EARTHERIA – Interview with the band

Eartheria is a newer addition to the Finnish Drath Metal scene. Being a melodic/technicam death metal band, as far as I’m concerned they released one of the finest albums this year. Curious to know more about them?, Well, here is what the band has to say about their sound and their opinion about Deathcore.

First of all I should appreciate you for choosing a less “look at us, our name is br00tal” name. With all honestly, what’s the story behind the name “Eartheria”?

We just had a list of about 25 different name suggestions for the band and together just decided to go with the name Eartheria. If felt simple and memorable at the time. It is just basically a product of imagination and playing around with words to create a potential band name. It was also important that doing a Google search with the name wouldn´t bring millions of hits and burying our band in the flood of information. The artwork of our new release Awaken The Sun really caught the vibe of the band and nicely compliments the name so we are happy about it now.

What’s the hardest to be new to the music industry?

I think that the hardest part is to be heard and even recognized by an audience. There is just so much new music coming up and the market is a bit over-saturated so you easily get lost in the swarm. The first few years for an upcoming band might be rough and you might play several shows without a proper audience. It has been a long process for us too but Awaken The Sun really brought us some attention so we are definitely stoked about it.

I was once hugely inspired by the Finnish Death Metal Scene until it faded into darkness. With bands like Demilich, Convulse, Depravity and many others, there was a point when Finnish Death Metal bands ruled the Death metal scene. That being said, How important was Finnish Death Metal scene for y’all? What makes FinnDeath different from other DM genres/scenes?

I think Finland and Sweden have traditionally had quite a rich death metal scene for some reason – I guess there is something in the water. But I have to say that the finnish death metal scene is relatively unknown to me personally and that there is no direct influence to our music. I personally was more influenced by the swedish scene and for example At The Gates with Slaughter Of The Soul was a huge album for me once.

The only major influence from a finnish band is from a band called Stam1na which is a big deal in our domestic market.

tried finding some FinnDeath elements. But I’m not sure whether I’m right or not. So, how strong is the Finnish Death Metal elements in your new album?

There might be some influence that comes through the bands that we enjoy but the biggest direct influences to our band are Sylosis, Gojira, Mastodon, Rivers Of Nihil and Stam1na. Especially Rivers Of Nihil and Sylosis with the sort of atmospheric approach have been huge in the last years. The influences might not be too evident because we always try to add our own sound to compositions and vocals.

I have also always been a huge fan of the more progressive and technical side of death metal and for some reason most of my favorite bands originate from US or UK.

Death Metal is slowly but surely being a stereotypically ridden genre. Agree or Disagree?

Partially true yes. But at the same time I see new bands coming up with killer albums all the time so I think that death metal is a genre that will just keep on evolving with new elements being incorporated and old ones replenished. But these days you really have to stand out in some sense in order to attract some interest.

There has been recent talks involving the Death metal sidekick-Deathcore getting more recognition compared to Death Metal. What’s your take on Deathcore?

It is really not our cup of tea even though there are some bands in the genre that might be ok. I really don´t follow deathcore that much and thought it was sort of fading away a bit. I am really happy about technical death metal being sort of big right now.

What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

I am personally right now listening for the new Rivers Of Nihil album that came out this March. Rivers Of Nihil is a band you definitely want to keep an eye on. Their previous album ’Monarchy’ was brilliant and I think this next album will be a game-changer in the technical death metal field. I´ve also been listening a lot to a finnish band called Stam1na and their new album ’Elokuutio’. Antti Hyyrynen of Stam1na is one of the greatest metal vocalists right now in my opinion. They also sing in finnish so it might be interesting to check out.

How bad do you want to get in the TUSKA festival? What makes TUSKA festival different from others?

Tuska is THE metal festival in Finland. It is probably the best known finnish metal festival and it would be an absolute dream to play there. So needless to say we want that more than anything. It would be a great thing to cross of the list and say we played there. I have also been a huge Gojira fan for a long time also and they are the headliner this year so being on the same bill would be awesome.

What separates Tuska from other finnish festivals is that it has remained specifically a metal festival. Some finnish festivals have slowly moved away from metal and rock music and that is a real shame.

Who would you personally like to sit down and interview yourself?

I have been a hardcore Sylosis fan ever since I bought their album ’Monolith’ so I would definitely want to sit down with the main man Josh Middleton. Interviewing Joe Duplantier of Gojira would be awesome too.

Do you see an advantage of being independent rather than being on a big record label?

The advantage of being on a record label really comes with the massive audience that they already have and the marketing tools that are available. It is possible to gather your audience and create a brand independently and the opportunities with for example YouTube are bigger now than ever. So it is possible to remain independent but I think that being on a label is the best solution for many bands.

What do you want to achieve as a band?

Our short term goals are that we definitely want to warm-up for some bigger bands and do several festival shows. Publishing a debut album through some label and touring around the world are also things that we would like to achieve. We are constantly writing new material and pushing ourselves forward so hopefully more and more people will find us and spread the word.

And at last, if you were to change your name to something that sounds “br00tal”. What will be the new name?

Ah man, that is such a hard question. Probably something cheesy and overly brutal like Blood Of The Earth.

Thanks!