Amorphis is back! New album, new singer and back to a sound that's more based on metal, this Finnish band is still going strong after all those years. I got to interview them shortly before their tour with Hypocrisy and Soilwork.

First of all, congratulations with the new album. How have reactions from press and public been so far?

The press has been really great. There have been a lot of reviews from Finland and from the world and the overall picture is very positive. Lot of them have been saying like "Amorphis has found their singer!" and I think we have so too. We are very excited about the new lineup and really waiting for the forthcoming shows with Hypocrisy and Soilwork. In Finland, a couple of the big radio stations played our single "House of Sleep" and the video rolled a few times in Headbanger's Ball, so we are happy about our airplay too.

Most important thing that people will notice is that there is a new singer. Why did Pasi leave and where did you find Tomi?

Well, with Pasi we ended in a situation that he was not as motivated as a singer should be. He kept concentrating  more and more on his own projects and we felt he did not believe in Amorphis anymore. A year ago, we booked a US tour even though he had said he couldn´t do the tour. I think that was the final it. Then he left the band.
Tomi K. heard about Tomi Joutsen from his friend who was in the same band with him (Sinisthra) and suggested that we should check him out. He practised a couple of old songs and we made the quick rehearsal together. After a couple of clean vocal parts and a couple of growls we knew that he was just the right guy for this band. Then we asked if he´ll join, he said ok and then we started to practice the forthcoming US-tour.

Have you adapted the music to his voice and taken the opportunity with the new singer to change the style a bit?

Actually, we basically had all the songs ready when he joined the band. Of course the 5 week tour through the US helped us a little bit to get the overall picture of how the album and the band will turn out. In the studio he said he wants to try all kinds of different vocals, it was the thing we were really hoping to get back to the music. More dimensions to the soundscape you know. 

 

"Eclipse" sounds more 'fresh' than the previous albums, did you feel more inspired this time? What inspires you anyway when it comes to writing music?

The band has been always very inspired when entering the studio, so I would not say a lot more. But of course Pasi's lack of motivation can be heard a little bit in "Far from the Sun". It´s a great album and I like it very much, but somehow the vocals are a bit narrow in scale and variety and it forms the music a bit more one-dimensional than it was supposed to be. Of course we were very excited to go to studio with Tomi, because we had such a strong feeling about the new songs. The singer's change is such a big thing too that it made the feeling very hyped up since no one really knew how it would turn out.

Can you tell something about the lyrics?

The lyrics are out of the Kalevala, the Finnish traditional book. One man's story,
Kullervo's story. A famous finnish intellectual writer Paavo Haavikkos wrote it in the 80´s. So the story is not traditional, it´s pretty modern actually. Kullervo´s life is fucked up, his parents are killed at the day he´s born, nobody likes the guy, he´s pretty bitter. In the story he kills a lot of people and in the end he commits suicide. It´s about the dark thoughts
of a man. Fits well to heavy rock!

You were signed with a major label, but now with Nuclear Blast. Didn't you get enough support and are you happy to be back on a metal label?

The european market was a disaster with EMI. We were on a tour and nobody even knew that we were touring. I would say it was a nasty exprerience, we were quite unsatisfied. Now back to NB, and it´s nice! They are really putting effort to the band, lots of interviews and they are working to get us on the road, here in europe and in the US. I think at the moment this is the best situation we have ever had.

A couple of years ago, you were hot in Canada. Is that still the case?

Dunno!? But I think we should definitely go there to play a show and see it by ourselves. Yeah, there is lots of people who like our band and the feedback from Canada has been good. It would be great to play Toronto and Montreal this year too. We like Canada a lot, there has always been good shows, great audience and massive aftershow parties!

Many people still hope for a second "Tales from the Thousand Lakes". What do you think of that?

It´s understandable, it´s such a good album! Well, I think with this new line-up, we have a pretty good opportunity to make many good albums in the future, let´s hope one of them will turn out to be a classic like Tales :)
Of course the timing was right back then too, nowadays the scenes are pretty mixed, so is it even possible for us to take that challenge?

I think all the Amorphis albums have been really good. I don´t really listen to them to be honest. In between gigs I normally listen "older songs jukebox".

You are going on tour with a few metal bands. Do you think that the fans of Hypocrisy and Soilwork will appreciate Amorphis?

It´s still 4 hours to see the reaction, but I think this package kicks ass - a lot of bands in the same club, and they all have their own style, which differs from the others. I think Hypocrisy and Soilwork fans will respect us too. Of course we have to give our very best every night to get that respect ;)

There also are a lot of festivals in this summer, between 20 to 30. We´ll visit Sweden, Germany, Romania, Italy and Czech Republic and we´ll do many in Finland. At least.

I think the headlining tour might happen in the fall, we´ll see. We have to go to the US too and propably to south America, so it´s a lot of timing to do in the near future. If everything goes well, we´ll be able to do those all in the next fall. After that we´ll start to work on the new album, compose the songs and try to get it recorded quickly. And then probably more shows...

Is there life after Amorphis?

As a corpse? In a coffin? Let´s hope there is an afterlife, but at the moment we are still working hard and not stopping. If are we going to do this when we are 50? No idea, it sounds pretty distant. Let´s see. Let´s hope life goes slowly.

Any last words for our readers?

Greetings from Neckbreaker's Ball! Give our new album Eclipse some time and it will kick your balls off!!