Ikinae
Ikinae is a very interesting
and highly promising act that has recently released their second demo CD,
titled “Alfons The Man” and it’s a fact that this time they’ve created
some amazing, complex and versatile compositions with deep and thoughtful
lyrics. So, Tommi is once again here with us to answer to our questions
and “enlighten” us about Ikinae and their goals…
1. HELLO THERE! FIRST OF ALL TELL US IN A
FEW WORDS WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO IKINAE FROM YOUR PREVIOUS CD TILL “ALFONS
AND CO”.
Hello to you, too! Well, obviously a lot has
happened between those two records, but some of the main events were that
our bass-player decided to leave. He was also our most productive songwriter,
so we faced quite a challenging situation there. But we managed to solve
that problem, and even got better in skill-level…:) What else then, well,
we got disqualified at a band contest because, I quote, “these guys are
far too good to be participating in contests”…:)
2. ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH THE FINAL RESULT OR
DO YOU FIND THINGS THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE BETTER?
Yes, this is by far the only time that all
the band members were satisfied with the result. Well, of course there
are a few things that could’ve been done differently, but nothing really
worth mentioning…
3. WHAT DO YOU FEEL AND THINK WHILST LISTENING
TO THIS SINGLE?
Hahah, that depends on which song I’m listening
to…:) When listening to “Alfons the Man”, one just has to be in a good
mood, since it’s so bloody cheery and happy tune…:) And “Pseudologica…”
on the other hand is the complete opposite. But as for me, I try to listen
to them as a musician… (Though I’m not a Real musician?)
4. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC? YOUR MUSIC
HAS CHANGED COMPARING IT TO WHAT I’VE LISTENED TO ON “SECOND SYMPTOM”.
WHICH ARE THE MAIN SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THESE TWO RELEASES?
Well yes, it’s quite hard even for me to describe
our music. We’ve picked up influences from so many different sub-genres
of metal, so I find it best to be categorized as heavy metal. Well, on
“Second Symptom” we could have narrowed the tray a bit. I mean, at the
time we weren’t able to compress all those influences into solid and fluid
songs. This time we concentrated properly on these two songs and paid quite
a lot attention towards better production. So, the idea remains, but it’s
more solid and more fluid now…:)
5. YOUR SOUND IS WEIRD AND I THINK EASILY RECOGNIZABLE.
IT’S MULTI LAYERED AND MULTI-DIMENSIONAL. WHAT PROCEDURE DO YOU FOLLOW
WHILST COMPOSING THE SONGS?
When Juni still played the bass, he composed
the songs mostly by himself and the others followed the notes without any
touch of their own. This time things were different. Ilkka composed “Alfons
the Man” mainly by himself, but each of us brought something of our own
into it. PF was a bit more challenging song to create. You should know
that it didn’t have even any structures ready two weeks before the studio…:))
But we all gathered at our training-crib and negotiated proper structure
and some parts were improvised at the studio. But I think we managed to
create just the right moods and atmosphere into it…
6. YOUR VOCALS ARE PASSIONATE, EMOTIVE AND MAINLY
CLEAN. HOWEVER YOU HAVE SOME AGGRESSIVE GROWLS IN “PSEUDOLOGICA FANTASTICA”.
WHAT DO THEY STAND FOR? WHAT DO THEY CONTRIBUTE IN THE OVERALL ATMOSPHERE?
Thanks for you kind words!:) You know, I’ve
Never recorded any growling before this record, so it was quite exciting
for me. But if you listened to the songs as instrumental versions, you’d
hear very soon the contrast between the atmospheres. “Alfons the Man” is
very “positive”, though the story’s quite, ehm, sad… Pf on the other hand
is very dark, negative and gloomy, so it became quite obvious that this
time we had to do some Åkerfeldt-singing…:) Personally I think they
give the atmosphere even more depth when it comes to the negativity of
the song.
7. WHAT DOES THE SINGLE’S TITLE MEAN? WHO IS THIS
ALFONS? TELL US A FEW THINGS ABOUT THE LYRICS OF THESE 2 SONGS.
Well, at first I planned to write songs about
different slightly disturbed fellows around the world…:) I had texts like
“Sad, sad Sergei” and “Heinz has an issue”. But in the end the story of
Alfons was the most endearing…:) Alfons is strictly fictional, though people
like him do exist, of course. It’s a story about this Swedish man who’s
possessed by a certain woman. So, he stalks her, gets caught, gets out
of prison and gets caught again. It’s not very poetic, but it’s disturbing,
amusing and a bit weird. Just like Ikinae…:))
8. WHAT’S ITS CONNECTION TO THE COVER ARTWORK,
WHICH IS VERY BEAUTIFUL? WHO CREATED IT AND PLEASE DESCRIBE IT TO THOSE
THAT HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET.
Yes, I was very impressed by the cover when
I saw it. It’s by Mattias Norén, who has created art for such as
Evergrey, Stratovarius, John Petrucci, etc. In the front you’ll see the
girl that Alfons is in love with. The girl has a boyfriend there and it
all seems quite romantic and so. But in the dark edges lurks Alfons, a
very bitter and angry man…
9. WHAT KIND OF FEEDBACK HAVE YOU RECEIVED FOR
THIS SINGLE?
Mainly positive! Good grades all over the
world actually. There have been only two even slightly negative reviews,
but they’ve come from people who are into different kinds of genres.
10. BY THE WAY “ALFONS AND CO” IS OUT ON 2 DIFFERENT
FORMATS. ONE WILL ONLY CONTAIN THE 2 SONGS AND THE OTHER ONE WILL ALSO
CONTAIN A VIDEO CLIP FOR THE SONG “ALFONS THE MAN” AND A MAKING OF DOCUMENTARY.
WHY?
Well originally we only planned to release
the version with the videos and all, but it became obvious that it’ll take
quite long to get it released because of all the editing and stuff. So,
being a bit ambitious, we decided to release two different versions of
the record. And make a bit more money by selling the special edition at
a higher price…:)
11. PLEASE DESCRIBE THE VIDEO CLIP. WHAT DOES
IT SHOW? IS THERE A CONCEPT STORY BEHIND IT?
Basically it’s just us playing the song at
the rehearsals and on gigs, but we also included Alfons into it…:) So there’s
a bit of a story in it, but it doesn’t follow the lyrics word by word.
We had a tremendous budget for it, I mean, the costs of the clip are somewhere
around five euros…:)
12. HAVE YOU GOT ANY PLANS FOR LIVE SHOWS? HOW
ARE YOU GOING TO SUPPORT THIS RELEASE?
Nope, no live shows at the moment. We’re a
bit busy getting our military duties behind. But we have this whole year
for us to promote Alfons into all kinds of media and at the end of this
year we’ll attack the labels…:)
13. HAVE YOU GOT ANY NEW SONGS READY? IF YES,
CAN YOU TELL US A FEW THINGS ABOUT THEIR SOUND?
Well I can’t say that anything new is ready,
since the construction takes quite some time, but yeah we have some nice
ideas to build the songs on. Don’t know how they end up, though…:) I believe
we’ll try and make the compositions even more surprising and I’m working
on new sounds with my vocals, so there’ll be more versatile songs in the
future, I think.
14. ARE YOU IN TOUCH WITH ANY LABELS FOR A POSSIBLE
DEAL? WITH WHAT CRITERIA WILL YOU SELECT THE “RIGHT” LABEL?
Not yet, really… At the moment we’re just
trying to get some reviews, interviews and, well, any kind of publicity…:)
Yeah, it’s a tricky question really, I mean, I can’t say for sure that
“I definitely want to get Ikinae signed to a big/small label”. Both have
their advantages. So it just depends on the terms. You Greeks have a couple
of interesting labels, too…;) Although I’m still a bit bitter towards Black
Lotus Recs, who told us that they don’t have any open spots for new artists
until 2007, but the very next week they signed our neighbors…:)
15. THANK YOU! ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE TO SAY
TO THE FANS?
Thank you! Well, be sure to get the special
edition when it shows up and we have new fan stuff also coming out, so
keep www.ikinae.com
in mind…:)
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