Chaosweaver
Chaosweaver is a Finnish
band, whose main goal and primal reason for existence is to weave a musical
chaos that will penetrate the hearts of the true believers and followers
of this extreme metal branch. So, far they've done an excellent job with
both their demos, so here we are with Markus Laakso presenting you the
band. Check them out now, you'll definitely brag about it later...
1. Congratulations on both your demos!
How do you feel about them? Can you detect any important flaws?
Thank you. We’re proud of both of them, but
of course there are a few minor details that we could have done better.
The guitar sound, some of the lyrics and a couple of instrumental parts
could have used a little bit of fine-tuning, but you have to keep in mind
that they are only demos.
The basic song structures and the majority
of arrangements will probably be recorded as such on the full-length, which
will hopefully be captured on tape in the near future.
2. Give us in brief the most important moments
of the band’s life and present the current line up.
I’d say the most important moment of Chaosweaver’s
history was the recording of our first demo, "Weaving the Chaos". That’s
when everything clicked. We had been playing the same songs over and over
again in our rehearsal room, but when we finally recorded them in a good
quality studio, the result was overwhelming – far better than we had ever
expected.
A Finnish film maker Timo Könönen
shot a 60 minute documentary of the session. The film will be competing
in a documentary competition in Finland, or so I’ve heard. If all goes
well, the public might get to see the footage someday.
We’ve been getting a lot of international
airplay lately, which is also great. There’s a big buzz surrounding the
band as you can see on our myspace, increasing amount of interviews, and
the flattering reviews we’ve been getting.
"Cult of the Buried Serpent" demo is definitely
our musical high light so far. It draws a clear picture on where we are
heading – towards bigger, scarier and more bombastic sounds.
Finding the right guys was not an easy task.
I believe we went through six guitarists, three singers, three drummers,
two keyboard players and a bassist before settling down with the ultimate
Chaosweaver line-up. The five of us get along brilliantly as musicians,
friends and human beings.
Me (bass) and Pasi (guitar & vox) started
Chaosweaver back in 2004. It was clear from the very beginning that this
band's mission is to contaminate the world with the darkest possible music
known to mankind; but not forgetting the melodies, harmonies and other
treacherous contrast bringers to stir up the poison.
Tapio (keys) and Jere (lead guitar) ended
up joining the band with a little help from the miraculous world of the
internet. We left a wanted add on a popular Finnish website dedicated to
metal (www.imperiumi.net),
and the rest is history.
Jack Tyger (drums) recorded and mixed our
first demo. He partly owns the infamous Studio Perkele (Deathchain, Shade
Empire, Trollheim's Grott...). Jack used to play in Pasi's former band
Mystification FF in the early 90's, so he was an obvious choice, when we
started searching for a new drummer.
3. You come from Finland, an important country
for heavy metal music. Is the fact that so many great bands come form over
there an obstacle to you or does it help you? I mean you are close to the
spotlight and yet there are some certain bands that are promoted. Please
comment on that…
Of course it helps, because Finnish metal
is highly valued worldwide these days. But on the other hand, we’ve got
tons of great bands coming from this country, so it’s difficult to stand
out from the crowd. I don’t think we have that problem, since we’ve developed
our own musical approach and sound. I can’t think of any band you could
put us side by side with, even though different musical influences can
be heard in our songs.
4. What would you say if you were asked to
present your album in a few words as objectively as possible?
Our music is dark, bombastic, diverse and
evil – not suitable for children or the weak-minded.
5. What’s the best and what’s the worst part
of your music, according to you? Are there any fields of elements you’d
like to experiment with or add in your music in the future?
The best and the worst parts of our music
come from the haunting atmosphere that messes with your mind. You get the
feeling that something is wrong even though everything seems to be in order
– hence the name Chaosweaver.
We’d like to experiment with classical instruments,
choirs, female vocals and machines in the future. I’m hoping you’ll get
to hear the result later on this year.
6. Why do you think the metal heads should
check you out? What do you have to offer to the scene? Is there something
you feel that sets you apart?
If you’re into mystifying and melodic metal,
you should definitely check us out. Dimmu Borgir meets Beherit meets Sibelius.
7. Which are the similarities and differences
between “Weaving the chaos” and “Cult of the buried serpent”?
"Cult of the Buried Serpent" is much more
orchestrated and classically influenced than "Weaving the Chaos". We used
lots of synthesized violins, horns, kettledrums, cellos and so on Cult,
and we’re hoping to get real classical musicians and instruments on our
album after we score a recording contract. The album’s going to sound huge,
that’s a promise.
The main tone is pitch-black on both of them,
but you can hear the more versatile and grandiloquent direction we are
heading to in Cult.
8. Which are your main influences and who are
those musicians that made you realize this is the kind of music you love
and want to follow?
We're inspired by atmospheric, symphonic,
bombastic and malevolent music from a variety of genres. For example Samael,
Covenant/The Kovenant, Beherit, Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth, Jean Sibelius,
and movie soundtracks such as Twin Peaks, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and everything
by Danny Elfman have made an impact on us.
9. Tell us a few things about the main topics
your lyrics deal with…
The song "Flaming Rain" was inspired by historic
literature of the Second World War. The first lines unveil what the lyrics
are about. "Steel skinned red dragons / Flying from the morning sun / Liquid
fire inside them / Holding the keys of life" are an obvious reference to
the bombers that scorched the lands with napalm. It also deals with the
psychological horrors of war; what it's like to kill thousands of people
with a single push of a button.
"Buried in a Swamp" got its idea from the
persecution of witches in the medieval times. You know how the story goes:
The witch hunters tortured the suspects gruesomely, and tried to find marks
of the devil on their bodies. The guilty ones were hanged, burned, drowned
and buried in swamps of the unholy lands.
I'm writing lyrics to a new song that is based
on a novel by a prominent Finnish female author Aino Kallas (1878-1956).
The book is entitled "The Wolf's Bride". It's a dark but poetic tale of
metamorphosis, a tragic werewolf love story set in 17th century Estonia.
10. The first demo’s title is obvious and derives
from the band’s moniker. How did the second one, “Cult of the buried serpent”,
come up though?
"Cult of the Buried Serpent" is a mixture
of the song titles (Cult of Joy, Buried in a Swamp and Horned Serpent),
but the lyrics hide a deeper, secret meaning to it. You’ll have to find
that out for yourself…
11. If you had a big budget to shoot a video
clip, which song of yours would you choose and how do you imagine it to
be?
We’ve got tons of killer shit in the works,
so the video would be for one of the new songs. We’d shoot it with substandard
film camera in sepia colors, and it would pay tribute to the classic German
silent film Nosferatu (1922).
12. Have you sent your demos to any labels?
What kind of responses have you received? Are you under negotiations with
any of them?
The spirit of the band is that we work hard
for our music, regardless of whether anybody pays attention or not. We
believe in our craft and know there are a number of labels that would be
suitable for us, but we won’t rush head first into anything. A couple of
labels have expressed their interest in us, but we haven't inked any documents
yet.
13. What was the most flattering and what the
worst comment you have received so far?
The following lines from a review by Luxi
Lahtinen of the extremely popular Metal-Rules.com were quite flattering:
“All 3 songs on the band´s latest effort
are true head-turners musically, spitting out venom and bloody guts more
than you could ever imagine in your worst fuckin´ nightmares. This
is horror-infested, darkened and relatively symphonic Black Metal that
is so carefully made and so professionally churned out it cannot be ignored
by the shrug of shoulders by anyone who has some interest toward this type
of metal genre.”
I can’t think of any really dreadful comments.
Poor man’s Cradle of Filth..? Hah!
14. How do you plan to promote your work? Have
you got any plans for live shows?
We spend enormous amounts of time promoting
our band in myspace. We try to answer every single comment people leave
on our profile, and update the site as much as we can. We’ve got almost
10 000 friends and counting. Not bad for a young demo band…
We haven’t played live yet, since our music
is getting larger and larger all the time. I would look and sound stupid
to play in a pizzeria or something. We’ll record our debut first and start
thinking about touring later.
15. Is there a question you’d like to be asked
and no one has ever asked you so far?
Would you like to receive massive amounts
of money with minimum output?
16. What’s the strangest or funniest incident
that has occurred to the band?
When we were recording "Cult of the Buried
Serpent" in Studio Perkele, Jack and Jere decided to party all night. The
studio is literally located in the middle of nowhere. “The dynamic duo”
was zipping on beer and Jaloviina (mixture of brandy and vodka) in the
outdoor hot tub right next to the studio.
All of the sudden a cop car pulled over on
the courtyard. A neighbor had complained even though no one lives close
by. So there they were, two drunken bastards in a hot tub, blasting Dimmu
Borgir at full volume at 5 am with a disco ball dangling from the nearby
tree. We’ve had a few laughs on behalf of the incident…
17. If your music were emotions, what would
they be? If it were a painting, what would it show?
If our music were a painting, it would look
like a Lovecraftian nightmare: unutterably dark and twisted with shapes,
sizes and colors not of this world.
If it were a feeling, it would resemble fear-manifested
paranoia; a mind-bogglingly disturbing journey into the subconscious of
the wicked.
18. Ok! Since you come from Finland let me
ask you an irrelevant question… Lordi won the Eurovision competition last
year has this helped metal music in general and more specifically in Finland?
Are Lordi still in the spotlight there and would you ever participate in
the Eurovision song contest? :)
I don’t think Lordi’s triumph has helped metal
music in general that much, but I’m sure it has done wonders for hard rock.
Half of the underage kids here wear Lordi shirts, which is great; a major
improvement to the hiphop crap people are being force-fed with. There is
still hope for the young Padawans...
Finland is and always will be a metal country,
but we’d rather smack rusty nails through our tongues than enter any moronic
contests, especially that one.
19. Thank you! Is there anything else you’d
like to mention?
Christine Parastatidou
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