Amorphis is one of the most important finnish metal band. We had the great opportunity to have a chat with their guitarist, Tomi Koivusaari, about the new album, tour plans and more. Enjoy!
Hello Tomi and thank you for your time! It’s a great pleasure for us to have a chat with you. Ready to start?
TK: Pleasure is all mine, let's start!
Les Fleurs du Mal: On September 4th you’ll release your new album “Under the Red Cloud”. How do you feel about it?
Tomi Koivusaari: I feel very strong about it, I honestly think it is one of our best albums, even that's clichee to say that heh, but really, I'm really happy with songs, production, and sound specially is better than ever before. It was also great to work with our producer Jens Bogren for the first time, he made us work like animals.
LFdM: The cover art, is not the typical cover art for a metal album, but I think it represents “Under the Red Cloud” perfectly. Can you tell us the story behind it?
TK: Cover art is made by Valnoir, Mortasonge, he has worked before with bands like Paradise Lost, Watain, Behemoth and many more. It was created by ideas of band and ideas of Valnoir. It represents time we are all living in right now(well as the story at album), under the red cloud, or threat perhaps...all the things you see in the cover is taken from lyrics, four wise men, different seasons, and those snakes in a middle, cannot see if they are hugging eachother or eating eachother. We are extremely happy how the cover came up, it is certainly something new style for us.
LFdM: The new album is a bit heavier than the previous one. Was it something you planned in advance or it kind of happened while working on it?
TK: We didn't plan it to be heavier, we just were making new stuff as before. I think Jens was leading it (at pre-production phase) to heavier direction with tempos, sounds and vocals, as that what he said he wants us to sound with this album.
LFdM: Some days ago, you released the first single from the new album, “Death of a King”, and I was really impressed. The classic Amorphis sound melts with oriental melodies to create something unique. Can you tell us something about this song?
TK: Santeri came with that song, it was already very “percussive” at demo-phase and quite catchy and heavy too. It wasn't the song I would guess to be realised first, but I think it works like that as well. Jens wanted Esa to use his electric sitar to this track, and we also had clearly in our mind to have somebody to play percussions to this. Also I like how the story goes here with lyrics.
LFdM: Also, for Death of a King you worked with Chrigel Ganz from Eluveitie and Martin Lopez (ex-Opeth). Is it important for the band to work with guest musicians, and is it something you plan to do again in the future?
TK: Yes, we wanted and asked our old friend Martin to play percussion to “Death of a King”, as we knew he's great player, drums and percussions. We use to tour and share bus with Opeth when he was still in the band 2001 at U.S. Tour, that's how we knew eah other. And when we wanted some parts to have real flute, Jens was suggesting Chrigel. They both did excellent job, thanks for that! It is not what we are normally thinking that we want to have some guesting for album, it just comes up if we feel that we would like to try something different for there and there, but it is fun to have guests when we do, but not just because there should be.
LFdM: This year you celebrate the 20 years from the release of “The land of thousand lakes”, and you’re playing the entire album live in many shows. How is it going so far? Was it difficult for you to sing the few songs you still didn’t perform live before?
TK: Yes, 2014 it really was 20th celebrity year for release of “Tales from the Thousand Lakes”, time really flies. It wasn't that difficult to play whole album live, as most of the songs we have played during the years anyway. Most difficult mentally is maybe to play those songs at same order than on record, as that's normally totally different tactic when thinking of song-order to live show than to album. But gigs has been great, still have few festivalgigs with that to go and then we start to tour with new album.
LFdM: Amorphis is, in my opinion, one of the bands that most symbolize Finland, both for the sound and the lyrics. In which ways your “being finnish” influences the sound of the band?
TK: It is really hard to say myself, but of course lyric wise it is obvious, and some of our melodies are pretty folkish. Most important thing might be that we wanted from the beginning to make our own thing, not trying to copy other bands, and we happen to be finnish so...heh. Seriously I think our melody-lines are based more to folk stuff more than heavy metal-riffs. Maybe.
LFdM: If you’d have to choose only one song to introduce Amorphis to someone who never listened to your music, which one would you pick and why?
TK: Hmmmm... Probably My Kantele. I think that song has most things what we have in our music overall, clean parts, crunch-parts, melodies, clean singing, non-clean singing..tranposing, folky stuff...
LFdM: So, last question: in a recent interview you said that the new album is about the situation of the world nowadays, and there are some references to the Kalevala as well. In your opinion, can epic have something in common with reality?
TK: Yes I think so. Kalevala stories are originally based on normal people's stories they were telling to their children and so on, so it is about very common things; feeling, beliefs, fears and so on. I don't how much there is real in these Pekka Kainulainen's lyrics, but I guess there is a lot.
Tomi, thank you again for your time. I’m looking forward to see you perform in Bologna with Nightwish. See you soon!
TK: Thank you Alessia, hope to see you there, cheers!
Interview by Alessia
Ph. credits by Ville Juurikkala
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