For the first time in the Middle East, and Africa, an Middle Eastern/African Webzine had an interview with the great, legendary band Amorphis. When I started preparing for this interview with my partner Gihane, I've never thought that band as famous as Amorphis will accept to interview a rising Egyptian reviewer, so I am so grateful for Amorphis for giving us the honor of interviewing them for the first time in an African/Middle Eastern Metal Webzine.
ANSWERED BY SANTERI KALLIO / AMORPHIS
INTERVIEWED BY: RANA ATEF, AND GIHANE KORAYTEM
Originally published on 19/6/2018
Firstly, we want to thank you for your warm welcoming for this interview and let’s start with “Queen of Time”, Can you tell us the main themes or concepts of the album, and how did you choose the title?
Thematically Queen of Time is a mixture of stories which rambles through dark stories of circle of life.The stories vary from a perspective of a man who keep searching the right way to be apart of this world, and also to cope in his life inside of his head. Searching for the truth, looking for a direction in life, discussing the meaning of life.
Some stories speculate the fall of a something big -for example a society- and how they always build again. When something big fades away, something starts that circle again, from a tiniest object in this context metaphorically from the bees. The Queen of Time title tries to tie all these individual stories together smoothly and atmospherically.
What are your main influences currently?
I would not say we (or I) have any particular influences at the moment. Or at least these influences have not changed in years. As a band I would say the influences are at the moment in developing something fresh, atmospheric and challenging music despite the fact that we have a very long history behind us.
In the last 10 years, while building the bands career to the max we have also developed as a band and in our personal level as a musicians, so we also want to present as complex and interesting arrangements and soundscapes without loosing the main point what Amorphis is about.
The album manages to hit different worldwide charts, did you expect this massive feedback?
It was little bit of a surprise, on the other hand album after album we have gained more success starting from Eclipse released 2006.
So I would say it was foreseen already that if we can deliver interesting and multidimensional album which pleases our fan-base the chart success will follow.
We also put lots of effort in touring with Under The Red Cloud, we played more than 200 shows all over the world and invested a lot in support touring which we have not basically done in many years.
We supported Nightwish Arena tour in Europe 2015 and Volbeat stadium tour in Europe 2017, so at the moment looks like that those investments were right move to make in this point. Of course the quality of Queen of Time also have something to do with the great chart success.
A number of guests were featured in your album such as “Anneke Van Giersbergen” and “Francesco Ferrini” from Fleshgod Apocalypse, how did you choose the gust musicians.
Anneke was quite natural choice thus we have worked with her in the past. The duetto idea came from Tomi Joutsen and Jens Bogren, I would say Anneke was quite obvious choice for this kind of a duetto.
The orchestrator collaboration came from Jens, thus he had been working with Kreator latest album with him. So the band had nothing against for that. We rely very much towards Producers ideas, when using guest musicians thus then we are always dealing with a minimum risk.
Currently, the band is very active wither in concerts, tours, How do you manage your time even while recording your latest album?
Well the time table was pretty tight as you said. We started to run through the material in the rehearsings straight after the Volbeat tour.
There was only one day to take a rest after three week tour. On the other hand me and Esa delivered the material already in the mid-summer, so everybody had a pretty clear vision how it will be like. We also have a tendency that all the demo material we deliver are fully arranged, so we did not had to do any big amounts of arranging in the rehearsals.
All the songs were pretty much ready excluding some minor details. Of course the time table was tight, but everybody knew it beforehand, so there was time to prepare yourself for the process. Personally I kind of like tight schedules, some pressure and quick decisions makes you to push the best out of you without a possibility to be lazy. Some sense of danger!
(Amorphis Live at RockFest, Photo Captured by: Jaako Mannien Photography)
Well its little bit sad with some positive elements too of course. I like the fact that old bands have more freedom to try more creative ideas thus the fan-bases have grown pretty large.
On the other hand I feel sorry for the newcomers, thus it is very difficult to gain success due to the large amount of bands out there. Also the technical standards according to playing and overall quality of the product are very high.
And at the same time record labels do not sign you that easily like for ex. ten years ago. Also I hate the fact that there are so many super generic which are "right in the mold" kind of bands, which (normally) very big labels put out, just to make quick money and no-risk products. I kind of miss 90´s when most of the bands sounded unique and there was hell of a lot experimentation going on.
So let’s move to your popularity in the Middle East, Are you in contact with middle eastern, Arabic or African Metal bands?
Well not really, of course we get lots of feedback and links to listen from all around the world. With Orphaned Land we toured many years ago, and as I recall Niclas (our former bass player) participated in one Iranian metal band as a guest bassist.
So far we have only played in that territory once, but as I remember we have few time already showed green light to our booking agent about the show offers from Egypt, Dubai, Tunisia and Lebanon.
So far none if there ever happened. But lets keep our fingers crossed to make these shows happen some day. I´m sure it would be great to really open up that market too and meet the locals fans and explore local metal scene.
(One of Amorphis Show/ Amorphis - Orphaned Land Tour - Photo Courtesy: Metal Storm)
How do you see the Metal Scene in the Middle East, or in Arabic region?
To be honest I don't really know. I know it is our there, but web is to full of music it is hard to follow which band is from where.
I know couple of great bands from middle eastern area and I truly hope for the best for everyone. Metal scene needs more Middle-Easters vibes for sure. As you probably know we have a long history in Amorphis trying to adopt Middle-Eastern atmospheres in our music like in Elegy, Tuonela and many others. These atmospheres can also be heard in newest album Queen of Time.
Would you like to contribute with Arabic band, as to be featured as a guest?
I don't see why not. We like to play with any kind of bands - any day, if the music fits and the booking agents agree. We toured with Orphaned Land ten years ago, shared the same bus etc.
It is always nice to meet people from different cultures, and show them how crazy Finnish culture actually is, haha. Maybe some day, we´ll tour with Middle Eastern metal heads, I really don't see any reason why not.
What are you upcoming planes?
We are now in the middle of a festival summer, then we start the US/Canada tour in September. In November/December we´ll do a plus ten shows in our home territory and in the beginning of 2019 will tour in central Europe with some eastern Europe dates too.
After that we tour Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. After that there is not yet plans, but I hope we could push the South American tour before the summer festivals 2019 begin.
So, in the end thank you guys for giving us this honorable opportunity, and best of luck, hope to see you perform in the region.
Comments
Post a Comment