Interview
Insomnium |
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| First, thanks for having accept to
answer these some questions. Ville Friman: No problem! Can you tell the readers a bit about the band's history? Ville Friman: Insomnium was formed in Joensuu in year 1997. In year 2001 we got deal from Candlelight and entered studio to record the first full length album "In the Halls of Awaiting" which was released in the year 2002. Our line-up hasn’t changed even today and Insomnium is: Niilo Sevänen (Bass and Vocals), Ville Vänni (Guitar), Ville Friman (Guitar) and Markus Hirvonen (Drums). In year 2004 we released our second album titled "Since the Day it All Came Down" and now in year 2006 we have just released our third (and strongest) effort called "Above the Weeping World". Can you speak to us about your new album called "Above The Weeping World" ? Ville Friman: Yeah, sure! We all in INSOMNIUM think that it’s definitely our best work to date. It’s our most compact and balanced entity and I think we actually came very close to where INSOMNIUM is aiming music-wise. How did you proceed for the composition ? Ville Friman: The first song that I got finished for this album already in the end of year 2004 was "Mortal Share". However it took a pretty good while before we got rest of the songs together and I think most of the material is done during the year 2005 and the beginning of the 2006. Our way to compose songs is that I and Niilo come up with the material at home and send it to other guys. When we have enough material we head to the rehearsal place and put the songs together. What are the lyrics talking about and where do you find inspiration ? Ville Friman: Lyrics deal with life in general and mostly about the downsides of it. We try to write the lyrics in a form of poems so that they would work out alone even without the music. The lyrics have to go in hand in hand with the music so that the both music and lyrics feed of each other. And the inspiration comes basically from everywhere, life, music, movies, art, landscapes, everything that moves you some way… What are your biggest musical influences ? Ville Friman: I think most of us started to play some instrument because of Metallica, Sepultura and Megadeth. In our teenage years we found these great Finnish bands like Amorphis (Tales…) and Sentenced (Amok) and bit later we made acquaintance with Swedish melodic death metal bands like In Flames and Dark Tarnquillity. For me biggest influences has to be, Metallica, Opeth, Sentenced, Ulver, Katatonia, my Dying Bride, Anathema and dark Tranquillity. Nowadays I listen music cinstantly because of my MP3 player J Are you involved in any other projects and if so how do they compare to Insomnium ? Ville Friman: I play bass in another Jyväskylä based melodic death metal band Enter My Silence. Their music is more aggressive and technical compared to Insomnium but I really like their style also and I have also composed some of the material in Enter My Silence’s last record called Coordinates: D15ast3r. I’m still mostly player in "Enter" and in Insomnium I have bigger responsibility in writing the material. What's your favourite track on this album, and why ? Ville Friman: I like a lot of Last Statement at the moment but I think al the tracks are good! All of them have their own unique thing. I think in Last Statement I succeeded in combining these really aggressive and heavy riffs to really soothing chorus and I’m really pride of the acoustic parts and the ending. It just develops so fluently towards the end. But I put lots of effort to this song as well and it took at least two years before it got its final form… For you, what are the biggest differences between this new album and the previous ? Ville Friman: I think the newest one is just more compact and we succeeded to "say" musically and lyrically everything just better this time. I also like the previous albums but this new one got just much better production and simply stronger songs. I think it’s also very strong entity. What are your favourite all times bands and albums ? Ville Friman: Metallica: "Black album" and the "Master of Puppets", Opeth: "Still Life", In Flames: "Subterranean", Ulver: "Kveldsanger", Katatonia: "Discouraged Ones" just to name a few. Ihave just so many favourites from so many bands that I could continue this list for ten pages… What's your opinion about the international metal scene ? Ville Friman: I think metal music is now more popular than ever! I think we have very good scene here in Scandinavia and I like partly from the new wave US bands also (e.g. like Killswitch Engage, All that Remains). But of course it’s harder for everyone to live out of it because CD sales have gone down and not every band can make living out of this. But I’m for this only for the music and fun and have regular job besides. Do you have any funny or strange stories about the band you can share with us ? Ville Friman: Well, lots of them. We really like to drink and have a good party. Even though our music can be quite dark, we are actually pretty happy people and want to enjoy life as long it lasts! You wouldn’t believe, but our second guitarist has done over 700 autopsies in the department of criminal forensics in Turku. At the moment he’s working as a surgeon in the Hospital. Not every band has its own doc aboard on tour ;) What are your projects for the future ? Ville Friman: To tour as much as possible and do as much promotion for the new album as possible. Then we will sit down for a while and start working with the next album. It might take few years still. And finally, can you say some words for my radio show Metal Choc ? Ville Friman: Thank you for the interview! If you got interested, check our web pages at http://www.insomnium.net and if you like what you hear go and buy our album! We had great shows in France with Satyricon, hope we get there back soon!
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