Ikinae
This was one of the most
relaxing, informative and pleasant interviews I've ever done and actually
it would be a pity if you didn't check this incredible band out! Ikinae
worth a lot! Keep an open mind and dive into their world of surprises and
enchantment! Tommi Niemi, the band's singer has answered to all of our
questions concerning the band and its future goals and invites us to have
a blast!!!
1.CONGRATULATIONS ON “SECOND SYMPTOM”! I WAS
TRULY ASTOUND BY ITS GREAT SONGS! HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT IT? ARE YOU CONTENT
WITH THE FINAL RESULT?
Thank you very much! Well, I think it shows
progress compared to our previous release. Which, of course, should be
the case when talking about a band of this age. Now that the record is
three months old, I can honestly say that we can do even better. But okay,
I'll admit that I'm content, no more...:)
2.BY THE WAY WHAT DOES IKINAE MEAN? IT’S QUITE
A STRANGE WORD I’D SAY. HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH IT AND WHAT MADE YOU CHANGE
THE BAND NAME FROM ENTROPHIA TO IKINAE?
Oh, that's a long story. It doesn't really
mean anything, since I believe that all words that have a meaning are already
in use by bands, so you must try to be extremely original. So, this is
how we came up with it: You know the metal opera called Aina, right? "Aina"
is also a Finnish word for "always". "Ikinä" is Finnish for "never",
but not many countries have the letter "ä", so we changed it to "ae".
And in the Aina -metal opera they speak the language Ainae, I think, so
this is how it was born. Bloody linguistics, eh..?:D Actually the name
wasn't changed. Me and the guitar-players just left Entrophia, leaving
the drummer and bassist to continue as Entrophia. As a threesome we picked
up Ikinae. And soon the bassist followed us to Ikinae. Very complicated,
don't you think...;)
3.HOW WOULD YOU LABEL YOUR MUSIC? I THINK IT’S
QUITE HARD TO FIND THE RIGHT DESCRIPTION FOR IT.... ARE YOU OK WITH THE
TERM MODERN DARK HEAVY/POWER METAL? WHICH ARE THE BANDS THAT HAVE BEEN
A GREAT INFLUENCE TO YOU?
Well, I'm actually quite allright with the
description modern heavy metal. Surely we have influences from all kinds
of genres like prog, power, goth and thrash to name a few, but the root
is in basic heavy metal. We just want to add something new in it. Spice
it up!:) The term you used is also rather accurate, though I have a bit
of a problem accepting power metal, since we avoid using those power metal
-clichés...;) As a band our biggest influence is definitely Iron
Maiden, but each and every player have their own influences, which differ
quite a lot from each other. I'm a power-metal guy (though I can't sing
like that;)), bassist is more of a pop-music fan, drummer enjoys modern
metal as well, and guitarists like all kinds of weird shit...:)
4.YOU HAVE A HUMOROUS MOOD IN YOUR SONGS. AM I
RIGHT? WHY DID YOU PUT THIS SPECIFIC INTRO? WHY PUT ANY INTRO AT ALL? PLEASE
ALSO TELL ME A FEW THINGS ABOUT THE LAST SONG (ITS LAST 2 MINUTES) WHICH
ARE MORE RELAXED AND WITH A LOOSE AND FUNNY SOUND.
Yup, you're definitely right! You see, metal
music is not all about burning chuches and worshipping satan, it can also
be lots of fun! And the subjects we use in our lyrics are quite serious,
so it's only fair that we perform them with a small taste of humour to
balance things, you know? Well, actually this intro is a statement against
those two-minutes-long power metal intros, where a guy talks about dragon
slaying and wizard hunting with a low voice. I hope I'm not offending anyone,
but they just bore me to death, they're all so similar...:) I think intros
are useless, unless they have something different to offer, like humour,
for instance...:) Oh, you found "Onnenseppo"...:D Well, there's no bigger
story to explain that song. Guys just started playing Lucky Seven with
those sounds at trainings, and somehow we ended up recording it...:) You
know, Riku Turunen sings the higher vocals there, since he came like through
Finland to our studio to record his sin to Lucky seven, so we decided to
give him a bit more work. But it's a fun song to sing when drunk!;)
5.LET’S SUPPOSE THAT YOU WERE GIVEN THE CHANCE
TO REVIEW AND PRESENT YOUR ALBUM TO THE METALHEADS. WHAT WOULD YOU TELL
THEM ABOUT IT, TRYING TO BE AS OBJECTIVE AS POSSIBLE?
Hmm, no let me see... Well, I would propably
be a little confused at first. This is something different. It's hard to
compare this music to anything as a whole, though some pieces may be found
familiar. Without bigger analysis, I'd recommend people to get to know
this. I'm sure there are people who hate this music but on the other
hand, I'm sure that some will like it, a lot...:) And it's not that expensive
either to check this out, since you have euros in Greece, too, so the record
can be bought with a coin...;)
6.WHO ARE THESE LUCKY SEVEN? WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH
THESE PARTICIPATIONS? ARE THEY ALL GUYS THAT PASSED FROM IKINAE’S LINE
UP FROM TIME TO TIME? TELL US A FEW THINGS ABOUT EACH ONE OF THEM AND THEIR
BANDS NOW. HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THIS SONG AND ALL THOSE GUEST APPEARANCES?
The song was composed by our former guitarist
and since it had so many parts in it, I decided to pick this old theme
to the lyrics. I know that thousands of bands have made songs about the
Seven sins, but the way we did this is a bit different. It was first released
on the EP called "Lucky Seven" and I sung all the parts to it. Even that
version was liked by critics, so I wanted to spice it up a little. I've
been a fan of metal operas for long, so this was like a dream come true
to have all these guests on it. Riku Turunen of Force Majeure is the first
one. I found this band from the internet and his voice was a killer! I
think Force Majeure is working on a new demo at the moment, so check it
out. Then there's Joni Kantoniemi of Miseria. We've done a few gigs with
them and that's how we know each other. They've just released a mini-cd
called "Lost Forever", which by all means is worth listening to! Then there's
Dark of Goathemy. The only female-sinner...:) She did some backing vocals
on our previous release and I sang on their demo. And both of our ex-guitarists
play in Goathemy nowadays. Her voice has this personality in it and I think
her performance was great! Goathemy has just finished recording their debut-album,
"Frostland", due to be released in the near future. Mikael Aksela of Blue
Steel then... That's a secret...:) Blue Steel is on a break, though. Then
it's Mirox of Mirzadeh. That's brutal! Actually we were playing on a local
festival with them a night before the studio. There I asked him if he cared
to join this opera and he luckily agreed! It was obvious that he would
be the one to perform "anger". Mirzadeh is currently working on a new album,
I think. They have one LP called "Ancient Rites" out already. Marko Pajula
of Fadeout is next. He's a friend of mine from way back and we share a
drummer in our bands...:) Fadeout is in my belief working on a record deal
at the moment, and they will propably put out an EP soon. Goath of Goathemy
is last but not least. You already know the story of Goathemy, so I won't
bother you more with it...;) But Goath visited on our previous release,
too, so it was clear to ask him again.
7.LET’S TALK A BIT ABOUT THE COVER ARTWORK, WHICH
I FOUND VERY BEAUTIFUL! WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR IT AND HOW IS IT CONNECTED
TO THE ALBUM TITLE?
The cover art is by ToxicAngel, who has done
covers for Sonata Arctica, CoB, Warmen, etc. And a tour-shirt for Nightwish.
He's a master in what he does! I gave him a vague description of what I
wanted and he delivered this fabulous piece of work. Well, the guy on the
cover is the one with the second symptom...;)
8.BY THE WAY, WHAT DO YOU MEAN WITH THE TITLE
“SECOND SYMPTOM”? I’M SORRY TO BE UNINFORMED, BUT WHAT’S THE FIRST AND
WHAT’S THE SECOND SYMPTOM? ?
It means a lot of things actually. This is
our second release, which can be called symptom. It can also mean a disease
that strikes you within a second. And lots of other things can be figured
out, if wanted...:) The symptoms are tied to the lyrics, so it depends
on the song which is the first and which is the second symptom.
9.WHAT KIND OF THEMES INTRIGUE YOU TO TALK ABOUT
IN YOUR LYRICS? WHICH ARE YOUR SOURCES OF INSIRATION?
On "Second Symptom" we have this common theme,
mental and physical ailments. We all have some kind of flaws and that's
what we write about. Usually I write all the lyrics, but on "Second Symptom"
we had this nice lady called Wanda Texas, who wrote the lyrics for two
songs and the bassist wrote some lyrics, too. I can't speak for them as
in where they get inspiration from, but I try to find errors in human beings,
then I figure out how to turn that error into lyrics.
10.WHAT’S THE BEST AND WHAT’S THE WORST PART IN
YOUR MUSIC ACCORDING TO YOU? ARE THERE ANY ELEMENTS YOU’D LIKE TO ADD OR
EXPERIMENT WITH IN THE FUTURE?
The best? Maybe the fact that it's something
different. You can get a lot from these songs if you really get in to them.
And the worst? Well, it takes time to get in to these songs. We play with
structures quite a lot, so it may sound confusing. Well, I want to expand
my variety on vocals, which means that on future releases you'll find some
black metal growling, power metal screaming and everything in between.
That's my part, but I'm not sure what the others are going to do...:) There's
a lot of things where there's room for improvement, so we'll keep working
on those first and maybe there'll be a longer, more epic song coming soon...
11.WHY DID YOU RELEASE “SECOND SYMPTOM” AS A SELF
FINANCED ALBUM AND DIDN’T WAIT TO INK A DEAL WITH A LABEL?
Well, we have this plan here. First we released
"Lucky Seven" which was like taking baby-steps, practicing for the future.
Now we've got this "Second Symptom" and it's not perfect, yet. But this
record was made, because we want to make Ikinae known better, you know.
We're such a new band still, that it takes a lot of work to be seen. Now
we'll send a couple of records to chosen labels and see what they have
to say. And by the end of this year, we'll put out a single, with or without
a label. And that will be a killer! With that single we'll surely ink a
deal, if not with "Second Symptom".
12.HAVE YOU SENT THE CD TO ANY LABELS? ARE YOU
IN TERMS OF SIGNING WITH ANY LABEL? WITH WHICH CRITERIA WILL YOU SELECT
THE “RIGHT” LABEL?
Not yet. We'll wait for a few reviews to add
onto the promo-package. Then we hope that someone would see potential in
us. We have a few specific labels in mind that would propably suit us well.
I think that a new band like us is more fit to a smaller label that would
really work for our benefit. Although big labels have better resources,
one could "drown" there, if you know what I mean...:)
13.WHAT KIND OF FEEDBACK HAVE YOU RECEIVED? WHAT
WAS THE MOST FLATTERING COMMENT AND WHAT WAS THE WORST ONE YOU READ ABOUT
YOUR ALBUM?
Very diverse feedback actually. It has been
praised and it has been said to suck...:) Some people say that we should
make the songs more simple and some say that the structures are excellent.
And same with every aspect. To me, your review was by far the most flattering...;)
And the worst: "Go spend your hard earned money somewhere else! This is
just bad!" So as I said, very diverse...:)
14.DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR LIVE SHOWS? WHAT
DO YOU HAVE TO OFFER TO THOSE ATTENFDING YOUR GIGS?
We just had a show here in our hometown together
with Tacere, Fadeout and Mirzadeh. It was great fun though there was no
audience...:D But yes we do have some plans for live shows, nothing confirmed
though. We try to make our shows in a way so that the audience could have
fun. We play with hard energy and try to pass it on to other people. Usually
we add a couple of Iron Maiden covers to the setlist and at our homepage
we have this poll going on where you can vote the next cover...:) But in
general the gigs are very entertaining, at least for us!:D
15.WHAT NEW OR DIFFERENT DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE
TO OFFER TO THE CONTEMPORARY METAL SCENE? WHY SHOULD THE METALHEADS CHECK
YOU OUT?
Surprises! You can never tell what comes next
on our songs. For example, there can be a slow part where singing is very
low and depressing telling about a dead friend, and within seconds there's
a happy backbeat with cheery falsetto vocals telling how to get a new mouse
for a friend, or something like that...;) So, it's filled with surprises
you wouldn't expect. Why to check us out? Cos' we beg you to do so...:)
16.IF YOUR MUSIC WAS AN EMOTION, WHAT WOULD IT
BE? IF IT WAS A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD IT SHOW?
I think it is an emotion. Mixed emotions where
tears and laughter go hand in hand. If it was a painting? Goddamn it would
be an ugly painting!:D
17.WHAT TITLE WOULD YOU LIKE THIS INTERVIEW TO
HAVE? A TITLE THAT WOULD CONTAIN THE ESSENCE OF IKINAE...
Tough one... "Your flaw could be our song".
18.THANK YOU! IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE
TO MENTION AND I FORGOT TO ASK YOU?
Thank you! Thank god Greek people are crazy
enough to listen to metal!;) See you soon! Of course you didn't forget
anything, it was a great interview...:)
You stay metal...;)
Tommi Niemi - Ikinae/vocals
www.ikinae.com
Christine Parastatidou
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