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 2007 was in many ways a breakout year for Finnish Battle Metallers Turisas, with the release of both their latest albun 'The Varangian Way', and their critically acclaimed cover of the Boney M classic 'Rasputin'.
2008 is looking to be an even busier year, with the band heading back to the UK in March for a two week headline tour, which kicks off at the Soundhaus in Northampton on March 1st, following a triumphant performance at last years Hard Rock Hell Festival, before heading back to the United States to take part in the upcoming Paganfest Tour which will see them lining up alongside Ensiferum, Tyr and Eluveitie during April and May.
Komodo Rock's Krissy Elliott caught up with front man Mathias
"Warlord" Nygård to find talk about the bands successes in 2007 and
where they will be heading during 2008.
Krissy Elliott: Happy New Year to You! So what do Pagan Battle Metallers do around Christmas and New Year?
Mathias Nygård: Well last year we spent all of it in the studio
recording our new album “The Varangian Way”, but this year we actually
just got back from a European tour together with Iced Earth and
Annihilator, and did a few scattered shows in Finland in December. On
New Years Eve we played one of the main venues in Helsinki. Totally
sold out – totally crazy audience and totally the best New Years Eve
I’ve ever had!
KE: Do you feel that the extensive touring you did last year made a
positive impression on sales of your album “The Varangian Way”?
MN: To be honest we haven’t really toured that much. I mean look at all
the crazy Polish bands doing 3 months in a row-tours without a day off!
Of course gaining some foothold in the UK and also playing more there
than maybe the average European band has its effect on the album sales.
KE: Your schedule is very busy for 2008. Do you see yourselves taking a
break in the summer, or will you continue onto the European festival
circuit after Paganfest?
MN: Yeah, we start out by doing 2 weeks in the UK from March 1st and
onwards and then continue over to the rest of Europe. After that we
join the Paganfest tour in North America almost directly after, just to
make it back to Europe for the festival season start. We don’t have any
festivals confirmed yet as we’ve been quite busy working with these
over 60 shows we already have in front of us before the summer, but I’m
sure those confirmations will start to fall in as spring moves on.
It will for sure be a busy year and by summer I think we can actually
start speaking of extensive touring, but nonetheless it is clear, that
at some point we will need to take a break to get some ideas together
for a new album. It’s just too hectic right now to write anything.
 KE: Is the future of music like yours in the live arena, rather than recordings?
MN: I hope not. I like doing both and could imagine, that if we ended
up touring and touring only playing the songs we did in the early days
of our career it would quickly become dull. I think the income is
definitely swifting over to all things other than the sale of the music
itself, but without that, there would hardly be none of the other
either. I think the world is moving towards a direction where music
itself becomes “theoretically” free, so that the consumer pays for it
by side products as the live shows, merchandise and other and most
importantly, seeing adverts here and there.
KE: Do you think that the live experience is now even more important with the accessibility of music online?
MN: To be able to make living yes, but for the consumer – not really.
There will always be the group of people who like going to shows,
theatre, seeing movies on the big screen, but at the same time, there’s
also a group of people who are just happy to listen to the music
digitally at home or on your iPod, and watch movies from a DVD on a
small laptop screen.
I mean, there’s people who are totally fine with Facebook being their
only social activity, and in a way, that’s completely alright. It’s
just different. To me listening to music on CD or seeing a show was
never on the same line anyway, and with our band it’s probably even
more obvious.
KE: Where do you stand on music being available free on the Internet?
Do you think fans can be trusted to pay for albums which are available
in this way?
MN: I think instead of the music industry ranting about the low morale
of the fans, they should focus on finding alternative solutions.
Trusting fans to pay for albums voluntarily is comparable to not
locking your door at night out of the principle that one doesn’t want
to live with people who would steal your stuff. It’s just how humans
are and it’s silly to try to keep up this principle when it will not
work. It’s just better to lock your door.
I think the bands who have experimented with giving out their music
online towards a voluntary payment have shown that by doing so, they at
least have managed to cut down the illegal spreading of their work.
This way they are in total control of when and where and in what form
people will get the material. I mean, if I know I’ll get the new
Radiohead album in good quality off their site, it doesn’t make much
sense for me to hunt for it in a p2p jungle.
Labels should just work up the structure for sponsorship and
advertising for these controlled download sites so music could legally
be free, and the artist would get a compensation for its work though
other channels. I’m not saying, that our next album should include
hidden ads in the lyrics or our live outfits would have NOKIA-logos on
them. No! The art should remain intact, but who cares if you’ll have to
see some corporate logos when and while downloading the product?
KE: Do you intend to make any future Turisas recordings available online with optional payment available?
MN: Well at this point it’s up to the label. On this level it’s a joke
to think you’d actually get any money on record sales anyway – never
seen a penny – so for me it would obviously be totally cool to make it
available for more people. If we weren’t signed to a record deal, I
would for sure have a bunch of ideas. It is the curse of artists of my
generation, that we are working in a time where the traditional sales
die out, but the new system isn’t there yet.
I would be very careful to sign a traditional record contract these
days as I think it is the labels – especially those who don’t find a
way to completely renew their way of working and main product - who
will be the biggest losers in the whole. Any band tied to a label like
that will obviously suffer.
KE: Many bands think that providing their music reaches more fans,
whatever happens with music online does not matter. Do you agree? If
not, why not?
MN: I think that what the spokespeople for free spreading of music
online seldom see is the point that right now bands are still working
on budgets provided by the labels. Those budgets are based on the sales
and estimations of records and keep getting smaller and smaller as the
income goes down. Cutting down production budgets definitely have an
effect on the end product.
 As
I said, we’ve never earned a penny on record sales, and there are a
huge number of bands like us out there who just want to make music out
of their hearts and not for making big bucks. These bands are of course
happy if their music reaches a broader audience, but as the setup is
right now, I think the shrinking production is really a problem that is
putting the bands in a corner.
KE: MySpace is a huge resource for bands in the 21st century. How has MySpace helped you get known and reach new fans?
MN: I think a lot of people all over the world stumble across us on
MySpace every day. They add us as friends and we can reach out to all
of them with a single bulletin with news or things like that. The
problem is the same as with the internet in general – how do find
anything good among all the shit?
KE: Can you think of anything that the Internet needs to make things even better for bands?
MN: It has to generate better income for us poor musicians!
KE: Do you download free music for yourselves?
MN: I don’t. I do use MySpace and YouTube quite often to check out some
things. I have a mp3 player, but I really haven’t got used to carrying
it with me or actually using it. I don’t have a need to have music on
24/7, but like to hear my surroundings when walking in the street or
whatever. So for me, I’m mostly relying on good old CD’s through a pair
of professional speakers in my studio when it comes to listening to
music.
KE: You have been referred to as Battle Metallers, but also Thrash, Death and Doom. What genre really fits Turisas, and why?
MN: I don’t think anyone down with the metal genre would really call us
trash, death or doom. We’re not really that concerned about what genre
we should be or what suits us. Making music and performing it is our
thing and it’s the fans and press who can take care of all that
speculating.
KE: Do you think being able to label a band with a genre is a good thing? If not, why not?
MN: I’m getting the previous question quite often, so apparently we’re
not that easy to label, which to me is good. It’s nice to have bands
you always know how they will sound and what will come next – very
traditional in that way – but I think it’s important that there are
bands that mess up the pack a bit and create something new.
KE: Who are your major musical influences?
MN: My musical taste ranges from extreme metal to pop, jazz,
experimental and whatever. I like the edge of Satyricon, the crazyness
of Frank Zappa, the moods of Tom Waits, the voice of Christina
Aguilera, the ambient nature of Björk… Basically, I can like anything,
but to be honest I usually hate most of everything. It has to be
something special that makes it different or the better than everything
out there.
KE: And who do you think is the greatest band of all time?
MN: Probably one of the great dinosaurs: Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin
and so on… Maybe not the best, but surely the greatest. Wonder if any
band of our time can become so big and stick around that long…
KE: Finally – what do you have on your iPod or CD player today?
MN: Umm… nothing. I’m listening to the clock ticking on the wall and
sounds the keyboard makes while typing this. I will need to sit down
and listen to a song quite a few times later today, as I will need to
tear it to pieces and see if it could be moulded into something great
in a totally new surrounding, but I’m not going to tell you what it is!
A big thank you to Mathias for taking the time to talk with us.
You can catch Turisas on tour in the UK during March, with support from Century Media Records labelmates Norther.
Their full schedule shapes up as follows:
March
1st Northampton Soundhaus
2nd Sheffield Corporation
3rd Aberdeen Moshulu
4th Edinburgh Studio 24
5th Liverpool Academy 2
6th Norwich Waterfront
7th Peterborough Park
8th Leeds Cockpit
10th Exeter Cavern
11th Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
12th Southampton The Brook
13th London Electric Ballroom
14th Brighton Concorde 2
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