SOURCE – Congratulations with the new album Sunholy, because it is really amazing! Can you tell something about those songs, please?
Aapeli Kivimäki (Guitars) – Thank you, glad to hear you like it! Once again it took a few years to get to this point, but we are very happy how Sunholy turned out!
Henry Hämäläinen (Vocals) – Glad you enjoyed the album, thank you! The album revolves around a fanatic cult worshiping their leader who is seen as the image of the sun.
In reality the whole cult was a hoax of a madman that ended hundreds of lives both during his reign and in the end of their era with the mass suicide of the remaining cult.
Lyrics are told in multiple perspectives and they switch between and even during songs. There’s the condemning narrator presenting his judgment, oblivious followers adoring their “god of sun”, escapees of the cult in their shocked realization of the insanity and even the once loving parents holding their newborn “sun” not knowing that they would grow up to be the end of countless innocent lives.
SOURCE – Now that you have some distance from writing and recording the latest album, Sunholy do you hear it differently?
Aapeli Kivimäki (Guitars) – It usually takes me some time before I can enjoy a new piece I’m involved with. This time was no different – Had to take a little break from the new songs, and now they sound great!
Henry Hämäläinen (Vocals) – Got to agree on this one! When you’re making an album and especially some music videos for it, you are way too involved with the songs on a daily basis so it is definitely necessary to distance yourself a bit before you can actually enjoy them. Now that we’ve had some time off of the creation process, the songs are starting to sound nice again and I at least am very pleased with the end result!
SOURCE – Nowadays in every album the person responsible for the sound production is strongly mentioned especially when he is a known one. How important do you think is the producer to the sound of a band?
Aapeli Kivimäki (Guitars) – Well of course the producer plays an important part in the end result. And that is also the reason why we are somewhat picky about who we work with. With Sunholy we spent a lot of time going through different options and trying to get a grip on how the songs would maybe sound with each producer. In the end its always a leap of faith when you decide to go with someone new. We chose Chris Edrich, had not worked with him earlier, and we could’t be happier with the result!
SOURCE – As you make more and more albums, does it get more difficult to break new musical ground and do new things?
Erno Räsänen (Drums) – For us it’s never difficult. We’ve always been eager to “break rules” and explore new things. Sunholy is quite different from previous albums but it’s just a natural development instead of something that “just had to be done”.
SOURCE – With the current sad state of the music industry, how do you determine expectations for an album?
Erno Räsänen (Drums) – The state is what it is. We were quite sure there will be a lot of mixed feelings amongst the audience. New, much more versatile singer and very big variety in songs throughout the album. So far the feedback has been as expected. Some of the older fans are like “wtf?! What is this shit?” but luckily, the majority of people understand that Shade Empire is not a band that makes the same album time after time.
SOURCE – What do you think you’ve learned the most in all of your years involved in music regarding what you want to achieve musically – as well as what success means to you that may differ from how others view success at this point?
Erno Räsänen (Drums) – Maybe it’s perseverance to do your own thing. Especially nowadays when there are new bands coming from everywhere and publishing new stuff without paying attention to quality. Seems to be it’s more about the quantity instead of quality. And that’s quite fucked up. We will never fall into that.
SOURCE – How Finland is responding to the war in Ukraine? Is there anything that individuals should do to prepare, for example in the event of possible attacks against Finland?
Aapeli Kivimäki (Guitars) – The most obvious thing is that after decades of not joining NATO, and rather just “keeping the NATO option open” as we used to say, we finally joined the alliance. After the Russian attack on Ukraine last year it took Finns only a month or two to change our minds and apply for NATO membership.
In general I would say Finns aren’t too worried about our country being attacked. We are gonna just stay chill, keep supporting Ukraine and hope Russians are thrown out of Ukraine as soon as possible. The unjust brutality against a sovereign peaceful country and its people has to come to an end on Ukrainian terms.
SOURCE – What are the biggest misconceptions that foreigners have about Finland?
Aapeli Kivimäki (Guitars) – No polar bears or penguins here. Only darkness and heavy metal.
Contacts:
Shade Empire
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- Photo Credit: Oliver Konig