Welcome to MHF Magazine!
Thanks a lot for giving us the opportunity to tell about the band and our new music to our fans and the readers of MHF Magazine.
Honest, traditional hard rock is how you defined your work. From your experience is this a genre that is surviving well in the music industry or people tend to gravitate towards heavier, more extreme sounds?
It’s true that in rock and metal there has been a tendency toward more extreme music. However, there’s still tons of people, all over the world, who can appreciate more melodic music. As for us, the new single ‘Tired’ represents hard rock-ish side of our music. We also have songs which are much heavier. So, we like to have variety, but still keep it melodic.
In 2011 and you’ve changed the language from Finnish to English. Did that have a big impact to the way you are perceived as a band?
Actually, it went the other way around. We started with English in the 80’s and made a change to Finnish just before we made our first single. Quite soon after the single, we decided to switch back to English, and it’s been that way ever since. English is the only choice for us, because our music is universal. Even the majority of our fans in social media come from countries outside of Finland. Lately we’ve focused more on the lyrics, and it’s nice to have more common language with our listeners.
Let’s rise ‘Out of the darkness’ for a moment to discuss the biggest challenge a rock band has to face today.
Probably the biggest challenge today is that everyone, and their mother, can record and publish music, and make noise in the social media. So, the amount of bands and artists is huge. This applies to different genres, sub-genres and all music styles as well. It’s natural that people always want to find new music and each generation wants to discover something that they can relate to. A rock band must prove itself by making quality music, which can be appreciated no matter what is being popular at the moment.
Are you close with your bandmates? Do you get together often, and if so what do you guys end up doing for fun together?
We’re very close even though we don’t spend that much time together outside the music. Some of us have known each other for decades. All except our bass player Jari are original members in the band. During the years we have grown to respect each other and appreciate everyone’s commitment to the band.
What exactly are you “Tired’ of in today’s society?
The clock speed of things happening and the amount of information thrown at you is on such a level that a human being may not be able to handle it. Up to a point it can make things interesting, but we have tons of examples where people are dropping outside of society. For the rest of us, it’s important to find ways to take care of yourself and people close to you.
You’ve put a lot of emphasis on the lyrics and the word chaos dominates. I would love to hear your thoughts about that.
First of all, we try to keep out of the politics, but rather make observations of some topics that are present in our lives. In our upcoming album, the lyrics cover phenomena such as addiction to mobile devices, gambling and world domination. On our previous album, we have a song called ‘No hero’, which is strongly against terrorism. When we started, the lyrics just had to sound good and go with the rhythm of the melody, but nowadays we’ve come far away from that and rather have something to say that actually makes sense.
What is the most efficient way for your fans to support the band?
Social media is such a powerful thing today. We appreciate that the fans share, comment and like our music and posts. It’s also very important to have the music played and discovered in the streaming services, such as Spotify, iTunes, etc. Having the songs added to different playlists is hugely important.
If you could ensure one thing for the future of the band what would that be?
After the Covid-19 situation, it will be so great to play live again. Now that we have new material being released, we sure would like to play it live to our fans. Our fourth album will be released in the autumn and we think it’s the best one yet.
STUD ONLINE
Listen to the single:
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3f3L26R
Apple Music: https://apple.co/2WQ4k9q
Amazon: https://amzn.to/39np3q4
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/us/album/155904282
Tidal: https://listen.tidal.com/album/145698425
Watch the lyric video:
Until the next one,
Chelf.
