INTERVIEW: Wintersun (18.07.06)
Jari Mäenpää arbeitet momentan noch am zweiten WINTERSUN-Album "Time", das noch
dieses Jahr erscheinen soll. Trotz Stress konnte er sich etwas Zeit nehmen und
vorab ein paar Infos über das Album geben.
Deutsche Übersetzung...
Hi Jari, thank you for taking time for this interview while being busy with
the recordings for the new album. How are you doing?
Iīm doing fine at the moment. Iīm really really busy working on the new album
and sometimes I have felt "littlebit" stress about the deadlines. The fans and
record company want my "blood" so bad :) But things are moving along everyday.
On your homepage you wrote about "seven epic and quite long" songs. This
sounds like there won't be any short directly highspeed songs anymore on this
album, like "Beyond the Dark Sun" on "Wintersun". Does your description fit to
every song on the album or will there still be a shorter ass-kicker?
Nope, there wonīt be no short songs. But there will be few long highspeed
ass-kickers :) "marathon songs", itīs gonna be fun playing those live. I canīt
really tell how I ended up writing those long songs, I have to just say the
cliche "they just came from somewhere, from the sky, from the heart or whatever"
:).
Are there any plans about releasing audiosamples of the new album?
Iīve thought about it yes, time will tell :P But when the album is mastered, I
think I will put some samples online, or even roughmixes sooner, but I donīt
promise anything at this point.
In some interviews, you did in 2004, you told, your clean voice would take
more place on "Time" than on "Wintersun". Will your screaming voice still be an
important aspect or will it move further to the background?
Itīs still gonna be important, as it is one big part of me. But yes, thereīs
gonna be lot more clean vocals, maybe like 50%. Iīve found that I can express
more with clean vocals since they have melody and lots of more variations/character/more
dimensions you know what I mean... and I really like singing clean, but I still
need lots of practise. And I always try to sing with the songs terms, like if
this one part needs some agression, then growling it is.
Which equipment will be used for the recordings of "Time", looking especially
at the guitars, amps and effects? On "Wintersun" you did some great work with
your Telecaster, which is not a very typical Metal-guitar. Will it appear on
"Time" again?
Last record I wanted little "western/dirty" sound on some of the songs, thatīs
why I used the Tele. But I also used Jackson Dinky in half of the songs. Now we
are using Ibanez guitars, especially Jems. This time I was looking more "accurate/tight/"clean"
sound. On rhythm guitars I used Mesaboogie Triaxis preamp (goddamn that piece of
crap :P we had big problems with it, technical problems, still the sound kicks
ass, itīs like love&hate relationship with it). That one going into Simul-Class
2:90 power amp to a Mesa cabinet. We made suprising miking choice with SM7 which
gave us the best of the both worlds of SM57 and SM58 and some extra balls too
:). That going into Tube-tech MEC1A.
The lyrical themes don't sound very different to "Wintersun". What can you
tell us about the direction and new aspects your lyrics will contain?
This time they are more personal and sometimes more direct, less metaphoras, but
not forgetting them. Itīs kinda theme album since every song is dealing with
"time" in different perspectives, itīs a very wide subject, thereīs so many
things you could write about "time". But still every song is a individual and
tells different story.
At this years Eartshaker Festival both Wintersun and Ensiferum will enter the
stage. Is there planned any special guest-performance concerning you and
Ensiferum?
Not that I know of :)
Last but not least:Some weeks ago, finnish hard rockers Lordi won the Eurovision
Song Contest. What do you think about this event generally, and do you think
Lordi's victory will have a bigger influence on the name recognition of Heavy
Metal?
Every event always causes some kind of reaction in time :P But itīs hard for me
to say what will happen, as Iīm not a fortune teller. But I think metal music is
getting more popular now and itīs everyones personal opinion, if itīs a good or
bad thing. Personally I donīt really care. And yes I watched the Eurovision, I
did enjoy Lordiīs victory. But I liked Carola more, that was a better song :)
And damn that woman can sing!
Well, that's it for now, thank you again, good success for the recordings. The
last words are yours.
Thanks for the interview. And remember, "muista nukku!" -Jari
Interview von: Marius
Fonte: metal1.info