Wolfheart – interview met Tuomas Saukkonen (vocals, guitars)
Tuomas Saukkonen: “Summer and winter in Finland is a little bit too Disney for an epic metal video, but Iceland with those huge lava fields and black/red rocks and the ocean coast and the mountains and everything, I think that is ideal scenery for any metal video.”
We zijn al lang de tel kwijt hoeveel keer we Tuomas Saukkonen gesproken hebben over zijn muzikale creaties, maar nog steeds kijken we altijd reikhalzend uit naar een volgende uiteenzetting van de eloquente muzikant. Het zevende studioalbum van Wolfheart, ‘Draconian Darkness’, komt eerstdaags op de markt en ook nu wist het Finse melodieuze death metal icoon daar erg boeiende dingen over te vertellen. Dit delen we met jou en de omringende wereld in dit onderstaande interview.
Vera Matthijssens Ι 27 september 2024
How are you doing?
Really, really good. Extremely busy times now that all my three bands are playing gigs and tour again. The new label is doing a great job with the new album, so I am doing so many more interviews than I have been doing before, so it is a positive ‘busy’… a lot of things are happening, so I am happy.
You have been with Napalm Records for years, but ‘Draconian Darkness’ will be released by a new label, Reigning Phoenix Music. Was there a reason for that or did you just feel it was about time?
There were no complaints against Napalm at all, but it was the end of our contract and then we had the opportunity to think about other options. Napalm also gave us an offer, but the opportunity to work with Reigning Phoenix Music was way too good to pass. It is very rare nowadays that there is a new big label being born this fast and huge bands – from the very beginning they signed Kerry King and they signed Helloween and they got Meshuggah, Amorphis, Opeth… all huge bands and that is a sign that there is a lot of investment in the label, they are high level professional people working on the label, because these huge bands, they don’t sign on small labels. They must have a good reason, so I trusted my intuition. This was a rare opportunity to try a new label and refresh a lot of things. So far there has been a great energy and I really feel that they are investing their time and professionalism on our music. So we have no regrets on the decision either.
The new album ‘Draconian Darkness’ comes two years after ‘King Of The North’, pretty fast but that’s not unusual for Wolfheart. I had the impression that the orchestral arrangements are very important this time…
For at least the last three albums, we are putting more input on the orchestrations, but on this latest one, we did the pre-production differently. Also with the pre-production – basically when I was doing the demos of the songs for the other guys – we already started working with orchestral elements. We spent a lot of time on the guitar arrangements, so that there is enough room for bigger and more massive keys and orchestral elements at certain places. Previously we just did the album, we did the guitars and drums and everything and then we added the orchestration as the last point. On the previous albums, we fit all the orchestration we could in the mix, but now we took the whole orchestration with the song-writing already. It was more like a hand-in-hand kind of matter from the beginning of the song-writing. So every time when I had a demo of a song ready, I sent it to the sound engineer and he started working on the orchestration. If there was something that did not fit with the orchestrations, we changed certain things with the guitars or the other instruments, so we did more work to make them more prominent on this album.
In this respect I think Saku Moilanen happens to be the fifth member of the band now I would say…
Yes, he definitely is, because he takes care of the keyboards and orchestration. He is been doing that for the last three albums. He also recorded and mixed the album. He did the mastering and he was also in charge of the production. So yes, he is the fifth member of the band nowadays when it comes to the music.
But he does not tour I guess?
He doesn’t really like to do live shows or travels. He is happier in his studio and music and then there is so much of the orchestration that it would not have any sense to have one keyboard player to do that. I think this is an ideal arrangement for him also. He gets a bigger role in a band’s music, but also he can stay at home in his studio.
Ah yes, something like Henri Sorvali from Moonsorrow…
Yeah! Pretty much the same. That is a good comparison. He loves to compose, but he also loves to stay home and let the other guys do the touring.
The first song you have been writing for this new album is ‘Grave’. Did it influence the direction of the rest of ‘Draconian Darkness’?
Yes, it was the first song that I wrote for the album and that definitely gave a direction on the whole record. I also have the habit to get differently attached to the first song of the album that I write, because that always is the starting point of the whole process, so I always aim to get the first song of an album as a first single too, because – in my head – that becomes always the leading song of the album. The other guys and the label agreed that it is a good song for the starters, but that illustrates the contrasts on the album. It has the heaviest and most aggressive verses and also like the most majestic choruses. So I think – as one song – a good song to underline the album the best way.
Indeed, you hear every facet of the sound of Wolfheart. Another song to illustrate that, is ‘Burning Sky’ with its great dynamics. What can you tell about this song?
With some songs – when I start to write – I think about the album alone and with other songs I already think about the live performance. When working on composing this song, I immediately started thinking about this need to have a big intro part and it would fit super well on a live show, maybe as the first song of the set, but then I needed a lot of energy in the rest of the song. It had to be really fast and very aggressive, because those are usually the songs we enjoy to play live the most. I kind of tailor-made the song to fit really well on the set list in the future.
With two songs I had the impression that there is a guest on clean vocals, because it stands out in warm-hearted chants. Are there any guests on the album?
No, for this album we did all the vocals internally with the band. They are either by me or by Vagelis (Karzis – lead guitarist – Vera). I get lots of these questions, people hear that there is an additional voice, but we were able to add more different kinds of sounds from Vagelis and Lauri (Silvonen – bass – Vera). A lot of reporters mix them up. They think Lauri’s part is done by Vagelis or the other way around. So I think we did a really good job in the vocals, because they were both able to expand their range and do different things on this album than they were able to do on the previous one, so I did not think that we would need a guest vocalist either, because we already have such good vocalists with Lauri and Vagelis. So I kind of kept them in the spotlights. It was really cool on the last album to use Jessi and Karl, but always when you bring a guest on the album, it takes the attention away a little bit from the band also. So I rather focused on Lauri and Vagelis, than bringing in an additional vocalist on the album this time.
Anyways, in a live situation, you have to do it as four piece band in the end… These special clean vocals appear in ‘Scion Of The Flame’ and the last song ‘The Gale’…
The last song ‘The Gale’ indeed. I have big trouble remembering the names of the songs. When we work on the album, we have different names. I always decide the final names just before the mastering of the album. So there is always like these working titles, like ‘new fast song’ or ‘epic song’ or something else and in the end that’s the only things I remember. When we have the real titles, it takes me months to remember. In interviews it is quite funny (chuckles) Well okay, ‘Gale’ is the name and both parts are Lauri. He’s always been a great singer, but he never sounded this good in the studio. I think these parts when there is only these acoustic guitars and his voice, he sounds phenomenal. I think he has improved a lot since last recordings. He had a lot of work with his vocals and that can clearly be heard, because it is easy to do vocals when you have big guitars and fast bass-drums and a lot of tracks underneath, but when it is only you and your acoustic guitar, then it is all about your voice. There is nothing you can hide behind, there is no wall of guitars, there’s no keys, there’s nothing. There’s just you and acoustic guitar. I think that is the most demanding situation for any vocalist. I am super proud of Lauri, not only because of what he did, but he is getting really great feedback in all the interviews. A lot of people think that there is a guest vocalist. I think that tells that Lauri did a very good job.
That is true. ‘The Gale’ must have been the ‘epic song’, as working title, isn’t it?
I quite often have the same working titles, I always have this one working title on every album, it is called ‘last song’ (laughs), because when I start writing the song, I already know that this will be the grand finale of the album. It is always the same working title on every album. That was ‘the last song’.
I have seen the video clips. ‘Grave’ was the first video, showing great nature. Was that in Finland?
That was in Iceland. That is one of the great things about the new label, they really want to put more input on the music videos, because they really appreciate that we already did so many clips before and they liked the quality, so now we were able to do a little bit more videos than before. So we went to Iceland for almost a week. We actually shot the video footage for three videos during the week. ‘Grave’ is the first Iceland video, then I think the second Iceland video is coming out in September and the third one in October. I think the scenery in ‘Grave’ was the less epic. The two following ones are much more massive. I don’t want to spoil the excitement by saying the location, but they look really, really good.
Iceland is something like a fairytale, but with the darkness of metal…
Yes; I do love Finnish nature, but in general it is a little bit too nice, because we don’t have like mountains, we don’t have like glaciers, we don’t have big waterfalls. Finnish nature, in winter it is more like Christmas, like a Wonderland kind of things. Summer and Winter in Finland is a little bit too Disney for an epic metal video, but Iceland with those huge lava fields and black/red rocks and the ocean coast and the mountains and everything, I think that is ideal scenery for any metal video.
That is true. It is almost unearthly…
Exactly. It looks like the moon. There are many movies and videos done over there, to make it look like something from space. So unreal is the place… We hope to go back there again, because it doesn’t matter how much time you spend there, earlier we did a video over there for a song called ‘Break Water’ and it feels like you only see 1% of the country. There is so much more to see. I think two weeks is pretty much the minimum if you go there for holidays, because when I would be there I would like to drive around the whole island.
So you had been there before?
Yeah. We had one video shooting there before and the camera guy that has done all of our videos, he is like the sixth member of the band. Saku is the fifth member and he has a big role in the music, but Valtteri Hirvonen, our video guy, he has been doing all of our videos. He took the latest promo pictures also and many of the previous ones. So on the visual side, he is member number six. He’s been doing some TV series and movie shootings there, so he knows Iceland really well. So it is pretty easy to go there with him, because he already has a list of ten awesome locations and he knows some people there already. So he can help a lot with some of the arrangements and even some places where you don’t get access. The tourist places that everybody knows, like the Black Sand beach and the Diamond beach and certain waterfalls, those are completely of the limit, because there’s always too many people. You cannot use them in any of the videos, because in every shot there is 100 other people and busses are coming and going. You always need to find something that is not on the maps or not in the top 10 google places in Iceland, because you need some privacy also to be able to shoot.
The other video I saw, ‘Evenfall’ is filmed in the studio I think…
Yes. Because so many videos have the nature and the landscapes and stuff, I wanted to break the pattern a little bit. I don’t want the videos to look too much the same. The next Iceland video should be a surprise for the audience, but if every video looks like from Iceland, there is no surprise anymore. I enjoy also a band playing. When I watch a video, I want to see the real guys doing something real, not just acting on a music video. Something more honest and real. That’s why I wanted this kind of location for the second video.
Let us go to the lyrics of the new album. Sometimes you have a theme, sometimes not. What was the reason for the title ‘Draconian Darkness’ and what has been inspiration for the lyrics this time?
There is kind of a theme, but it is wide-broad. One of our previous albums ‘Wolves Of Karelia’, that was about the Winter War, so the whole album was about few months of war back in the days. ‘King Of The North’ was about Finnish mythology. It was like a different story on every song, but the whole main theme of the album was telling about the times when Nordic people were living in perfect harmony with nature and people worshipped the earth, because they were the guards of the forest and they were praying for rain and they were praying for sunshine to get a good harvest. There was lots of respect towards nature and people took what they needed, nothing more. They killed to eat and took the harvest what they needed for their families and that was a healthy balance. People had their place in nature. The new album is basically the flipside of the coin. It is about this modern age where people don’t respect the nature and we take everything we want and we just basically kill on the fly. We have no balance at all. It is not just about today and the current situation, everything started hundreds of years ago. If you look at history and you look at the modern days, you can see a pattern. We just take more and more and destroy more and more. It doesn’t matter where you go in this world, it is the same behaviour and pattern. Basically that is the draconian darkness. That is the legacy of humankind. That’s what we are doing. Fire and ash. On the previous cover, on the front side, there was this bear skull, kind of like a totem. But on the new album, ‘Draconian Darkness’, I told the graphic guy that it needed to look like a funeral breathe, with the skull and the snakes and antlers and stuff… it had to look like something that you could put on a grave of humankind so to speak.
If we go on like this, it does not look good for mankind… there are too many people on this planet…
Too many people and wrong kind of people have issues in the power, for instance big American companies are trying to buy the water supplies of the world. Crazy things are happening, in general. Every country is to blame and every government and every religion is to blame. Nobody is better than the others, but I don’t mean that every human being is doing bad things against the nature, but just watch the news for one week and you see all the red flags and warning signs and of course I think it can go into even worse directions, like more pollution, more industry, more people, more problems, more wars, more conflicts,… I don’t think it is going to stop. It is just escalating slowly.
Indeed I have that feeling too and these wars also pollute the air…
I don’t think it can still be stopped either. It is gone too far and it is too big, too much money involved and everything. It is just: this is our legacy when we look back. When somebody looks back two hundred years from now, I don’t think they are going to be too proud on what we accomplished.
I have been thinking a lot about Finland and you after our conversation of the winter war. Now Russia is the aggressor again. Do you think the government is doing the right things in Finland to save us?
I try to be very neutral about politics and not follow it too closely, because there is always two sides and we have not only politics but also modern media creating these big headlines and scaring people. It is not in my hands. I am not part of the government, in that way I don’t have any political influence, so I rather focus on my stuff, my regular life and people around me, not thinking about it too much about what is right and what is wrong. It is a very complicated matter anyway. When thinking about Europe, there is actually war already at the doorsteps of the whole Europe. I don’t know the ‘what is wrong and what is right’ decision. There should not be any wars to begin with. That would be the right decision I think. We passed the point in the situation where there could be good solutions in a way, so I can only trust that the people in the Finnish government, the president and the prime minister, that they know what they are doing and the rest is not in my hands, so I don’t want to spend every day just looking at the news and being afraid of what might happen, because who knows? Something might happen tomorrow, something might happen in 200 years when I am dead already. So I rather use my energy to write music and play shows and do my stuff. It looks like half of the news now is just scaring people. About Russia, Ukraine or corona. If you are too much involved, I think it just going to drain you empty and that’s not going to change anything. You are just going to loose your energy and your peace of mind. It does not do any good for anybody so I rather focus on my small life and personal stuff and then I can be a better friend to my friends and a better boyfriend at home and then everything goes better. I think people should focus a little bit more on just stay home and in their own circles and don’t see things too big, because it is mostly not in our hands. Nobody will call me from the government and ask my consultation for the Ukrainian things, so tomorrow I am going into my studio and I am going to write some lyrics and that is my main worry and I want to keep it like that (laughs).
Please do, otherwise we lack good music!
(laughs) I think people are way too stressed and worried about things they should not know or should not stress about, because if there is a war, then there is a war, but why would you fear something in advance and suspend your peace of mind and happiness for that? I don’t understand that.
What are the plans with your other projects Dawn Of Solace and Before The Dawn?
Before The Dawn is playing festivals this Summer. Swallow The Sun is releasing a new album soon and so is Wolfheart. So both me and Juho (Räihä – Vera) are going to be busy touring for quite some time with both bands. Dawn Of Solace is currently in the studio and we should have the new album out in December. The album should be ready next week already, so that is almost done. Most of this and next year I am just going to be touring with Wolfheart, but we are already talking with the Before The Dawn guys that we are going to start writing new stuff and maybe going into the studio in January, February or March, depending on if Juho and me both are in Finland the same time. So then we want to start the recordings already. All the bands seem to be very busy in the future also.
That is good news, because I still remember the moment in January 2013 when all your bands were stopping and only Wolfheart was there…
You should be able to change your mind, if something feels good, you should do it. If it doesn’t feel good, you should not do it. If that changes, why shouldn’t you follow your needs. I mean, life is too short and from my religious point of view I am pretty sure I only live once, so if things feel good, why not do it?
Are you still working as a gardener?
No, too many bands now. At least for a while I am going to be only musician and maybe in the future I can always go back to that work, because I don’t think anyone with intelligence is going to do gardening instead of me, so I feel pretty safe that my job will be waiting for me in the future also, but now my bands take too much time and it is better just to focus on the music.
And the job as tour manager?
No, I stopped all the work, also in music industry, because there is enough work on the work side of the band. Next to the management I am the person who deals everything with the labels and stuff, so I want to have more fun in the music and I want to leave something for my personal life and hobbies.
There is a lot of touring coming up…
September we are going to tour in Finland and in November we are going to tour in Europe with Dark Tranquillity and Moonspell. We are also doing a North American tour in February. Those are the closest plans that we have. We toured with Moonspell before, so I think it is going to be a lot of fun to be on that tour.
I wish you a very good tour!
Thank you!
