Very few new acts in recent memory have had as much initial buzz or promotion behind them as Finland’s Swallow the Sun. Beyond the fact that their Olympic/Century Media debut, The Morning Never Came is an honest-to-gods Gothic Doom/Death record in finest tradition of the Masters (My Dying Bride, Katatonia), it is also a record which should bridge gaps and cross boundaries between metal fans who have thus far been tentative to drip their toes within the Doom end of the extreme metal spectrum. With it’s raw emotion and shockingly heavy delivery, The Morning Never Came is destined to make waves within the underground community. So grab some strong alcohol and a bottle of pills, and slip away with Swallow the Sun….

Greetings gentlemen! Thanks for talking to us. First off, I must say that I am extremely impressed with this debut, congratulations. Very few bands come out of the starting gate with an album such as this. What are your feelings on its release, especially with all the stellar praise it has been receiving from the press lately?
Pasi: Thanks a lot. It’s already been over a year since the original release, so things have calmed down a bit. Still, of course it’s great to know the album succeeded as well as it did. We’re about to start working on the second album right now so our concentration is pretty much in it now.
Juha: Even the album is "old" for us, I’m still very anxious about it. The U.S and Asian releases are a new start for The Morning Never Came and I think that people will find it too.

What brought you to the creation of this emotional, melancholic Doom you guys produce? Have you always known you wanted to play this sort of music, and have the roots of Swallow the Sun’s musical beginnings always held this flavor to them, or did it evolve from something different?
Juha: I just love weeping melodies and dark lyrics in music. I had my first doom band over 10 years ago and I just waited for the right time to put it back again. These melodies have always been there.
Pasi: We’ve played all kinds of metal music in various bands for a long time. It just happened at the right time.

How long were these songs written before you had the opportunity to lay them down on disc? You formed in 2000 out of the ashes of Plutonium Orange. What led to the formation of the band at this period, and did you spend a lot of time crafting and working on these songs?
Juha: I had these few songs that didn’t fit Plutonium Orange’s style, so I asked Pasi to try them out with me. The songs in the album came out really naturally, I just had to get them out from me.
Pasi: Juha and I rehearsed a couple of songs together and we thought that maybe we should get more guys to make it a band. It took us about two years before we found more players to StS. We weren’t actually too active finding them. Then we rehearsed for a year or so and headed to studio to record our first demo.

Please tell us about the Out of the Gloomy Light demo period. Were there any songs here that didn’t make the full length, and how did this demo fare in the underground? Were the reactions good, and did this lead to your signing with Firebox records? What was this period like for the band?
Juha: All songs in the demo are in the album too, so no leftovers. After we recorded the demo it didn’t take long to get a deal with Firebox Records. I think that Pasi had the time to send three demos around and the deal was already done, so there aren’t many people that have even heard the demo.

How does a songwriting session generally go for the band? Are there any primary contributors, or is it more of a group oriented affair? Do songs go through many changes before their finished, and have you ever scrapped ideas that weren’t working?
Juha: I usually have the whole songs written but sometimes they change a lot in the rehearsals. I have this vision how Swallow the Sun should sound like, and together we can come up with that sound perfectly.
Pasi: The songs find their final shape in the rehearsal room after everyone has added their own things in them, then we just play them. Sometimes we re-arrange certain parts or even change the whole concept. There are a few ideas we have abandoned.

Would you say Swallow the Sun are a product of it’s influences? I can feel the heritage of the Doom Music you guys play, the layered clean/distorted guitars, mournful harmonies and keyboards…it has that very European feel to it, evoking memories of the early British bands (MDB, Paradise Lost, etc). Do you feel it’s healthy to be influenced by outside elements, rather than shutting yourself off from them?
Juha: Yes, we owe lots to bands like My Dying Bride, who are British, and then Type O Negative, who are American. It’s healthy to be influenced by anything that comes from the heart and sounds good!

At the same time, Finland has it’s own heritage of displaying some of the finest, most desperate Doom of it’s own. Do you find yourself inspired by your homeland and the experience of being Finnish and translate that to your music?
Pasi: Well, there is the long, dark and cold winter in Finland, which might have something to do with what kind of music we play, but then again, there is the beautiful summertime too. The thing of course is that everything around us brings up certain things that may relate to the music.
Juha: Nature has a big part in our music and you can hear Finnish weather in our sound. I have written some songs and lyrics in the nature and from the nature, so it has huge effect on me. Songs have this Finnish gloom, beauty and despair there.

Totally off the subject, but am I the only one who remembers the phenomenal Finnish doom act Decoryah? They released two amazing albums for Metal Blade and then dropped off the face of the Earth. I hear the same fluid, "crying" lead guitar style in Swallow the Sun…perhaps an influence?
Pasi: I had some 7" EP from Decoryah long time ago, but it’s very little that I remember of the band or their music:
Juha: Never heard...? [dammit! Does ANYONE remember these guys? PLEASE contact me via Live4Metal!!-mg]

Have you been happy with the work Firebox/Olympic have done for you? Are you already writing material for the next LP? If so, what can we expect?
Juha: Firebox Records have been awesome and working with Olympic has started out really good too. So, thank you to both! The next album will come out in September 2005 and we are hitting the studio soon. I love the new songs because they are even slower and more melodic than before. There are both ends of beauty and despair in the songs.

How was the recording of The Morning Never Came? Was it a comfortable or stressful experience for you? The sound is magnificent: very clear, yet dark and heavy. It’s not muddy or steeped in low frequencies, the way most "funeral" doom albums are created these days…
Pasi: It was the hottest fucking days of the whole summer of 2003, so you can imagine how it was to spend eight hours in a drum-recording booth. The temperature was somewhere around 45 Celsius –degrees. As for the sounds, studio engineer Sami Kokko is a professional when it comes to recording & mixing, so we are lucky to work with him.

Speaking of which, how important is pacing to a song for you? This album is most definitely "DOOM", yet it isn’t tragically slow just to prove a point. Pasi’s drumming is very tasteful and "technical", driving the songs different than many other Doom acts I’ve heard.
Pasi: Well, my fave drummers include such greats as Gene Hoglan, Tomas Haake and Nicke Andersson for starters, so maybe some influences can be heard. I don’t want to play a whole hour long album just the traditional slow beat, I try to add some hooks & a bit different beats here and there. I try to keep the playing interesting to myself. Also I and our bassist Matti work together in the songs a lot.
Juha: Pasi is the perfect drummer for this kind or music, we can play really slow music and he can still keep the people awake!

The Candlemass cover is great! My absolute favorite Doom act of all time! How did the idea of covering "Solitude" come about?
Juha: Candlemass is the first band that got me into the doom music. So it’s kind of a tribute to the masters.

Do Swallow the Sun play out often? If so, what have been some of the best memories for you? Any plans to hit up North America? We have a severe shortage of quality Doom acts, especially of your calibre, playing here these days. We’d love to see you.
Pasi: We played over 20 shows in 2004, but just one outside Finland. Best memories for me are definitely the Tuska Open Air and Provinssirock shows. It’d be great to tour around the globe.
Juha: Yeah, the Tuska gig was just magic. Playing before thousands of people is really strange when you play this kind of music and everyone in the audience is with you, it’s a triumph of sorrow that purifies you.

"Silence of the Womb" features some excellent clean vocals. They make their appearance here and there, but never become too prevalent. Are there any plans to incorporate more of this in the future, or do you think the style you’ve cultivated on The Morning Never Came is something you’re going to stick to for a while?
Juha: The new album holds more clean vocals than The Morning Never Came", but not too much, that is our thing at the end.

What’s next for the band? Fill us in on the future!
Pasi: Recording the second album, shooting a video, mastering the album, waiting, waiting and waiting for the release of the single, then waiting some more for the album. We probably won’t be doing very much gigs before the album is out.
Juha: I really hope that we could start touring around Europe and the whole globe. It seems that people really want us to play around, so it’s a shame just to stay in Finland. I really hope that the future holds lots of gigs around.

Ok guys, thanks a lot again for talking to us! Best of luck with everything…you RULE!
Pasi: Thank you too. Let the metal flow!
Juha: Thanks and stay heavy!

Negative Kreep