What was the beginning pint for your music career? How did it all start?
It all began from Stratovarius’s Visions album, that lit the musician inside of me and pushed me to learn keyboards, composing and stuff. We had couple of bands on our youth, Ultimatium being the third one. After couple of demos, that was basically just me and guest musicians, third one was with Harri Niskanen, our guitarist and JT Partanen, our former vocalist. That demo got a lot more attention and we got signed to Mastervox Records, which then really started our journey.
Was there any bumps on the road? What kind of challenges did you have to deal with?
I think we’ve had mostly bumps 😀 Deal with Mastervox, although started quite nicely, got stuck in the loop for the first for a couple of years after the debut full-length ‘New Dawn’. JT quit the band, Tomi joined us, we got some reinforcements and then again got stuck in the loop for a couple of more years after ‘Hwainoo’ was released. Then we had a massive “split” in the band, half of the guys wanting the other, the other half something else, so that was not helping. That resolved itself when the other half went to play with another band and they clearly had no time for Ultimatium anymore. After that, we had troubles finding drummers, since our music is quite technical and fast, but luckily we met Matti Auerkallio online and he agreed to play in ‘Vis Vires Inifnitus’ and later on joined our band. After that we’ve not had any major bumps
What was the most fulfilling and satisfying moment so far?
Getting the ‘Virtuality’ released. Such en epic progpower album, with +65min mins of music and five lead vocalists, getting that ready and released was satisfying.
How would you describe the music that you typically create?
Well, it’s progressive with a ‘hint’ of powermetal and symphonic metal in it. That’s what we currently write. Earlier we were more into powermetal but that’s all in the past for now
What is your creative process like?
I just usually boot up my keyboards and start playing something randomly and finding out good riffs and then continue working with them on the computer.
If you could change anything about the industry, what would it be?
I think it’s the share of profits between big tech corps and creators of the content. Seems to me all the profits goes to shareholders and few big artist while the rest of us are left with pennies (and usually not even those)
If you were asked to give a piece of advice to upcoming bands, what would that be?
Become self-reliant. Learn to do songs without high tech studios and invest to own equipment. That’s how you survive the hard times, if needed
What has been the best performance of your career so far?
I think it was the first “headliner” show in Hevimesta Oulu, after ‘New Dawn’ was released, we were young, fast and on fire, now we’re just fast and on fire 😀
If you didn’t become a musician, what would you be doing now?
I’m a software developer during daytime, so bang different type of keyboards during daytime than on the evenings
What is new with the band at the moment? What are you currently working on and would like to share with the world?
We’re working with a new album and we also released some fresh videos of ‘Virtuality’ to youtube, so progpower / opera metal lovers should check those out:
www.youtube.com/ultimatiummetal
