L’équipe de Thorium a attrapé le bassiste Sami Hinkka, du groupe Ensiferum, avant sa performance au Pagan Fest North America le 18 avril dernier. Il avait encore le décapsuleur à la main droite, et une bouteille de cidre fraîchement ouverte à la gauche. Nous avons profité de l’occasion pour lui poser quelques questions!

Thorium: So, I see you’re well equipped. Do you always carry that bottle opener with you?

Sami: I never leave home without it. Especially on tour!

T: Do you have any other tour accessories that you couldn’t live without?

S: There’s this biker thing called a buff, a kind of microfiber headgear. Bandana, scarf, face mask, it does everything. On tour, sometimes you have to sleep in really weird places and it’s really comfortable.

T: We’re on the last legs of the fourth edition of the Pagan Fest North America. Has the road been kind so far?

S: It’s been a really good tour, even though we had big problems! In the beginning, the airline lost all of our gear, so we had to play the first shows without our own instruments, we borrowed some from the other bands. We didn’t have our backing tracks, so we had to change the whole setlist a few hours before we had to go up on stage. Of course, when we were in the next city, the airline sent our stuff to the previous city and we had to chase it down. We had everything for the third show, but apart from that it was really good.

T: So you had to play cat and mouse with your amps and gear for a while?

S: Luckily, we had amps for the tour, it was only our guitars and stuff like that. A big thank you to the other bands for being so kind!

T: Is that your craziest story for this tour?

S: (laughs) Kinda. It’s been a really mellow tour. We share a bus with Tyr, who are old friends, and crewmembers, and that’s something that we asked for. The other bus, Heidevolk, Trollfest and Helsott, they actually labeled our bus as the Granny Bus! After the show, we go over there, have a few drinks and still have a good time.

T: I saw the prank they did on your door!

S: Well, at least this time it wasn’t Penisferum!

T: They try to keep you on your toes then? Do you have any friendly competition?

S: They always come up with something new. It’s actually only the second time. The tour is ending so maybe now they have the courage, and know that we don’t bite!

T: You’ve been going for almost 20 years. Did you notice any big transition from the ’90’s to now?

S: Of course. It’s even been different since our first visit here in 2004. The growth of this genre has been tremendous and it kind of keeps growing, especially in North America. A lot of new bands are popping up all the time, and it really feels weird to have kids coming up to the shows and say ” Oh, you’re the reason we started our band! We love your stuff!” It makes me feel very humble. Dude, it’s just… us! We’re just a few peeps from Helsinki!

T: How old does it make you feel?

S: Very old. But I manage! I go out there and have fun anyways. Touring is hard, ir involves a lot of sitting around in buses, airports, and being away from family and friends. But when you come on stage and see the reaction of the crowd, it’s “Fuck yeah! This is worth it!”

Was there any adaptation when you came over to North America for your first tour?

S: Of course, the distance between cities are much larger here, and the traveling is longer than in Europe, in average. Crowd wise, there’s no difference. We played countries like South Africa, China, India, Australia and the crowds are always crazy and in a good mood. That’s something I love from our music.

That’s a staple of the genre. People are always happy at a folk metal show and it’s one of the few places where you’ll see people dancing instead of ramming into each other in the mosh pit.

S: It’s great! Everybody sings along, and each time somebody falls down, everybody hekps him up. I reallyu like the mentality.

T: For the bagan fest in itself, did you notice a big difference between the first edition and now?

S: The venues and crowds are bigger. We have more exposure. Everything is smoother now, but it was already a really good tour back in 2008.

T: Does your music, based on scandinavian tales and folklore, have a better reception in Europe or North America? Do you notice a big difference, if any?

S: For us, the scandinavian mythology is just one source of inspiration.It’s just pure fantasy, even though when I write the lyrics, they are inspired from real life. There are big challenges to make the themes fit, but people around the world tend to be attracted to them, because they’re just… heroic.

T: So, you don’t have any cultural approach in your music? You take the folk and the epic and work with that?

S: Yeah, well, when you look in folk tales from around the world, there are always similar themes and characters. It makes it easy to relate to our stuff. Some people have told us that, because of our music and that we have a love for our cultural heritage, they have found a love of their own culture.

T: Did you have any particular inspirations for your last record?

S: All the lyrics are inspired by real life, things that happened to me or someone close to me. That’s pretty much it. It’s not a theme album. It’s funny, because when we were mixing the album, I was reading the lyrics and I noticed that all the lyrics talk about change and the absence of status quo, at every level. Because everything is changing, you have to respect the current moment. If you’re having a good moment, with good moment, appreciate it and tell each other, because you never know. Tomorrow is always a new day.

T: How did the crowd react to the new stuff?

S: Overall, it’s been incredibly positive. Of course, some people are like “Oh, this is much slower than the old stuff” but every album reflects a certain period of time, and Unsung Heroes represents what we felt like at that moment. The next album will reflect the time between Unsung Heroes and itself, and it’s gonna be totally different again.

T: You’ve released albums as far a three years apart. Is there any particular reason for this length of time?

S: We’re really slow composers. We use a lot of time to arrange every small detail, and we like to twist and turn every chorus and every melody so we can be absolutely sure it’s the best we can come with now. Of course, in the future we’re gonna be different musicians and composers, but at this moment? We want to be able to stand behind and be proud of each note. We tour a lot, a lot of shows, around a hundred per year, with the traveling days and all that, not counting time with family and friends. We need some time to compose, and that too takes time. The three years period seems to be what is natural for us.

T: You told us the composing process is long. Is the recording as long and tedious?

S: No, actually. When we hit the studios, we’re done in two months. Of course, that’s long for some bands, but we have so much stuff: The basic instruments, tons of folk instruments, orchestrations and huge choirs -one or two hundred tracks of vocals sometimes – it all takes time. We also like to try  a little stuff in the studio. Of course, when we arrive in the studio, everything is ready, the parts are all written, but we like to have some time to rework some of the harmonies.

T: Do you have any particular influences as a musician yourself?

S: As a bass player, my all time heroes are Steve Harris and Flea. Those gentlemen were the reason why I continued playing, but the world is full of good music. The drummer from Finntroll introduced me recently to choral singing, just human voices, it’s so beautiful – I’m not a religious person, I don’t give a fuck because it’s just so beautiful. I try to keep my horizons as wide as possible.

T: Is there an album you keep coming back to? Something really unexpected perhaps?

S: Oh, there are many. That’s a tough one. I’ve been listening to some psychobilly lately, even bought an upright bass and I wish I had more time to practice with it. I’m gonna be pretty lame though and say Seventh Son of a Seventh Son from Iron Maiden. It does the trick every time.

T: Do you have any expectations for the next few years before you release the next album?

S: I just wish we can keep touring as much as possible. I don’t know, let’s see!  I feel privileged to be able to have this as a job.Everything looks good for us and we have lots of plans, and the next few years will be busy even though we don’t have a set schedule.

Vous pouvez consulter notre couverture complète de la soirée du 4e Pagan Fest North America ici.

Auteur: Phil Mandeville

Photographe: Paul Blondé

L’équipe de Thorium a eu la chance de s’entretenir avec le bassiste du groupe Tyr avant leur performance à la quatrième édition du Pagan Fest North America, le 18 avril dernier. Il nous a parlé de tournées, de festival et de l’album à venir plus tard cette année. 

Thorium : We’re on the last legs of the fourth edition of the Pagan Fest North America. How has the tour been so far?

Gunnar: Super, as always!

Thorium: Do you have any crazy tour stories this time around?

Gunnar: Not that many, no. It’s been a very mellow tour.

T: You’ve been on the Paganfest lineup on the first edition. How do you feel the festival has grown?

G: That’s really hard to say. It was really good the first time around, but this time, there are a lot more people in the audience. I guess it’s been positive all the way through.

T: You’re supposed to release an album this year. How does the process go so far?

G: As we are on tour, we’re writing as we go. We’re supposed to go in studio one week after the tour.

T: How does the writing go?

G: It’s going well, but it’s hard because of the time issues. It’s not that easy to write music on tour, it demands a lot of free time that is hard to come by.

T: Do you have any ideas of what musical and lyrical themes you’ll use this time around?

G: Yes, we have, but I’m not allowed to say it. There’s gonna be boobs, that’s what I can say! You’re gonna like it!

T: What’s your recording process? Do you have a fast approach to recording?

G: We have the back tracks ready, so we go in and go with the classic pattern. Start with drums, go on with the bass, and guitar and then we go on to vocals. That’s the way we do it.

T: Some bands have a long recording process.

G: We don’t! (laughs)

T: So it’s pretty straightforward, in and out?

G: Yes, it takes us two to three weeks to get everything done, with the mixing and the whole shebang.

T: You hail from a very small market, the Faroe Islands, and you play tonight in a big city like Montreal. Do you think it would have been better to start out in a bigger market?

G: I don’t know. We started small, and we took whatever came our way. I really can’t see what would have happened otherwise, I can only say that what happened was good!

T: When you were starting out, how difficult was it to set up since you hail from a small set of islands? Was there any technical complications due to that?

G: Not at all. You learn from the technical guys on the road, the soundmen teach you along the way, and other bands tell you what’s the easiest way to travel and what you must and must not take with you. We learned a lot from that.

T: You’ve played big festivals, notably Wacken Open Air. How does it feel to play in front of larger attendances than your country’s population?

G: It’s great! I don’t get nervous, I usually never do. Especially when you see how much they like the stuff. It’s always a big surprise , we have no expectations and we suddenly see all those people that are there for OUR concert that get really excited and happy, it’s something.

T: You’ve played many big shows in the last few years. Which one was the most awesome?

G: Shit, that’s a though one. There’s not many any bad ones, the bad ones are usually small gigs in the middle of nowhere.

T: We hear sometimes that when folk metal bands tour North America they end up in small venues in the middle of nowhere in the United States, in front of a hundred people. Anything like that this time around?

G: This time, it’s been good all the way through. We’ve played one small venue, in Westchester, I think. It went down great. I’m still used to doing all the small clubs from our early days, so, you know, we had fun anyways.

T: Metal bands always start out in this kind of place anyways.

G: Sometimes you have to be ready to go down to go back up again!

T: The folk metal is seen by some to be a somewhat declining trend, past it’s prime. Is this something you have noticed?

G: Not at all, no. I have actually noticed more of a growth, it’s getting bigger and bigger for us. It depends of the bands, I guess.

T: You’ve met a number of bands and personalities on tour and on the road. Is there one that affected the way you tour, or how you play?

G: That’s a hard one. Amon Amarth was a huge influence. I found their shows very interesting, without doing that much on stage. Somehow they were just interesting to look at, that’s inspiring. As far as for me personally, I’d have to say Steve Harris. I think I’ve only seen him once, but I’ve been impressed by his energetic way of performing.

T: Do you have any influences yourself apart from that?

G: Not really. I’ve always been and still am more into drummers. For bass players, I’d have to say Geezer Butler that has some very cool feel, Les Claypool from Primus, I love that guy. It’s inspiring to listen to stuff like that, because he seems like he has no limits.

T: You talk a lot about norse folklore and mythology? Is it something that transpire outside of the music or the context of the band, or you just tell the stories?

G: We only tell the stories as they are, combine them with something that’s happening today. It shows that the same problems appear again and again. You can always compare. As far as outside of music goes, it’s not some stuff we believe in, it’s our heritage.

T: You have big historical influences in the stories you tell. How hard do you research for the themes and lyrics?

G: It’s mainly Heri, our frontman, who does all the lyrics, and he has a very good knowledge of the stories. He does do a deep research and he always knows what he’s talking about.

T: So, I have one last for you: How hard is it to park a tour longboat on the Saint-Lawrence river?

G: (laughs) Very hard! Definitely not easy, but it’s doable. We’re here after all!

Vous pouvez retrouver notre compte-rendu du spectacle ici. 

Auteur: Philippe Mandeville

Photographe: Paul Blondé