interview made by Juan Luis, Featured in Flesh Salad Fanzine #5 (June 2007) (http://www.myspace.com/fleshsalad)
Hi Lasse, a real pleasure to interview you man! as I’ll try to asking you about Phlegethon and Vacant Coffin, please, sit down and take a cold beer ..cos it'll take a while hehe...
Hi! Thanks for doing this! My pleasure, man!
To start, breaking the ice haha... As I told you, this summer I was on holidays in your country and what really impressed me, apart from the very expensive prices for my Spanish pocket, was the quantity of drunk people I saw at any hour, any place... What's the problem? Maybe the low temperatures and the lack of sun? Or maybe, as you told me, the blame is that you..re watching now in Finland the Spanish TV-serie Serrano's family haha?
Yeah, Finland is pretty expensive country. Joke prices for almost everything. Booze costs like millions but people seem to enjoy it no matter what. This nation has always been into messing around with alcohol. Is it because finnish people are quite shy or is it the lack of light that depresses us? I don't know. Booze is just fine when the use is moderated but alcoholism is for the weak minded. I'd rather watch Serrano's family than get stoned all the time and be a jerk, haha!
About topics of your country, everybody knows your passion for the sauna... (any comment?) And I discovered you're also into the argentinian dance's tango! Well, if you know any Spanish topic is time for your revenge...
Personally I go to sauna only few times a year. I'm not too into that thing. I hate it when it's too much heated up. You fucking blow fire! If I had my own sauna in my flat I'd probably go there more often. Well, I can't imagine a summerhouse without a sauna. That's a matter of course. In the summertime finns stay a lot at their summerhouses where they get drunk, go to sauna, fight and get drowned. That's the scheme of our midsummerfest especially! (We're different cultures haha) Yeah, tango is quite popular here. Not my cup of tea really.
Spanish topic? Hmmm... Picasso, Dali, Miro, Velázquez, Goya... You have one of the best painters ever! Especially Salvador Dali's paintings were very important to us lyric-wise when we formed Phlegethon in our teens. You have also some of the best football teams in the world. (no, you're wrong, we've the best football team in the world... FC Barcelona!!! And man, congratulations, you're the first who doesn't talk about 'toros and paella'!)
Well sorry... Now seriously, I've to start with a more than obvious question... Why your comeback to the extreme metal underground after some many years? Everything into the scene is drastically different in comparison to 'the old days'... Are you afraid of this epoch of computers, internet, gayspace...? What means to you to be again 'on fire' with a band as Phlegethon?
Old metal records like "Reign In Blood", "Leprosy", "Consuming Impulse" etc. started sounding inspiring again. It really seemed to take all these 14 years to get the shivers from metal again. I came up with some riffs and suddenly I had a song ready and another one... I realized that Phlegethon has still a lot to give in this modern metal bullshit 'scene'.
Yeah, it's very different now as we have all this new technique. E-mailing is very easy but it kinda lacks the spirit of writing and sending a real letter, you know. But whatta hell! Things like e-mail and myspace are very handy. Now I don't have to raise my lazy ass from the chair to go to the post office that often. There are tons and tons of crap in myspace but you can find some brilliant, unheard stuff there if you do a little investigation.
As we are back with Phlegethon today I see it as our opportunity and a duty to push some real metal into this 'scene'. Luckily there are some good bands around also and the old school thing is doing quite well. Actually this old school thing is getting a bit bore. Too many bands try to imitate old Entombed/Nihilist, Grave, Unleashed etc. As an influence the good old swedish style is just fine but you should also have some of your own personal sound in your music. It's all about taking influences not imitating.
About technology... Myspace is a good platform to see what kind of people show interest towards your bands, right? Old folks or new kids? I suppose there's still lot of people asking for the early times of Phlegethon...
Yes, as I mentioned myspace is very cool. There are some old farts and new kids as well supporting Phlegethon. It's pretty much fifty fifty, I think. Many of the older metalheads are asking about the old demos (if they haven't them already) or just being nostalgic talking about the old days. It's nice that people remember us and some new kids have found us.
What's the current Phlegethon's line-up? You keep on playing everything? Is it hard to find consistent musicians in the Joensuu area? Well, as I've already said, you're from Joensuu, a town in the north, quite far from big cities as Helsinki or Turku and not very far from the Russian lands, right? What about your daily life in a town as Joensuu? How much time do you dedicate to your both bands? In your personal web page I've seen you're also into another kind of art, apart from music, as is painting, your paints seems to be very visceral and impressionists...
Phlegethon line up has been one hell of a headache since reforming. Now it looks like Pekka (The drummer of Vacant Coffin) would be interested in playing drums in Phlegethon as well. I'm not sure if Juha is going to play anything in addition to write our lyrics. Saku also told me that he could be interested in being in the band again. So we'll see about that... Basically I and Pekka could do everything by ourselves but I'd love to have a lead guitarist cause playing leads is not my strongest sector and it would be also nicer to rehearse if we had the third member.
It's always hard to find members that share the same kinda ideas and visions and are truly passionate to play in this band. There are lot of good musicians in our area but I guess most of them aren't spiritually on the same level with us. Maybe we are just old, retarded bastards but we don't want to get into situation where we should explain our visions to a new member who's only interested in metalcore or shit like that. That would be frustrating and totally hopeless.
Yes, the Russian border isn't far away from Joensuu. Foreign people seem to find this very exiting and exotic. Though Russia is very close I've never been there but someday I'd love to visit big cities like Moscow or St.Petersburg.
In Joensuu there are only about 60.000 inhabitants. The summers are hot and short. Winters are long, dark and cold with lots of snow. I prefer crispy autumn season which is right now going on. Most of the time I spend with my girlfriend and the rest studying and doing the two bands. Now as Vacant Coffin is a real band with three band members I'm spending more time on it than on Phlegethon. With VC we try to rehearse one or two times a week and I should write more songs for both bands but especially now for Vacant Coffin because we have our album coming out in 2008. Well, writing songs for Phlegethon takes more time than composing Vacant Coffin stuff which is quite fast process. It should be like that. Man, it's about deathgrind not some stupid, megalomaniac symphony, haha!
Yeah, I'm studying fine arts and I'm oriented in painting. As I'm not too long-spanned person I like to use fast, spontaneous painting methods. Usually I try to minimize the connection between the mind and hand or paint with my eyes closed. I like to see the marks of coincidence in my works. It's hard but I'm developing slowly... I'd describe my present style as something between informalism and surrealism. Maybe.
Going back to the past, I remember back in 89-91 to see tons of info in underground fanzines about Phlegethon, definitively you made a good job in that way... but something didn't rule at all... I mean, maybe your thrash sound didn't fit at all in a total Death Metal epoch, moreover, was at the end of eighties when thrash metal fall in disgrace...do you agree? Also your logo was/is different from the typical Death Metal ones... a bit more baroque and gothic influenced? (the logo I mean)
Yes, I agree. Teemu did good job in promoting the band and the stuff we played was slightly different from the other bands. Also our weird lyrics stood out quite well and our young age paid attention. We wanted to have an original and stylish logo instead of those typical death metal logos that looked like a puddle of vomit. But hey, those logos are cool too! There were (are) just too many of those.
When the eighties turned to nineties thrash metal, not to mention speed metal, was not that hip anymore and death metal was the thing. We had still this strong thrash influence as we were so badly infected by the likes of Slayer, Kreator, Dark Angel etc. So you can say that we could have done better with the sound that would have bow to the bands like Entombed, Grave and groups like that. We loved those bands but somehow they didn't affect to our music at all. Morbid Angel and Pestilence were our main death metal influences. We didn't even tune our guitars down which was almost like a rule back then. Now it's easy to say that we should have because the sound was always too light. Well, now they are down and they'll stay down! Anyway, I'm happy that we always did our own thing and we still do.
Being formed in 88, do you consider your band Phlegethon as one of the godfathers of the Finnish extreme Metal escene along with Disgrace, Abhorrence, Funebre, Xysma...? Having a look to Scandinavia, I consider Finnish extreme metal bands darker, brutal and more experimental... with more personality than your country neighbours Sweden and Norway, but paradoxically your bands seems to be always a step behind if we talk about worldwide recognition... at least, in the other hand you've a strong and recognised gothic-metal scene with acts like Him, The 69 eyes, Nightwish, The Rasmus and tons more J Also, Finnish bands have always a strong rock&roll influence and sometimes, as for example Xysma, their development ends in a total rockish sound... by the way, what the hell are they doing now?
Yeah, sure we were in the first wave of finnish extreme metal bands among the groups you mentioned. I agree with you that the finnish bands had more personality than the swedish or the norwegians. Especially in Sweden almost every band had that Entombed + Sunlight sound. That's so stupid. I'm sure that Xysma could have done good job for their 'Yeah' album in Finland. But I guess as they had an opportunity to record in Sunlight they took it because it's exciting for a young band to get to record upboards. Of course. Well, Xysma had their very own sound that could not be mixed with the Swedish, no matter where they recorded. I think their guitarist Olli plays in a rock band called Shake. I have no idea about the rest of the guys.
Hey, don't even mention those Disneyland, gothic garbage bands like Nightwish, 69 Eyes... haha! HIM thinks that they play doom metal nowadays! Whatta joke! Man, The Rasmus is the worst! They are not even metal... well, so arenât the rest on that shit list. Down the drain...!! (haha...!)
Since your comeback back in 2006, you've edited the demos 'Totems within' and 'Lava Poetry' plus some new tracks... and listening to it carefully I see an evident evolution from your Thrash/Death Metal, to Death Metal with Thrash Metal influences ('Lava Poetry' demo) to total Doom/Death (new tracks) the change it's obvious, but why? Are you tired of the characteristic sound of Phlegethon?
I don't know. It's crazy. I have thought about this. As we reformed 2006 we started thrashing with some death metal elements just like on our first demos. I guess that was very natural way to start off. On 'Lava...' we tuned the guitars downer than ever and right away it sounded more death metal than 'Totems...'. The riffs and the vocals were more death metal also. That was more or less conscious. Usually the stuff I'm listening to affects the stuff I compose. Not always but this time all those Unleashed, Morbid Angel, Vader, Death Breath and Pestilence records were on constant rotation on my stereo and influenced the material I was working on.
Same thing happened later when I was listening to a lot of doom metal. Doom metal has always been in our veins but we have been very stingy using it. I was also getting a bit worried and frustrated that our songs were pretty technical and you know, that ain't fun to play. At least in my opinion. I knew this doomier stuff is more enjoyable to play, it has so much more emotion and I just love it so I let it out. I find those newest tracks the most original stuff we have achieved so far and they stick to our mentality and lyrics better than the earlier stuff. There are even a couple of black metal parts! We haven't abandoned the fast death metal parts. The doom influence is only stronger now. Who knows what's next. This mixture of death, doom with a bit of black metal is still in evolution. I hope we can find our ultimate expression from it. These days our main influences seem to be Candlemass, Cathedral, Autopsy, early Death and Burzum.
So I suppose, your long awaited full length album will keep on that Death/Doom style, right? How many tracks have you already arranged? Are you in contact with some label to release it? Dates?? We need info haha!!
Yeah, I think the material is going to be death/doom or something like that. I'm so enthusiastic about that stuff! We have only three tracks ready (with no lyrics) so it's a long way to the full lenght. Not many contacts to labels yet. We haven't released a demo for the newest stuff yet so a lot of people don't even know what we are up to at the moment. There have been new tracks on myspace player but they aren't from a 'real band demo'. They are just my fast, home recordings with non-sense lyrics. They will sound 100x better when we record them in the future.
What about your CD compilation through Xtreem Music? When it comes out?
The re-issue 'Visions from the forestside' is supposed to come out during 2007 on Xtreem Music. The cd includes our first two demos 'Visio dei beatifica' '89 and 'Neutral forest' '90 + 'Totems within' '06 as a bonus. It's cool to have those old demos packed together because lotsa people have been asking for them and we don't sell them anymore. Sold out years ago.
... you..re also into a tribute CD to Holland's legend Pestilence... (probably the next band to rejoined with an exclusive concert presentation at Wacken festival haha...)
Oh, yes! That is so cool! I (our line up was fucked up once again...) recorded the Pestilence song 'Testimony' for the tribute cd. I don't know what's up with this release. The Russian label Magik Art Entertainment is behind this project.
About concerts... hell, I've to admit I'm a a jealous bastard since I read you played back in 92 in the Old Funeral (I love their first demo!), Disgrace... gig in Joensuu! What do you remember from that concert? Was Varg Vikernes playing bass with Old Funeral in that concert? (or maybe was already in jail, I don't remember...) There's any plan to make some gig with Phlegethon? European gig? (yeah, I know, you'll love to make a Spanish gig but that's not possible haha...)
To us it was quite nice gig. It was fun to see bands from the neighbor lands: Old Funeral and Afflicted. I don't think Varg was playing there. I remember Beherit had their crushing the pig's head-spectacle that night. Good bands, good shows.
Phlegethon is not going to play live anymore as we have never really enjoyed it that much. Too much waiting, too much stress, bad sounds etc. But on the other hand...never say never. The records are something you are remembered in the end of the day not the shows... (It depends of the quantity of alcohol...)
Ok, it's time to talk about Vacant Coffin. You've said you've created Vacant Coffin to satisfy your grindcore/death metal necessity... Are you already in the 35 years old crisis? Well sorry haha... seriously, I see a strong Autopsy, Carcass... old stuff influence in that...What's your opinion about young bands into brutal death-slamming-porn gore... whatever... personally I think there's a lack of soul into almost 80% of that current scene... your opinion?
Yeah, I am 33 now and I have bee in age crises for ten years already, haha! I hate aging as stupid as it sounds! Autopsy, old Carcass, early Napalm Death... those bands are very important for Vacant Coffin. You can't go wrong with an influence like that, hahah! I have always loved grindcore.
I'm not always aware of all these stupid sub-genres. It's so easy to record a demo nowadays. That's why we have all these untalented assholes doing soulless porn gore or whatsoever with drum-machines. I know that doing projects like that can be a lot of fun but listening to it... usually only boring. We also used drum-machines before we got Pekka and I can tell you that it takes a lot of time and sense of style to arrange the drum-machine sound good. You can't replace a real drummer with that. You can get close but the machine does not have a soul. As far as I know there are a lot of soulless horseshit in every genre (a human drummer or not) and you have to dig deep to find something real and passionate stuff. (I agree with you)
Talking about Vacant Coffin... great name by the way! (where comes this name from?) Your Demo 07, 'The thrased supper' sounds great and you've already achieved a contract for your first full length CD... How was your contact with the dudes from Razorback? You already knew them?
Thanks! The name comes from Autopsy's song 'Service from a vacant coffin' of course, hehe! Great song! Man, I have to put my 'Severed survival' picture record on right fucking now! That album is one of the bests ever! Oh, but we were supposed to discuss about Vacant Coffin...
No, we didn't know the guys from the label before. Sure we knew the name Razorback Records. Billy heard my home made, fast recordings with gibberish lyrics of the songs (ex-Phlegethon Jussi Nyblom sung on one of the tracks) from Vacant Coffin's myspace. He got really into it and suggested us to do a cd on Razorback Records. Of course that was great! The label is awesome and the people there (Billy and Jill) are just excellent, true music loving, horror-obsessed, friendly people. The best choice for us really. After Vacant Coffin joined them I (Jussi had no time for the band) recorded the first VC demo 'The thrashed supper' because originally we were going to record a demo, of course, and I wanted to finish it though the band had this 'deal' already.
Maybe I'm wrong but it seems you've achieved with Vacant Coffin in half a year (I mean Razorback and so on) more than with Phlegethon in years...
Haha, yes. When you least expected... Things have been going so smoothly with VC.
Do you've already title for the effort? How many tracks? Well, advance us something about it... Any plans to play live? Do you consider V.C. at the same level of importance as Phlegethon? Next plans in the future?
We don't, not yet. Recently we have focused on rehearsing the tracks from the demo with the band as this line up is still very new. Now as the songs have started to work out well in the rehearsals it's time to compose some new material so I don't know how many tracks there will be on the cd. Maybe 25-30 or something
We have no plans to play live. Maybe we never will. We'll see about that.
I guess Vacant Coffin is my main band at the moment but Phlegethon is still very important. When we have the line up completed for Phlegethon it will raise its ugly head more and more. Aaargh, it's pretty much fifty-fifty. The both are important.
Next up is more rehearsing with Vacant Coffin and writing more songs for the album. When we have enough material we will record them and the cd will be out somewhere in 2008. With Phlegethon we will record a new demo as soon as possible. Or maybe we will wait and record material for the full lenght later and offer it to some label to release it. Dunno. Let's see.
Ok Lasse, maybe it's enough... or maybe not haha... if you want to add something it's your chance. All the best, stay sick and cheers from the 'always sunny Spain'! ;-)
Ssssshiiiiiit! I'm not good at final words. Let's just say: You fuckers will be grinded'n'minced to death and forever doomed!!! (Thanks Lasse, keep on Metal my friend)
