting one.
SOURCE – What have you learned from the experiences of your six previous albums? What kind of impact did these experiences have on your new album?
Aksu Hanttu (Drums) – At least this time we decided to give the necessary time for the writing process what it needed and didn’t want to rush with anything. That was also one reason why it took that long with this album. But if we would rush, then the result would be a far away from this what it is now. At least I found out that quite early, that this album just need more time than it usually can take. But I think that, for the next album we are already more ready in every way, so I’m quite sure it’s gonna be easier one.
Sure we have also learned a lot of small things about everything concerning the album process which of course helped us this time.
SOURCE – With the state of the music business today, how do you determine your expectations for an album?
Aksu Hanttu (Drums) – Well, we did our best and if somebody else likes the album as well and buy the record it’s more than cool. Of course we hope that the album sells as many copies as it’s possible but we can’t expect too much because it is tough times in the music business right now. In general I really hope that people keep buying the physical copies of all albums from all kind of bands, that there will stay the reason for record companies to still make those. I’m the one who really appreciate the physical copies of albums. I’m not into those digital albums and I don’t have the Spotify either.
SOURCE – The album will probably ‘leak’ online fairly soon. Do you care if your fans, or potential fans, download your album before it’s released?
Aksu Hanttu (Drums) – Yes, I do care. I just don’t understand why it should get before the release date. That’s why the album have the release date. And most of release dates are world wide, so it’s gonna be out everywhere at the same day. I mean, at least back in the days the release date was the day which you really waited for. And when the day came it was the greatest moment of the week. Nowadays there is always a chance to pre-listen the whole album in advance from some media. I have one friend who doesn’t want to pre-listen the albums which he is going to buy anyway. He pre-order it right away when it’s possible and then he just wait the big day when the CD comes and then enjoy all about it. I really appreciate that style, although I really understand that thing behind the pre-listenings as well.
SOURCE – With how much the music industry has changed over the past few years, where it’s now all about streaming and Spotify and downloads instead of actual sales, as an artist how do you even determine if an album is successful or not these days?
Aksu Hanttu (Drums) – Haha, yeah that’s the tough one. Maybe nowadays the success determined from the live shows. Like how many people you can get to the audience to watch your show and that way. But still I believe that the actual sales and especially the sales of physical copies determine the success of the album in the way or another. At least in metal and rock scene. I have heard that in Finland and in metal and rock scene, people still buy more physical copies than digital releases. That’s cool! Hope it’s also true.
SOURCE – Have you experienced any differences in how the foreign press treats you and the band compared to how native press and media treats and writes about you?
Aksu Hanttu (Drums) – There is not that huge differences. Anymore. Sometimes finnish media just keep the focus on to comparing some upcoming bands to some other already older and more famous bands. That’s really annoying because it can go also a little bit too far. That happened for us as well around 2001 when the Gone album was released. At then there was a quite big difference between foreign and native media. But after years and several albums it seemed that we found our own place also in front of the finnish media.
SOURCE – Do you have any plans of a South America and Brazil tour?
Aksu Hanttu (Drums) – Not yet but we would be very interested about it. As usual, it depends of the local promoters. If people want us to come there, then hell yeah we come! Let’s see and hope that will happen.
SOURCE – What can we expect as far as new horizons for Entwine?
Aksu Hanttu (Drums) – Soon we start touring in Finland and hopefully after that we continue the tour also outside of Finland. Let’s see how the things will go. There is no plans about the next 8th album release yet but I feel that the Chaotic Nation is a good “new start” for the band and I don’t see this would be our last album. Definitely not. Now we will enjoy about the upcoming gigs and after that it would be a time to plan more about the future.
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