Late last year saw the release of the excellent new album of Swallow The Sun. The Finnish doom metal band has collected a new numbers of melancholic gems for it. A collection of songs we can highly recommend to everyone who loves magnificent, melancholic music with a necessary amount of harshness. ‘New Moon’ was blessed with superlatives last month, this month we talked for a chance not with guitarist Juha Raivio, but with vocalist Mikko Kotamäki, who is – next to Swallow The Sun – active in some other interesting bands/projects as well.

How do you look back at the recording process of ‘New Moon’ the newest album?
This time it was pretty much different than the previous albums we recorded. This time we recorded in Sweden and we had a real professional studio and producer to get the best result possible. We went to the Fascination Street Studio with producer Jens Bogren. Of course we were a little bit in a hurry because we changed our drummer just a few weeks before we entered the studio. We did not have so much time to rehearse the material of the album. After all it worked out very well. We are very happy with the album and new drummer Kai Hahto (also Wintersun – Vera) did a great job.

It must have been a kick to enter that famous studio!
Yeah that is a beautiful studio and Jens, the guy who runs it, is a very professional man to work with. I hope we can use that studio again in the future, the result is amazing!

Juha (Raivio – guitarist) writes the majority of the lyrics and the music, but this time you wrote two lyrics too. Can you tell something more about them?
Yes, for ‘Hope’ I wrote already three lyrics and this time I wanted to write something as well. Juha gave me two songs that missed lyrics still and told me to give it a try. Well, basically there is nothing new about those lyrics. Basic Swallow The Sun stuff about life, jealousy and dead girls (laughs). I wrote lyrics for ‘Falling World’ and ‘…And Heavens Cried Blood’.

You entered the studio after all the instruments were recorded, I found out…
Yeah that’s true, everything but the keyboards. I brought the keyboard tracks with me to the studio. Our keyboard player Aleksi Munter recorded them in our home town Jyvaskyla. Everything was almost ready.

Swallow The Sun is always on the road, they tour constantly. Is that something you like or something you take for granted because it is part of the musician’s life?
I love touring, it is one of the best things I know and of course nowadays the music business is quite hard. CDs are not selling that much anymore and you really have to tour a lot to get a little bit more name. But I do not mind touring; it is always fun. That’s the way it goes these days, when you are a small band, you have to tour a lot, because people do not buys as much albums as fifteen or twenty years ago.

When and how did you meet Juha and ended up in Swallow The Sun?
That was many years ago, almost ten years ago. Jyvaskyla where I live is not a big town and I remember I met Juha when hanging around in downtown Jyvaskyla. I used to be in a band called Enter My Silence at that time and Juha heard our album. It came out in 2000/2001 and Juha liked my vocals on the album. He was putting up a band – what would become Swallow The Sun – and he came to me and asked me to join the band. Nothing spectacular, it just happened.

I know that record, I reviewed it! I liked Enter My Silence too…
That’s fine! I think they do not exist anymore. They released a new album about two or three years ago, but I did not hear anything anymore.

Since ‘Plague Of Butterflies’ you use more and more clean vocals in addition to your growls, I like that, it creates more contrasts, don’t you think so?
Yes and it is fun to sing clean vocals, because I have been doing these growling style vocals for so many years now. Over ten years. Well, I am not a very good singer, but I rehearse as much as I can and try to improve on that level. It is more challenging than only grunts. It gives a nice contrast and keeps things interesting for me. Especially on this new album, we have improved and I like the contrasts. When it comes to vocals it is very versatile.

The band has created its own niche in the doom metal scene by now with congenial bands such as Ghost Brigade and Insomnium. One of the highlights of last year was the headline tour with Insomnium and Omnium Gatherum. It was a success and they had a great time.

You have lots of other bands and projects. For instance Alghazanth…
It is an old band, it has been around for many years and I joined the band in 2004. Actually we are recording a new album right now and I am planning to record the vocals next week. The album is coming out this spring on Woodcut Records, a good small label. Well, it is still fine underground black metal, so it does not matter if it is not in every record store, that’s the way we like to keep it.

Another revelation is Barren Earth. It is an engrossing collection of infamous Finnish musicians!
Yes, we recorded the Barren Earth record last summer and it is coming out in March on Peaceville. Pretty soon. That’s a really interesting band. It is fun to play with those guys and actually we are planning quite some festival gigs next summer.

That’s true… you are playing at Summer Breeze!
Indeed that’s one of them. We will play there with Swallow The Sun as well, so I am planning to be there a whole weekend. It is a nice festival.

There is a North American tour coming up for Swallow The Sun and it will be a whole Finnish matter, with Moonsorrow, Finntroll and Survivors Zero.
Yes (laughs). It starts at the sixth of April and lasts till the first of May. It will probably be terrible again with drinking hehe. It is our third American tour and I am really looking forward to it, travelling with all Finnish friends…It is an interesting line-up. But later on this year we will tour in Europe again too and do lots of festivals I hope.

What were your influences when you started making music?
My main influences were Guns ‘n’ Roses and Black Sabbath with Ozzy, that kind of stuff. Later on came good old black metal bands like Emperor and Darkthrone. I try to listen to all kinds of music, but it first started with ‘Appetite For Destruction’, that was a great record. I still like it. I got my first guitar when I was eight or nine years old.

If you look back on last year, what are the things that impressed you most?
I think it was the North American tour, because it was a fucking long tour. We played like fifty gigs. We were there for two months and that was really cool. I will always remember that when thinking of last year. I was kind of afraid to go there for so long and so much gigs, but in the end it worked out really well. It was hard work, but probably the highlight of last year. Of course, recording the new album was also a challenge.

So many gigs is pretty hard for your voice…
Yeah but somehow I kind of managed to do that. Alcohol and cigarettes.

There are also acoustic gigs of the band in Finland sometimes. Is there any chance to do that in Europe?
We have only played about seven or eight acoustic gigs. Well, if somebody is interested in the acoustic Swallow The Sun, invite us (laughs)… We have some footage, maybe it will end up on a DVD some day. We are talking about a DVD, but it will still take two or three years.

Are there plans for a videoclip?
Yes, we might do a video next month, but I am not sure. We were supposed to do the video last year, but we had some problems with the schedule. It did not work out. It will be for the song ‘New Moon’.

What are the plans for the near future?
This year we are going to tour as much as possible to promote the album and that’s it.

Lords of Metal