SHAMRAIN: Preview - Report of 'Goodbye To All That'

Matti Reinola of ShamRain was interviewed for Tuskasi.com website. A couple of excerpts follows:

Usually bands tend to say that their latest album is the best and artistically most mature one. In the guestbook of your homepage one could at least read that Kalle is very confident about the new one. So, what is the the thing that puts you artistically on a new level with the new album? What makes it better than the ones before?
Matti: I think there is a wider scale on the music. There are faster and more rocking songs and still there is the old stuff we are known for: the emotional, slow, ethereal songs. It has more pespective.
Kalle: But the older stuff works in its own level fine these days also. I think it's more more wider.

So, it's basically the variety that makes your songs more interesting.
Matti: Yeah, and maybe there are more interesting little elements, you know.

Actually your band sound has always been very dark and gloomy, one can say - since the very beginning. To me there has always been a certain catchiness in the songs - a certain hit potential. That's what I've always said. When I listened to the new album with you together, the new stuff sounded much more complex to me than before. Less radio friendly, so to speak. Can one interpret this new direction as the final "Fuckoff" to the mainstream?
M: Well, I don't think you could put it that way because I don't think anything has changed that much in that way. There still are many catchy songs, total Pop songs. But maybe the inspiration for me... I've got to know the band Porcupine Tree and their songs are very complex... some new elements have come of course. I never thought it that way. In the past we also had those songs that were not so catchy. Slow ones and long ones. In this new album there are maybe more parts - at least in some songs, like in the outro song "Goodbyes Painted Black" and "Ghosts I See".
Kalle: It's more complex and there are more parts before the chorus.
M: So on the ShamRain-scale they are even progressive.

Matti, you've said the name of your singer -Mika Tauriainen (Entwine)- made you part of the Finnish Gothic Metal genre in which you in your opinion don't belong to. I've asked myself when I've listened to the new stuff -since it's different from before- do you think that you might lose some of your listeners that were following you because of Mika's name?
Matti: I don't believe that we will be losing any listeners, because: it's not that complex again and there are still the same elements. Instead I hope we are getting some new liteners that are not necessarily after the Finnish Goth Metal shit. Who like the same bands that I do as a music writer - like Anathema, Porcupine Tree and stuff like that. British music.
Kalle: I've got really good feedback from people who don't listen to any Gothic but to Radiohead and some kinds of bands like that. British bands and such.
Matti: Far from Finnish Gothic. Everytime you find a new fan who's not after the Finnish scene it feels great.
Kalle: For me, too (laughs).
Matti: Not only Entwine followers or something like that. Not only those 15 year old girls that want into Mika's pants (laughs).

That leads perfectly over to the next question because you mentioned Porcupine Tree as an influence and you've always expressed your deep appreciation for those British Dark Rock acts. Maybe this question is a little bit provocative - do you see yourselves as the Finnish answer to bands like Porcupine Tree by now, after seven years of existance as a band?
Matti: I think we're getting there. Not necessarily yet. But the direction is good.
Kalle: We are ten times smaller than those.
Matti: But in Finland many people feel that way. That we are closer to those bands than to the Gothic scene. There are not so many bands that are in the vein of those bands mentioned actually.
Kalle: I can't get any band from Finland in my mind which would be doing such music.
Matti: As we do, yeah.

Read the entire interview at this location. Report also contains lots of images so enjoy!