SWALLOW THE SUN – Interview with Keyboardist Aleksi Munter and Guitarist Juha Raivio

Finland is the land of a thousand lakes and even more metal bands. Many types of metal bands call this northern, European country home. Whether it is speed metal like NORTHER and CHILDREN OF BODOM, black metal such as BEHERIT, IMPALED NAZARENE, and ARCH GOAT or goth metal like SENTENCED and HIM, Finland is near the top in the world in production of quality and quantity of metal. Finland is a country with a distinct culture, so the sounds of its bands are of an equal distinction. Doom metal seemed molded from Finland’s icy, arctic countryside. Near the top, reigns the melancholy-toned SWALLOW THE SUN. Following the release of their latest album “Hope”, the group embarked upon their first United States tour supporting INSOMNIUM (SWALLOW THE SUN keyboardist Aleksi plays in this group, too), SCAR SYMMETRY, and KATATONIA. Drummer Kai Hahto (ex-ROTTEN SOUND, WINTERSUN) filled in for SWALLOW THE SUN member, Pasi Pasanen. During the group's stop in San Antonio, Texas, keyboardist Aleksi Munter and guitarist Juha Raivo spoke to Metal Centre about the group’s music and first time in the States.

How is your first tour in the states going?

Juha: It’s been really good. The crowds have been great. It is my first time here in the states. I’ve never been on vacation here, so everything is new and exciting.

Aleksi: If you compare the audience here to the European audience, I think the audience in the States is better. The biggest problem we have here is no showers. Most venues here don’t have showers. Most of the major venues in Europe have showers.

Juha: (Jokingly says) we smell anyway, so it is not a problem (smells strand of hair).

Do you think the bill fits your style?

Aleksi: Yeah, I think it is a good lineup. All four bands are somehow related to each other. Each band has its own style and shares signature things.

Juha: SCAR SYMMETRY is the only one that has a bit of a different style, but it’s cool, though, because it’s metal. It all fits together.

I understand you played your first gig in Russia. What was that like?

Aleksi: It was great. The organization there was cool. Actually, I think it was cleaner than most festivals in Finland. In some ways, it was better than the festivals in Finland. The organization was so much better than the festivals in Finland. There were one thousand to two thousand fans. We played with DISMBER, GRAVE, and a Finnish band called FALL OF THE LEAFE.

What are the fans going to get from you live show?

Juha: When people hear our music; they think we are probably boring. We stand on the stage. There is no running around. We are a doom band. We surprise people when we are on stage

Aleksi: We have a lot of atmosphere in our sound when we play live.

Juha: Our gigs are more up tempo, so it’s a little bit better for the band (laughs).

You guys are the first to play on the tour and a lot of your songs are really long, so what is your set list like? Do you have to cut up some of the duration of your songs or do you play an entire song?

Aleksi: Yeah, we play entire songs; we just don’t play many of them.

Juha: We have a descent set. It is thirty minutes to thirty-five minutes, so we have to play all the fastest songs to get five or six songs in the set.

Aleksi: We cannot do any long or slow songs, maybe next time.

After releasing a couple albums on your Firebox Records, you signed with Candlelight. Why did you move to this label?

Aleksi: We released it on Candlelight only in the U.S. We are on Spinefarm in Europe. Firebox is a good label. They do an excellent job in Finland, but they don’t have a good distribution outside of Finland. It was mostly for the distribution.

Juha: If we stayed on Firebox, we would not be here. Firebox is a small label and they can’t put up the money to get us on a tour outside of Finland. The switch to Spinfarm was for two reasons: the distribution and the money to tour. Firebox is a great label. They did a lot for us and I love that label, but too bad it is too small (laughs).

In March, you released your debut album for Candlelight Records and Spinefarm, “Hope.” How does this record compare to your previous releases.

Juha: I don’t know. It’s the same crap (laughs). It is a little more like the first album.

Aleksi: The arrangements are different from the first album, though. We spent a lot more time on arranging the songs than we did on the first album. I think it has a lot of different kinds of nuances. It is a lot of the same things, but better.

Juha: The slow songs are slower and the fast songs are faster. It’s a good album!

You went more extreme in slowness and fastness?

Aleksi: There is more extreme in everything. There are really quiet parts and there are really heavy and thrashing parts.

Can you explain the song writing process for this album?

Juha: I’ve written most of the songs and the lyrics so far. I wrote the last two albums, not all. With this album, the other guitarist, Markus wrote some of the lyrics.

Aleksi: I did my own keyboard lines on this album.

Juha: I wrote the basic parts of the songs and my band mates helped with the arrangements.

Jonas Renkse (Katatonia) and Tomi Joutsen (Amorphis) both make guest appearances on this album. Tell me about working with those guys. Whose idea was this?

Aleksi: It was really cool because they are good vocalists, so it was a pleasure working with them. I think we were drunk at an event and Katatonia was playing. We had met Jonas before, we were drunk, and we asked Jonas if he would like to play on our new album.

Juha: You were drunk.

Aleksi: Yeah, I was drunk. I was smashed. In Finland, we drink a lot of alcohol.

Swallow the Sun’s sound is depressive and gloomy. Can you explain your affinity for the tragic?

Juha: I think it is a way to channel bad feelings you have. Music in Finland is traditionally melancholic, nobody likes major keys there (laughs). It is not easy for us to play reggae or surf music (laughs).

Aleksi: It is just natural to us.

“The Ghost of Laura Palmer” is an interesting song title on” Ghost of Loss.” I find it interesting because Laura Palmer is the central character in David Lynch’s film and series, “Twin Peaks.” How did this idea come to you?

Juha: I am a huge fan of that story. I have some kind of fetish for Laura Palmer. Everytime I see a girl who looks like Laura Palmer, I think….you know what I think (both laugh). Laura is like an angel in every way, very beautiful, but when you look inside, you will find something very different. It is the same thing on the song. Many of our songs are about ghosts and about lovers. They are like a B horror movie. I love that movie. I would love to have Laura Palmer somewhere and I got caught up with the ghost of Laura Palmer. I think it sounds cool, so I wrote a song about it.

I was reading the lyrics, and it seems like you are describing a statue, like the cover. Is that what you are comparing Laura Palmer to?

Juha: No, it is not a statue. But there are a lot of the same things in the lyrics and the cover art. There is something similar there, but that’s not Laura Palmer. There is a ghost on the cover. You can see its hands pulling the girl down into the water. Anyway…more about Laura Palmer. Please, come to me in my dreams (all laugh). If you are a ghost, I don’t mind.

That’s a great movie.

Juha: I love that movie. I think it has the same atmosphere that our music has. I really feel the same type of theme as in our song.

Aleksi: We use the soundtrack music from that movie as our intro and outro to our set.

Juha: I think “Ghost of Loss” is our best album. It is so heavy and dark. It is definitely not a party album (all laugh). It was really hard to make. It took, like six months.

Aleksi: It was really hard for everyone.

Juha: I love that album! Even though people say our first album was better, I say fuck that shit!

When you guys get this negative, depressive energy do you use music to channel it or do you have a hard time finding the motivation to do that?

Juha: I pick up a guitar, paper and pen and you have a whole other world. What is the use of people being depressed all the time when you can do it on stage, and I think it helps people a lot.

Aleksi: I’ve noticed that poppy people are more violent people than metal people. We talk to our fans and they seem nice and really relaxed.

Juha: I talk to a lot of people in doom bands and they are really happy people. I think music is related to that. You can put all the crap there. When you play the music, you feel much better after it.

Aleksi: Many people have told us that our songs are quite uplifting.

Juha: There is always a bright side to our music. I said you always have to have some hope. We have some beautiful melodies; it is not pure black. That is boring. A little hope makes it that much more doomier.

Is that why you named your album “Hope?”

Aleksi: Yeah, all the songs we really thought about the title for a long time, and every song deals with the concept of hope or losing hope.

Juha: You need some light in the dark to make it more interesting. That’s why I don’t like real, pure black metal because I feel really bad after listening to it. You have to have some hope; you have to believe in something. The contrasting moods make it even better.

What does the future hold for Swallow the Sun? Is there more room for songs of an even sadder nature?

Juha: I think we will go even slower and maybe even faster. I cannot say.

Aleksi: Yeah, we are planning on another release, but we cannot talk about it yet. It will be something special, but we can’t tell you this early.

www.swallowthesun.net
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