Interviews

Finland's favorite Folk Metal party-meisters KORPIKLAANI have been keeping themselves quite busy. Releasing six albums in as many years and touring Europe numerous times, they finally made it to their first North American tour on this year's Paganfest alongside PRIMORDIAL and MOONSORROW. With album number six, "Karkelo", due out this year on Nuclear Blast, the sky is the limit for this truly fun band of merry huntsmen.

How's the tour been so far?

"It's been good, surprisingly good. We had no idea what to expect from the tour in the U.S. and Canada because we were a bit nervous about it because we were booked to headline the shows and we had no idea if we would have any audience after MOONSORROW and PRIMORDIAL, but it has been surprisingly good. We have met so many people that said they have been waiting for this to happen for seven years or something, they had already lost their hope to ever get us in the States. So it's been good. Some of the venues have been shitholes. The average, it is worse than in Europe that we do, but it's just our first time here and next time it will be better perhaps."

Yeah, the place you played last night in Seattle (studio Seven) is one of their better venues, at least.

"Well they had a shower, so that's already a big plus for the USA."

You get bigger, you'll have to play a worse venue (El Corazon), 'cause that's the next step up.

"That wasn't full last night, so next time it will be in the same venue. (laughter)"

Do you change your set list every night?

"Yeah, but not much. We have been changing a few songs around, only like two or three, but the order of the songs may change because we actually don't really follow the set list. We know the songs that we start with, we know the songs that we end with, but the middle part... that set list on the floor is just a list of songs we have, then, you know, 'ah, that one'. Sometimes beyond that we'll pull out some surprises."

Okay, tell us a little bit about the new album, "Karkelo".

"It's a good album. The last album was a little bit dark, maybe and it'll have that drinking and party atmosphere and the new album will have two or three drinking songs and it will also have probably that flow of the heavier stuff, as well, in the band's history. It was done with a different producer this time and it's sounds a bit different, sounds better, just maybe more guitar driven than the previous albums were. It is better played, this album, because the producer was actually making us to work a lot harder than the previous one. The previous producer was basically producing the album like, technically, making sure that everything sounds okay, but he had no input in the music itself, but the new producer actually made us to rethink some things and do some arrangement work. I think that the big changes are in the little things. It is just generally done so much better."

After recording so many albums in such a short amount of time, are there any songs left over that you haven't used for anything yet?

"Yeah, we have had songs that we have been rehearsing for the albums, but then we have dropped them before we have recorded them, so I don't think we have any songs recorded. I can't remember... possibly one or two, but if we have had some stuff that we decide to leave out of the album, then usually the record label has them put on the Japanese release or something. Anyway, no we don't have any unreleased, extra material."

Is there anything the band has not worked on lyrically that you would like to in the future?

"Hmmm... we haven't really thought about that because most of the album and our previous album are in a Finnish dialect and it's a different writer, a friend of ours, not a band member, writes the lyrics. He provides us with many sets of lyrics, beside what we use from them, sometimes change them quite a lot. So I guess we are going to continue with that in the same way that we have. The new album is a bit different in that usually the previous Finnish lyrics were written in this old Finnish poetic meter and most of the stuff on the new album is, as well, but there's also one song that is written totally in a different Finnish dialect, like a more western dialect, where the others are more eastern dialect. It is confusing a bit, but then again, it's in Finnish and no American will ever notice the difference. (laughter)."

Are there any instruments you haven't used on an album yet that you would like to in the future?

"A banjo."

Nice!

"We did some tests in the studio on one part on one song that we actually tried with the banjo, but it was like 'eh'. (laughter) But I'm sure there will be banjos on an album one day."