Interviews

Dimitris Melidis: Hello from Metal Eagle Online Magazine. Congratulations for your new album "Plague-House Puppet Show", which is an album full of interesting ideas and beautiful melodies. How would you describe your music to someone that has never heard TWILIGHTNING stuff?
Thief Sartanen: It´s ass kickin´ melodic metal with strong 80´s hard rock influences blended with modern production and pure and dirty rock ´n´ roll attitude. Some progressive influences can be found too. The material is pretty unscrupulous, but at the same, very classy and stylish.

Dimitris: Everything in your new album, from the arrangements to the production and the backing vocals, sound very professional and well-worked. How much time you stayed in the studio to record "Plague-House Puppet Show"?
Thief: At first we spent four weeks in the studio and in the middle of that we did a Japanese tour with HELLOWEEN. After that we did many scattered sessions of approximately 2 to 5 days. And still we had to record a cover song and a Japanese bonus track in addition to the album tracks due to the labels request. So the whole process took almost half a year.

Dimitris: The songs of your new album prove that many types of hard music influence you. I´ve noticed influences from power metal, from progressive metal and even from classic hard rock. How do you manage to mix these influences? Who makes the decisions for the band´s musical direction?
Thief: Yes, especially the classic 80´s heavy & hard rock influences and image is very important to us. Another major factor is synth music such as Jan Hammer and TANGERINE DREAM. And then there are trash metal stuff, progressive stuff (like PINK FLOYD) and whatever that sounds interesting. I don´t really think about these things when I compose, it all just comes naturally. We have a clear vision of what TWILIGHTNING sounds like. We all have the same picture about the direction, but in the end it must be me and Wille-W who do the artistic decisions.

Dimitris: The mix of heavy riffs with catchy melodies and speedy rhythm is a trademark of your sound. We know that many new bands from Finland (VIRTUOCITY, TWILIGHT GUARDIANS, MANITOU etc.) are playing with a similar way. Is this music popular in your homeland?
Thief:

I don´t know and I don´t care what´s popular. VIRTUOCITY and TWILIGHT GUARDIANS are pretty much leaning to neon-classical power metal, which we don´t wanna have anything to do with. We wouldn´t use those goddamn "harpsichord or whatever classical pipe" sounds and do some stupid harmonic minor arpeggios with them. We´d use pipes for smoking weed. *LOL*

Dimitris: The singer of the band has a really good heavy metal voice that fits with the music that you play. He made a great job on the lead and backing vocals. Can you tell us some things about him?
Thief: He´s very talented, that´s for sure. And he´s not one of those wimpy singers that have to do vapour breathing or something like that before a gig and stay sober the night before. One or two packs of menthol cigarettes a day keep his vocal chords in condition.

Dimitris: Finland seems to be today´s capital of melodic metal, and of course the worldwide success of bands like STRATOVARIUS, NIGHTWISH and SONATA ARCTICA prove that Finnish metal is popular nowadays. How did TWILIGHTNING decide to play this kind of music?
Thief: It was not a decision to make. Usually bands make the kind of music that they like themselves, or at least should do. ´Heavy metal´ are the key words. That´s what we like to do, and we´ll do it our way.