Before The Dawn – interview met Tuomas Saukkonen
Tuomas Saukkonen: “This very deep positive charge that we have inside the band at the moment, that kind of became the theme in the lyrics also. Shouting to people that we are back and loving what we do.”
De nieuwe constellatie van het Finse melodieuze death metal viertal Before The Dawn blaakt van (jeugdig) enthousiasme. Dat konden we zelf met beide ogen vaststellen tijdens hun recente tournee met Swallow The Sun. Eenzelfde bezieling straalt doorwinterde muzikant Tuomas Saukkonen uit wanneer we hem ten tijde van de hittegolf (ook in Finland relatief bekeken) spreken over het tweede album sinds de reünie, getiteld ‘Cold Flare Eternal’. Het is een waar genoegen om dit élan ook over te brengen op de lezers van Arrow Lords of Metal nu het album daadwerkelijk uitgebracht wordt. Here we go!
Vera Matthijssens Ι 5 september 2025
Well, did you enjoy the heat wave as lover of outdoor activities?
No. (chuckles) It has been horrible two weeks. You cannot do anything outside actually, I am super happy that tomorrow it is going to be 8° colder, which is like normal in our Summer. I am really happy that the heat wave is finally over.
I thought if you can go to a lake for fishing, you would really enjoy it now, but that was not the case…
I like to lay in the sun, just doing nothing, but for sports or going outside or fishing it is too hot. It is even bad for the fishes. They are all on the most deepest places of the lakes. For a Finnish person, we usually have – I think the record of heat, of real hot days in one Summer has been like nine days in a row. That was in 1972. We are not used to these kinds of things, this is very extreme for Finnish people.
Well it is an outdoor sauna…
I still go to sauna, I am still a Finnish person, so that does not change, but like being in a car without air-conditioning: horrible, try to go to the gym: horrible. I am just happy that it is over.
A new record of Before The Dawn, so that means that the comeback with previous album ‘Stormbringers’ in 2023 was serious. So I am very glad. ‘Stormbringers’ brought you back on the road again as well. Can you tell something about these adventures?
We did a European tour with Wolfheart and then we did the second one with Swallow The Sun. Then we have done like two tours in Finland and some festivals in Finland and Europe. Because all the tours and the festivals went so well, it was such a good time for us playing together again and that is why we are already back with a new album. It did not make any sense to slow things down, because now things are really in a very good motion. We had fun writing new songs and head to the studio and go back to touring again. Good things bring more good things.
Indeed, once that you are in a positive mindset, that seems to help…
Already with ‘Stormbringers’, everything went super smooth and easy. Usually there are some kind of obstacles or struggle inside the band or with the schedules or deadlines or label… something that slows you down a bit, but Before The Dawn has finally a good karma. We have had all the obstacles in the past, so now things are going so easy and smooth. We just did not want to slow down at all.
I saw the show in Antwerp with Swallow The Sun and I was surprised, because Paavo turned out to be such a dominant vocalist on stage… it really has an influence on the band seems to me…
Yeah, me and Juho (Räihä – guitarist – Vera) have been touring for more than twenty years, so there is nothing completely new in the music business. Doing a tour is pretty normal for us and the same for doing an album. It is something we did dozens of times already, but this Before The Sun tour was the second European tour ever for Paavo and this new album is going to be his second ever international album, so he brings this excitement and energy that we used to have twenty years ago. That energy can light things up, you really get the same vibe and now the whole band is in a different way excited, because we have this young energy from a person who is experiencing these things as the first time. It is awesome to see how Paavo has been growing as a front man, with his stage presence and everything and also the huge amount of gigs we have done now in the past few years, he has become a so much stronger part of the band. Also his influence for the music itself, on the new album, has been growing a lot bigger than it was on ‘Stormbringers’.
That is somehow a dream come true, because Before The Dawn was started as a solo project and now it has become a real band…
It was a real band back in the days, but it was on and off. I think this is the most – how can I actually say it the best? – I don’t have the right word in my head, but this is like the most solid time for the band ever. It feels more like a band, more than ever. It feels more like a really well functioning team.
So all the members were involved in the writing process, or not?
Not actually much. I basically wrote all the music and Paavo did all the vocal arrangements and I wrote vocal lines based on his ideas. The vocals were mainly Paavo’s and Juho, our guitar player, he is also our sound engineer. So he recorded, mixed and mastered the album. His role for the production and sound is huge. He didn’t write anything else than the guitar solos, but of course his role for our music, how it sounds, like it sounds, is vital. Even though I still write most of the music, the input from the other guys really shaped how we sound today.
The first song you have written for this album is also the leading single: ‘As Above So Below’. Can you tell something about that song?
(hesitating and chuckles) Yeah… it was indeed the first song for the album, while writing that song I really realized how big the input the past tours with this line-up has been for the band and how much it actually influences the music, because – at least to me, of course I hear it differently because it is my song – but to me, when I started writing, I immediately was thinking how well this song will be live and I wrote it in a way that it was perfectly designed to play it live for an audience. Some songs are meant to be part of the album, but this one was for live experiences, something we really enjoy playing live. We pick that as first single, because we also played the song on the Swallow The Sun tour. I think how good things go well for the band live and how big the energy is, also from the band with the audience, that shaped out how this album came out. It is a different energy than with ‘Stormbringers’. There is more energy, but it is more positive energy that I hear on the album and basically the whole album is something that we really want to play live.
That is good news! There is diversity on the album. Songs like ‘Stronghold’ and ‘Shockwave’ are really harsh, but on the other hand ‘Mercury Blood’ and ‘Stellar Effect’ are rather smooth. ‘Stellar Effect’ even reminded me a bit of Amorphis…
I think this album is like a compilation of all the influences we have had for the band in the whole career. I think also with this album, I felt more free to write the music again, because ‘Stormbringers’ was different. We did not play together for eleven years and suddenly we just went into the studio and I started writing music, so this version of the band did not have a background yet. Now, after playing together for two years, we know each other again a lot better. We know Paavo a lot better. It was so much easier to write, because I was writing for the band. That was already familiar to me and I knew how the band functions, I knew how well Paavo could do with his vocals, what his possibilities are and it worked a lot better for this album. It had a more relaxed vibe. I just could write anything that came to my mind and I knew that this band will make it happen.
You took a step from Napalm Records to Reaper. Was there any specific reason for that?
Yes. Things worked always out well with Napalm. We did many things – also with Wolfheart – with Napalm, but we really felt after the previous album, that we need a label where we are going to be the priority number one. With Napalm, even though it is a great label, also people working there, no bad word about the label, but they have also huge bands and they have huge other bands, so if you are not in the top ten priority list, it is difficult to grow. With this album we felt we are able to grow on a label to push the band bigger and go more forward, but for that to happen, we needed a different team. I knew already the Reaper guys from back in the days, they used to work in Nuclear Blast where we released two albums through Nuclear Blast, so they were not like a new label. They were guys who already worked with the band and so far – again, I don’t have any need to compare labels more – but everything has worked the best ever. Things have never been this smooth and this easy and this efficient with any of my albums that I actually released. So I really feel the dedication from the label and how they work to move things forward. It was a really good decision.
What can you tell about the lyrics this time? The theme eternal comes back more than once…
Yeah, that came a bit accidentally, I noticed the same when I was listening to the album. I had the same thing with the lyrics as with the music. I just wanted to write exactly how I felt. Wolfheart is different, because it is more with mythology and the Nordic nature and it has already a theme existing. Dawn Of Solace is more about sadness and loneliness and stuff like that. So it has already the topics there as well. For this album of Before The Dawn I just wrote. It wasn’t decided before, so it came out accidentally, the whole energy is already in the music. This very deep positive charge that we have inside the band at the moment, that kind of became the theme in the lyrics also. Shouting to people that we are back and loving what we do. The whole ‘Cold Flare Eternal’ is something we talked about pretty much inside the band and also during the past two tours when we were much together. How great it is, after ten years of pause and almost 25 years of existence, we still feel the same. We still love playing together as a band and we love creating and playing this music. Now we are – not old guys, but middle age guys. We used to be teenagers when we started this whole thing and we still feel the same. So that passion never went away. There were so many changes in our personal lives, in music business, the whole world is changing. Nobody knows what’s going to happen next week, but still we feel the same about the music and playing together and playing the songs, especially live. So that was reflected in the lyrics of the album also.
That is amazing! It is really precious to experience that…
It is. It is still kind of weird to me, to think like… because we are going to do a tour again in September/October and we are now talking about the set list. We want old songs and we are going to have new songs. It is so surreal when I think about recording ‘Deathlight’ album in 2005 in our rehearsal place and that is twenty years ago! And we are still talking about which songs from that album we are going to play on the next show in Germany or next show in Helsinki. So it is like looking back that long and we are still able to keep the same important people in our life and share something. It is really remarkable. Sometimes it is a good feeling to know that not everything changes. You get older and the world gets crazier and things get easier or more complicated, who knows what happens, but certain things remain, it will be there no matter what. It gives a precious and good feeling.
Melancholy in the music remains another important feature, surely for someone from Finland, isn’t it?
It is. I was generally looking for it at some point. I was writing songs and I was recording the demos for the other guys and at some point I started to think like: is there enough melancholy? To me the songs actually sound very happy, if you understand my point, these are songs that I just count the days for playing live. All excitement and happy thoughts. At some point I considered adding some extra melancholy to balance things out, but we decided together that the music is what it is, but you still hear it because it is a very vital part of Before The Dawn’s music. It always has to be there, a certain melancholy.
The artwork is very similar of that from ‘Strombringers’, but yet it has been done by another artist. Now it is Gogo Melone. She is living in Finland now I think…
Yes she is a Greek artist and she moved about two years ago I think. We worked with her already many years ago with Wolfheart and then she did some merchandise, for all of my bands actually and now I wanted to check what her vision would be for the album. We wanted to keep this skull involved with a bit updated logo. That would be the main theme and I let her to decide what she hears in the music and how she thinks it should be presented visually. It is very simple, but I still like the use of colours and it looks like very old school, but still very fresh for a Before The Dawn cover.
In September you start touring and it is together with Wolfheart. You will have a heavy job, playing with both bands every night…
Yeah it is, but I am a lot happier to do a tour with both bands on the same tour instead of both bands doing separate tours. It would mean being on the road double time, so now it is the easiest option of all. I am getting this question quite often lately, about how much work it will be to play two shows, but people don’t realize I am on the tour anyway. I am there no mater what. Now I just got to play one hour more. To me it does not feel like work, because getting on stage and playing the music is the best part of the day on tour. The rest of the day is just sleeping or waiting. There is not much partying, there’s not much fun things happening, it is basically you sleep, you wake up, you eat something, you get the stuff ready and then you wait till the show begins. And then you just go back to sleep. Now I get the double amount of the most fun thing on a tour and I still play maximum two and a half hours per day. It is less than we do in rehearsals. To me this is very ideal. And the most fun is that I get to play both guitar and the drums on a same tour. I think if I would play two shows as a guitar player, it would be a lot more difficult for me. Drums and guitars is such a different instrument. Sometimes I have been thinking of Markus Vanhala from Omnium Gatherum and Insomnium, when he plays like two and half hours or three hours of guitar each night, that has to be hard! It is harsh for the wrist and fingers, I think it is so much easier. If I have to change instrument, I have to change my mindset. Everything changes, it is like a fresh start when I pick up the guitar.
After that comes a headline tour in Finland. Are there still other plans after that?
There are lots of plans on the table for the next year, actually for both Wolfheart and Before The Dawn, so it looks like I am going to be on the road quite much. I am not complaining (chuckles). Good times for both bands. We also hope to do festivals with Before The Dawn. So we are really keeping the momentum that started in the past two years and not to slow down too much until maybe when we start working on a future next album.
Let us have a view on the plans for the three bands…
Next year seems to be busy for Wolfheart too, for the touring at least. There’s going to be a lot of festivals that we know already. There is going to come some new music from Wolfheart in September. We are going to release one new single next week. There is an EP coming out with Wolfheart. So both bands are going to be equally active. With Dawn Of Solace it is going to be rather quiet. I am not going to have much time outside Wolfheart and Before The Dawn, so I will go back to Dawn Of Solace perhaps in 2026/2027 when there is a nice fine break, otherwise all my time will go to Wolfheart and Before The Dawn.
Three bands is a lot of work…
Fun work. This is now the third year in a row that I don’t have a day job. I just do only music, and that changes a lot. I used to do this gardener work for… 27 years or so and that started to eat up all my energy. Working 40 till 50 hours a week and then try to find the time to write music, rehearse with instruments, do the tours, do the festivals, go back to work early Monday morning, that started to feel really heavy. Also that meant that the tours and the gigs started to feel heavy, because I was basically just working constantly. Now; when I get to rest between the tours, I get to rest between the album making, I get to do something else, more sports, I get to do more fishing, I get to do a lot of different things than music. It actually sounds harder than it actually is. Now I get to balance my time so much better.
That’s good, because I remember that you also worked as tour manager and stage help for other bands…
Indeed. I am not doing that anymore either. The older I get, the more I also want to have better quality of my time. I don’t want to be constantly stressed out or tired or feeling super busy with insane deadlines. I just want to sit down more and just enjoy time. When I decided to do that two years ago, I realized it had benefits for the music, because I have more time to write music, I have more time to enjoy writing, and also I have more time to rehearse with the drums or guitar. So everything is easier and smoother.
That gives a kind of peace and rest in your head I think…
Yeah. The more relaxed I am in my head, the easier it is to write music. I don’t feel this pressure and chaos in my brain or the million things I got to do or get done or reply emails, reply phone calls, arrange things, this and that, the more quietness I have in my head, the more easy it is to feel that void for music.
Lucky you that you have that, because some of the artists need to be tormented to be active…
That is a weird thing also. When I release an album with Dawn Of Solace, which is much more melancholic, I get these questions about the inspiration and people are thinking that I am a very sad person, because of the amount of melancholic music I write. When I m depressed or I am stressed out or not in a good mood, it is impossible for me to be creative. Then just nothing happens in my head. I lose my focus completely at any creative work, but when I am happy and things are in a good balance, then it is very easy for me to write music. I don’t know why I write sad music and I think about sad things in the music and in the lyrics, but I need to be on a good place to write about bad things if that makes any sense, because if I am in a bad place myself, then that consumes all of my focus and I cannot really function as a creative person.
I hope you will have inspiration for many albums to come, we already have a great legacy…
Haha I don’t think it is going to stop, I enjoy all my bands and all the people in my bands and it is too much fun to even think about the option of not writing more music. I think there is going to be a lot more in the future. And hopefully for a long time also from this point.
I cannot imagine my life without music and writing…
For me also, it is more a way of living. Writing music is how I process many things. It is the partner of my everyday life, it is not something I need to sit down and decide, but a certain part of every day is for the music automatically. That means that there will be always music. I don’t know how the music business is going to change, how the touring industry is going to change. I don’t know how long I am going to be touring, or how long I will have energy to travel around Europe for the festivals or will there be a point where it doesn’t make any sense to release music, or at least make albums anymore. All these things are just question marks, but that doesn’t change the need to write music.
That is positive… Let us say goodbye in a decent way before zoom stops it. As always it was so nice to talk with you again…. That seems to be a tradition…
I was just about to say the same. This is a good tradition and we need to keep that in the future also.
We do! Have a nice Summer and enjoy the colder weather soon…
I will do so. Thank you! Bye bye
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