SOURCE – Congratulations on releasing your new album Aamunkoi. What was the creative process like for this album?
Henri Lammintausta (Guitars) – Thanks! The creative process was somewhat different compared to all the previous albums. Firstly, all the songs were composed during the pandemic years. I suppose the isolation and desperation of those times may have influenced the songwriting in a way. Secondly, we got together more as a collective to come up with arrangements for the songs – and for the first time in our history, we asked a producer to help us with pre-production (shoutout to Hiili Hiilesmaa for his invaluable tips on how to make the songs that much better!). Other than that, it was business as usual: a rough demo of usually a full song comes first, which then goes through multiple stages of modifications by us individually or as a group, and at some point during this whole shebang Vesa does his magic with lyrics and vocal arrangements. “Kallioilla” was an exception, as Vesa came up with the music and lyrics simultaneously.
SOURCE – You guys sing in Finnish, so I’m not going to ask you to dissect the whole album, but generally speaking, what sorts of things are you singing about on this album?
Henri Lammintausta (Guitars) – I guess you could say the album has an “arc” of sorts. It kicks off with a more cynical and despairing mood, lamenting the flaws of humankind – but during the course of the album the songs (lyric-wise) get a little more hopeful. “Aamunkoi” means “The Dawn”, which in this context refers to a personal reawakening: one can go through such despair and heartbreak in life, yet still be able to rise from the ashes even stronger than before. The album’s artwork really does a good job of capturing the aforementioned theme.
SOURCE – You’re carrying the legacy of writing in Finnish, a language most of your fans don’t speak – why do you think fans still have such a connection to your songs?
Henri Lammintausta (Guitars) – I think our music just speaks for itself. Our songs are pretty much always instrumentals initially, so there’s a lot of thought behind making everything as catchy as possible even before the vocals are added. And, even if you don’t understand the lyrics you can capture the feeling that is behind Vesa’s every word as he sings them. We also provide English translations of the lyrics within the album booklet and on our website, so that fans who don’t speak Finnish can look them up if they wish to get a deeper understanding of what’s going on.
SOURCE – Aamunkoi challenges expectations of what metal should sound like. How did making such a non-traditional metal album challenge you as an artist?
Henri Lammintausta (Guitars) – Of course making albums is always challenging, no matter what. That said, I think our greatest strengths as a band are our versatility and the ability to keep composing music very naturally. By that I mean the fact that we can always come up with music that sounds like us, without putting too much thought into current music trends or stressing about genre restrictions, etc. We just do what we do, and what matters most is we can stand 100% behind every song we put out. If other people enjoy our music too, we consider that a bonus.
SOURCE – How is it to go into the music business as an independent band from Finland?
Henri Lammintausta (Guitars) – It can be difficult to get recognized by a larger audience with our kind of music. We started back in the Autumn of 2008, which makes this project 15 years of age soon. It has been a slow process, but especially our third and previous album “Sateet palata saavat” (2019) was in many ways a breakthrough moment for us. All we can do is hope that “Aamunkoi” gets us even further! At least we’re very confident with the outcome. And, well… although getting more recognition is great and all that, we started as a bunch of teenagers having fun and even if it’s more professional and serious now, we’re still just a group of friends doing what we love.
SOURCE – What effects have social media and streaming services had on his music sharing and consumption?
Henri Lammintausta (Guitars) – The music scene in general – and especially the metal scene in Finland – is very saturated, so it’s hard to push through all that as a smaller band. Social media in that sense is both a blessing and a curse: aside from gigging, it is pretty much the only way to keep people informed of our existence. On the other hand, it is a lot of work to keep a constant presence there and to promote one’s music. Due to the saturation of music on the market and the availability of streaming services, people don’t really buy albums that much anymore. You take what you can get, so we have always tried to put a lot of emphasis on streaming services and Bandcamp.
SOURCE – What kind of strategy does the label use to promote their music?
Henri Lammintausta (Guitars) – In our case, we as a band are always focusing on our target audiences which then affects all actions we do promotion-wise. We naturally discuss these things and bring up our ideas and conclusions with Lifeforce, which we then enact. Together we plan and decide what is going to happen, on which days (also possibly at what time of day), and on what platforms before the album is actually out – and along the way, we monitor the performance of the actions and adjust the promotion accordingly. The promotion of music is much more than just releasing new singles before the actual album, hence we consider what else we can also offer to our fans, whether it is videos, merchandise, music playlists, or such. All these things have been taken into consideration once we start implementing the promotional actions. Ultimately the success of promotion is evaluated at some point after the album has been released, and we have statistics and numbers on how the release went in the end.
SOURCE – Any parting words to your fans?
Henri Lammintausta (Guitars) – Thanks for sticking up with us through all these years! It hasn’t gone unnoticed. We hope our newest offering will continue tickling your fancy.
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