The gallavanting of Catamenia

Catamenia are veteran melodic death metallers who have been around since the late 90s. They are a group that knows what they do best and have been constantly keeping fans happy with plenty of albums year after year with little to complain about and always something new to enjoy. Lately, they’ve released their ninth studio album, Calvaclade, and so far it has been their best effort yet. To give the Brutalism horde and Catamenia fans alike a bit more depth to this beloved band, I shot a few questions towards Catamenia’s way about the new album. It took some time but the answers were well worth the wait…

Hey Catamenia, thanks for doing this interview. You guys have been around for almost fifteen years. How does it feel?
Hello! It's an honor for us that people been supported us this long and we are still going on strong. Especially present day's music business is so hectic and it chews artists for a day and the next spits it away. It's an miracle when band like us who never been that famous is still alive. But for that we can thank our fans who have kept us alive thru good and not so good times!

Would you consider it a long, hard road out of Hell, or one of the best rides of your lives?
Both! The big picture is just a superior ride, but of course there are some things that you would like to forget. On the other side, after facing those hard parts we definitely can appreciate all the good things those comes our way!

So who do I have the honor of discussing the band with today?
Pleasure is all mine! I'm Ari Nissilä, vocalist of Catamenia, I also used to play rhythm guitar, but nowadays our clean vocalist, Kari Vähäkuopus, handles the rhythm guitar.

So what made the group want to make Catamenia a melodic death metal band of all things?
I don't know how melo-death we are… well, I have never been interested about categorizing :) But what comes to changing our style, it was decision that saved this band. See, after more than a decade of same thing we needed to refresh our music. There was time after releasing of VIII - The Time Unchained when we didn't feel joy of playing anymore and even think to quit, but this new style bring the joy to play again and we feel like kids in candy store.

For you personally, what got you into metal? What was your first metal album? Show?
I'm so old fart that my first metal album was Iron Maiden's Iron Maiden. I bought it on same day when it hit the stores. I was totally blown away and that determined what I want to do! Also bands like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC and many more were guiding me deeper into metal stuff. Later on came bands like WASP, Metallica, Megadeth, Skid Row etc. And final step came in shape of Dimmu Borgir, Sepultura, Impaled Nazarene etc. Nowadays I'm quite lazy with new music which is quite a pity. Mostly I hear about new bands from my band mates or from my sons. The first show I was in was when Iron Maiden visited in Helsinki during 'Somewhere in Time'-Tour!



Any big metal heroes you'd like to list that has influenced Catamenia?
First to mention is Mr. Sebastian Bach! When I saw him on stage in Helsinki during their tour with Guns 'n' Roses I saw the meaning of charisma on stage. From guitarists I want to flag Zakk Wylde, Jimmy Page and Dimebag Darell.

Speaking of tours, what's on the list for any upcoming/ current ones and what bands are involved?
Next we are doing couple of festival gigs. Those are Samrock fest in Romania and Brutal Assault in Czech Republic. There are some plans for tours to take place in Europe, Russia, Australia and the States later this year, but nothing’s confirmed yet.

In your extensive career, has there been any places you've really felt appreciated or enjoyed and would like to return?  Why?
Yes, there are many places! And many of those we have returned too, like Moscow, Bucharest, Budapest, Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Sofia… Well actually, there is no place where we wouldn't go back. The thing is that we have really enjoyed our time with our fans and hanged out with them. That is something that not so many bands do, to getting closer to your fans and spend some time with them.

Most devoted thing a fan has done for Catamenia?
There's a couple of them in my mind. One Romanian guy spend all his savings, traveled one day and spent one night at railway station just to see us performing live. We met him after show and asked him to party with us and we gave him a place to sleep. He was crying for that, and in a good way, trust me, hehehe. A really nice guy! Hope to meet him again on Samrock festival on July! Then, few people have traveled all across the world to Finland just to see us live, example Australia, Japan, the States, etc., so that's also really amazing. There is also many Catamenia tattoos that people has taken. One is a huge tattoo on a guy’s back of the Location: COLD album cover. We have been also helped and promoted by many ways by our fans, which is priceless help from them!

With almost an album out every single year since you began Catamenia, and pretty darn good ratings too, how does the band keep shelling out music with consistency and fervor? Don't you ever sleep in between writing, recording, and touring?
Hehe, yes, there has been quite a tempo with our albums. But when things flow without pushing, why to slow down? We never go into studio if we feel that something is not ready or just to do record fast, no. Somehow this band has always been really productive and it feels natural to do album sometimes even with one year intervals. So, we just enter when we are ready with our songs, can be a year or three years, you never know. And of course it all depends how productive the main composer Riku is, hehe.

Do you believe the music is meant for the band's expression or for the fans' catharsis? What inspires most of your songs?
Well, both I think. We do music that lives inside us and we are always honest with music. I believe fans do recognize if your music is straight and comes from your heart. If you do things just for money or something like that, you are gone in days! After we changed our style, someone tried this mandatory accusation that we have sold ourselves, but he got pretty washed by the wave of advocating fans. To end that kind of crap once and for all, I wrote an answer to our forum where one guy asked how much earn with music, that what we 'earn' with music can't even pay our equipments to do music. It gave a good picture why and for what we are doing music for over a decade so far! Of course it would be great to make a living of this, because we love to do this.



It's understood that the band name 'Catamenia' not only means a type of bird, but also menstruation, and it was discovered after the band took it's name in solidarity. When thrown an unexpected curveball like that, how does the band react and deal with something like that?  Was it frustrating or amusing?
Hah hah, yeah this is the thing that took us pretty seriously at one point, but nowadays we laugh and joke about it :) The funniest thing is that some fans have same kind of wicked sense of humor that we do and they throw sanitary napkins on stage, heheh. We say that Tom Jones does get ladies underpants, but we do get something that is between those and pussy! Actually, menstruation… what a name for a band! Maybe we should do own catalogue for bloody underpants and napkins for ladies? :)

Let's talk a bit about the latest album, Calvalcade. Looking back all the way to your debut, Halls Of Frozen North, how has it evolved and matured over the past several years? What do you think is best about it?
I see there is a huge evolution in our music album by album. But Cavalcade crowned this evolution by being much more mature and heavier musically and lyrically. We discovered that you don't need to do everything with million beats per second to be brutal and hard. Actually many good and powerful things can turn lame when speeding up them into top of physics. Cavalcade is also an album that pushed audience to LISTEN what they hear. It opens to you bit by bit and you can hear the same song in different way every time you listen to it. Also lyrics can be understood several ways, so meanings of lyrics should be taken with open mind and you can enter totally a different world with every listen. Also we feel like newborn with music now. We discovered something new with Cavalcade and it's guaranteed that next album will kick some balls harder than anything ever before!

Which is more important in writing process, musical structure or lyrics?
Musical structure! It comes first and then we will focus writing lyrics for  the song.

Is there any song on Calvalcade that you feel is of extreme importance and would like to share it's inspiration or meaning with the fans and readers?
Title song Cavalcade is interesting because it’s closing you from not so familiar aspect about things. It's a story about conquering from aspect of dominated and oppressed ones. There are millions of songs about ruling and slaughtering while swaying your sword in the air and being the dominator. But at this view it is way much more difficult and daring to write a song. And if listener can identify with the story, it guarantees hell of a whirlwind of emotions. The whole album is connected to this point of view except the song Reincarnation, where this dominated soul will rise to rule tomorrow and finally there is some hope ahead.

Any advice to those who want to make it in the metal world? Anything you would like to say to the fans specifically?
If you believe yourself, just keep on smashing your head against the wall of adversity, because IT WILL FINALLY BREAK!!! Hail to all fans! See you on our tours around the rock!!

Lastly, random question of the day: what do you think should be added to the "Darwin Awards," or awards that go to really stupid acts done by individuals?
Heheh, just watch our 'Cataventures'- videos and you’ll definitely find all the nominees for 'Darwin Awards' from there :) CHEERS PERKELE!