Interviews

Catamenia band. Finland. Having Finland on the business card is favourable for some bands, but not for all.How is in your case?

O.J.: Seems that finnish bands are some sort of a “trend” in the music scene nowadays so atleast it hasn?t hurt us in anyway. Some bands like Children of Bodom, Finntroll, Amorphis, Nightwish etc. have opened road for many other metal bands coming from Finland. Hopefully things keep going on like this.

Once again about the location. From here, in the East, the Northern countries seem to be an inexhaustible spring of new bands.. Even the newest bands, with only one demo and monikers impossible to pronnounce (for us, of course) have a pretty fast success, which leads me to the idea that there is no actually a real "underground" out there. How is that seen from your side? Is the metal music kind of mainstream at yours or is it just an impression of ours?

O.J.: Metal music seems to really be quite mainstream in Finland, there?s continuously lots of metal albums on the official sales charts in here. Maybe the long and dark winters we have around here have something to do with that.

Almost a year had passed since your last album, Winternight Tragedies. When should we expect a new album? Will there be a new wolf on the front cover?

O.J.: Atleast we have planned to record a new album during the spring/summer so maybe it will be out next fall. Dunno about the wolf yet but probably it will be there as always, heh.

Riku: We have received the confirmation for the studio and at the moment it seems we’re going to enter the studio on 15th of May which will last until 19th of June. The working title of the albums is ‘Location:COLD’ and is planned to release next Fall around September 2006.

I personally prefer Catamenia lyrics in Suomi rather than in English. Any chances for more songs sung in Suomi on the following albums?

O.J.: Lots of people have told us that they?d like to hear more songs sung in finnish so I guess that there will be atleast one song in our native language. But I don?t really see it happening that we would make a whole album in finnish.

Let's ignore that we're a Romanian webzine. Where did you feel best in the East mini-tour from last year?

O.J.: Sofia and Cluj-Napoca were the best places in my opinion. Lots of audience and great athmosphere. We also had a great after party at Cluj on some local metal bar. Was really fun to hang around with Romanian fans and get totally wasted. I ended up sleeping on our hotels doorway.

Riku: Yeah, I agree though every gig was great...except in Osijek cause there were some problems with the backline, so whole event was delayed like for 4 hours. But Sofia, Cluj-Napoca, Bucharest and Budapest were awesome gigs.

The European tour for 2006 had been postponed or cancelled. Is there other explanation except for the official one?

Riku: It was just postponed because of the lack of time to make it happen. So the official exaplanation still stands, heh.

There were 2 departures from the band in 3 years. Is the same Catamenia as it used to be at the beginning? Is there any risk to disband? What would you personally do if that would happen?

Riku: I would say that Catamenia evolves along the changes in the band. Those are just things that has happened, but now we have a great atmosphere in the band. And there’s no risk to disband. But if it would happen for some weird reason, I think I would continue working, drinking and making music.

Is there any other band in which you had dreamt to be part of at a certain moment?

O.J.: No, not really. I really enjoy being in Catamenia since we always have great time together while being on the road etc. Music is not the only thing that matters, it?s also about the chemistry between the band members that make it worthwhile everything it takes.

Any chances for something like "Unwrap" in the near future?

Riku: You never know what happens in the future, so everything’s possible. But at the moment we’re 100% behind Catamenia, so no time to make any side projects at the moment.