Interviews

Hello! How are you doing?

Anders Öström: We are doing fine, thanks! Actually, I can feel the rise of a star wars-nerd in me, I have just watched all 6 episodes in within one week! Well, anyway, our debut album has been released two weeks ago at this point, and we are anxious to hear what people think of it! So far, we have had mostly good reviews and opinions, so, we think everything's going well.
Hope we can have lots of shows to do, to present this our album live to people. We love playing live, that's one of the best things in being a musician! It's a bit hard, because we have 3 of our members doing their mandatory military service at the moment, but luckily we have some friends from other bands who help us if we need to do a show.

First of all congratulations to your new album, I really liked it. As this is your debut album some people might now know very much about you, yet. So could you briefly introduce the band and tell something about your past?

Anders: Thank you very much! We are glad that you liked it! Well, Blind Stare has been formed in 1999, by myself and Henry Valkonen, the old drummer. We had this anxiety to play metal music, that we loved, so we had to form a band. The style was not like it is now back then, it was more like nu-metal influenced death metal without vocals, I hope you can picture how it is in your head! Anyway, then we wanted to progress, as we still do, and had few other members involved in the band. "Tume", our old bass player, Heikki our previous guitarist, Eino and Zacharias came into the band at the time, not at the same time, but anyway. Well then the situation in the band wasn't good, because some members had a lack of motivation, so we decided with Eino and Zach to form a new band. We kept the same name, and that is how the current line-up was formed, now we have quite motivated and good-spirited guys in band! Well, with that line-up we made 3 demos, and the last of them, "The Reborn Genius" -mcd gave us the chance to sign a record deal with Arise Records. So, here we are, with our new album called "Symphony Of Delusions", which has tracks from our demos, and few new ones.

Your debut "Symphony Of Delusions" was released by the Spanish label Arise Records. How is it working with them and how good is their promotion?

Anders: In my opinion, the label itself and the agreement are great, I mean the communication is easy and comfortable, and if we have any questions for the label, they answer pretty quickly after sending it to them. Yeah, the communication is mostly done by E-mail. The agreement was great too, fair for us and very clear to read and understand. We like it that way, there's nothing really negative to say from the label itself. Eino can tell more about the promotion section, which I personally think that Javi from Arise has done a great job with the resources it is possible to do.

Eino: Arise took quite big copy of the promotional versions and they have sent it to all major media and most of the minor media too. So I think the promotion is quite good. I don't believe in adverts as single adverts do not have such a good effect. Advertisement needs to be huge! Adverts everywhere and all the time, so that people get exposed to it all the time, that is effective. In our case I think the reviews and interviews are much more valuable than adverts.

How were the reactions towards the album so far?

Anders: They have been great, I mean, there are lots of great reviews like 6 out of 7, 9 out of 10 and such. Of course, there are few others not that good, but, well, as far as I know, the reviewers are not that professional, because in some of them they review more the album cover art than the music itself, and comments like "I thought it was power metal because of that cover, and was disappointed of the music" just doesn't match our way of seeing a professional (well, even amateur) review! But that's always the thing, someone else likes and someone else doesn't. But anyway, we have been very satisfied with lots of good reactions, and we agree with them in most parts!

How difficult is it for demo bands in the Finnish metal scene at the moment? I think there are quite a lot bands that are very good but only a few get a record deal. How hard/easy was it for you to get the deal with Arise Records for example?

Anders: Well I must agree, there's lots of very good bands underground in Finland, who are just waiting for their chance to be noticed by someone. There's lots of motivation in Finnish bands, and they don't give up easily due to negative comments or such. Well I think it was pretty smoothly with us, Arise showed interest towards us quickly, and after presenting some other music of ours to them, we got the deal with them.

Eino: Yeah, it has been really easy. Javi from Arise asked us to send more material after hearing The Reborn Genius and when we sent him the Once a True Story -demo he liked it and presented us a contract that we started negoating with. It ended up quite good and we signed it! It is really worth making good studio demos with a producer who can help you with some arrangements and stuff. So I most recommend bands to put some financial effort to their band.

Did you already have your current style in mind as you started with the songwriting or was it just a coincidence that the album ended up like this with a mixture of different styles? And what were your main influences?

Anders: Yeah the style has always been there, with the curent line-up. As I am the one who composes the songs, I think I have certain way to do things, and that's why they sound the way they sound in general. But, for the melodic death metal style, everyone in our band likes that style of music, and it's the music we want to do. We want to add elements from other styles too, to make the songs even more interesting and complex. I have a large taste in music, I listen to all kinds of music, and that reflects to the music I make. Well, the pre-production sessions makes a great difference too, and that is the way for other band members to add their musical points of wiew to the material, and give it details. So, I compose the songs, but the other members and producers has their touch too in the songs.

In several reviews I read that you are often compared to Dimmu Borgir. Do you think this comparison is appropriate or would you rather like not being compared to any band at all?

Anders: Well, if Dimmu Borgir were death metal, the comparison would be much closer. But the fact that Dimmu Borgir is Black Metal gives our music a certain distance to theirs. Of course, we respect their work, and music, but we would rather not like to be comparised to them or other bands, the better way of telling what is our music like is to tell it straight and without comparisions. For example, we have had comparisions to Sonata Arctica and HIM too, we have been called viking and even folk metal; and that might give a wrong description to people of our music. So the better way would just be to tell what is melodic death metal in general, and Blind Stare as one of those bands, but with symphonical elements too.

I always think that it is very important for a newcomer band to have something unique in their style. Otherwise they just drown in the masses of all the 'big' bands. You have quite a lot of elements I could not find in many other bands so far which make you sounding quite original. One of these are the vocals. How did you came up with the idea of combining so different styles of singing? And how are you handling those live?

Anders: I think it's important too. Well, I have always sawn the music as a "pile of emotional layers" and all the elements in our music represent those layers. So, the taller the stack is, the more the music would sound interesting. The different styles of singing give the music certain depth in emotional level, and different styles of certain parts can sometimes be described better with clean or choir vocals. So, the lyrics interfere this, like certain lyrics must be sung with growling, and others with clean.
The more we have hate and anger in the song, the more brutal the singing gets!

Three of your bandmembers are going through their mandatory service at the moment. How do you think about the mandatory service in Finland in general? And how is it affecting things for Blind Stare at the moment? Can you do any live shows or do you have to wait until they are finished?

Anders: Well, we can make the important shows; if we can't get the guys off from the military service, we have some session members to replace them, luckily. Kinnari from Warhorn helps us with drums, and even the little sister of Jaakko has been helping us out with our keyboards. Jani from Dismay will help us with bass if we need someone to replace Kalle.
Myself and Eino don't have to worry about the service anymore, I have done my military duty couple of years ago. So, when they get out from there, we can start to practice new songs.

Do you see your band just as a hobby or as something more serious? How much of your spare time does it take at the moment?

Anders: For myself, the band is very important part of my life, well I'm studying too, and that takes a lot of time too, but not as much as I want to concentrate on the band. So, at the moment it's a bit quiet with rehearsals, because the guys being in military, but I am already composing some new material and writing lyrics for the next album. We have a record deal and we take it seriously, as the making of the music itself, but not like "deathserious", just to keep our sanity...

Eino: Blind Stare is prior number one for me at the moment, and will probably be for a quite long time! I am also writing stuff for the next album and hopefully we can get to rehearsals at the end of the summer!

What are your future plans with Blind Stare? Are you already working on the next album?

Anders: Yeah, the general aspects of the next album are already clear, and I have been composing a bit some new material, and written some lyrics, too. This time, Eino will also do some lyrics too for the next album. But the most part of the composing I will do it seems, Jaakko has too composed some riffs but I don't know if he has anything ready yet.

Is there anything left unmentioned you would like to add? Maybe a short message from you to our readers ?

Anders: Well, I suggest that if you havent already checked us out, there's a song and a clip downloadable from our net site (www.blindstare.net). Hope to see you guys in our gig sometime too, let's bang our heads like never before! ;)

Well, thank you for the interview and good luck in the future.

Anders: Thank you! It has been our pleasure.