Transcript of an interview I recorded with TIMO KAARKOSKI of ARMORED DAWN - 20200408. Full article here. MAL-
Talking to Timo Kaarkoski from ARMORED DAWN. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today. TIMO- Thank you MAL- Now formed in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Tell us all about that. TIMO- I moved here about 20 years ago from Finland and been here ever since trying to survive the Holocaust because, you know, of course, coming from Finland, the weather is extremely completely different than anything we have in Europe and overcrowded, polluted. People are nicer. They talk more than Europe, but, you know, you get used to everything. So after 20 years, I'm still around. MAL- Okay, so formed the band in around about 2014. Is that correct? How did that band come about? TIMO- That came about actually, it was formed by Raphael and Eduardo, our keyboard player and our singer they they met in some rock band Eduardo, who's our singer he is he always wanted to have a like a heavy metal. He's actually had other bands he had with his friends, like since college, which play more classic rock. And he always wanted to have a band playing heavy metal. And he got interested in the Scandinavian metal scene. And he was really into that. And he went to a show of Raphael in some bar here. And Raphael is an old friend of mine. When I came here, his band and my band did a lot of shows together. So we were always planning to do something together, but nothing never worked out. So he decided that Oh, if you want to put together a band, playing, anything Scandinavian style, let's call this guy because, you know, he's a guitar player. He's from Finland, and he lives here. So they called me and we started looking, looking for the other guys after, but the beginning was really the keyboard player and singer decided to start to put the band together. MAL- Because Brazil isn't the country that sort of conjures up images of a Scandinavian Viking style metal band. How did that go down there? TIMO- The Scandinavian music, heavy metal music is quite popular among the metal people but of course the metal scene here is still small portion of the people but many bands from Finland, Sweden and Norway, they are quite quite popular here so like bands like STRATOVARIUS from Finland, and they can feel that they play shows like both 70,000 people and here they easily play four or 5000 so actually actually people have a lot of interest in Scandinavian rock music here MAL- Just released your third album Vikings zombie which I listened to the other day, a number of times actually. So good, so catchy. How did how did this one come about? TIMO- Oh, this is actually first album was more basic more rock and roll kind of music and the second one after we changed our drummer, it became a little bit heavier than we actually was thinking about making so the third one we decided to do everything a little bit less heavy and more melodic sort of songs rather making music that even people who are not definitely straight into heavy metal even they might like to listen to and who knows spread the audience and get get more people attracted to heavy metal music as well. But for with putting like almost pop music melodies into heavy metal songs. MAL- How long did this album take to put together? TIMO- In total we spent about a year doing it writing songs and recording and you know, just look, you know, we have our own recording studios and rehearsal space here in Sao Paulo. So, everything we need to record you know, we just combined the time guys come up with studio and we start recording anything we need to change you know, Just call the class at three in the morning to turn to the studio and start working. And that makes everything easy and complicates things because you know, when you don't really have any dateline you have to finish it in, like you rent a studio for one month. You know, no, we don't have that problem. So we spent too much time on doing that. And actually, the songs, we had practically all the songs written when we were still touring on the second album, and the 'Barbarians In Black'. So I remember, we were in the tour bus in Europe. And we were already listening to all the songs that we had recorded and thinking oh, we're gonna change this and this and this. And you know, so but then in total, we spent about a year doing that. MAL- Now a lot of bands can't write on the road, but you seem to be able to do that. So well done. TIMO- Yeah. Yeah, it's I mean, when you tour in Europe, it's a more you tried 20 hours and there's really nothing to do you know, we don't get really part of that part anymore at this age. So gotta go Do something, get karaoke turn on your notebook and start recording songs again, write new songs. MAL- Back when bands used to be able to tour, now the whole the whole world's been turned upside down lately. What happens now? TIMO- Oh yeah that's a good question we were supposed to start the touring this month for 'Viking Zombie' album but now everything is postponed. We're supposed to play around South America in Guatemala, Equador, Costa Rica everything that now that's gonna happen somewhere in the end of the year most likely like in November and that really screwed up the whole work. Everything is cancelled. I heard in Europe they're cancelling all the big festivals now one, one by one, they're falling down and that's a sad times I mean, I mean, for musicians, most of us we learned already to save some money because you know, there always be times like some months that you don't earn anything so you always keep up with a bit extra to survive. But you know what the guys on the road crew they basically live from one month to another and so if there's no shows they don't earn anything and you're having the worst time of this MAL- Crazy times we live in. Right, what's the reaction been to the album so far? I have to admit, I hadn't heard much about you at all. But when I did hear this album, I really liked it and I kept playing it. So what's the reaction elsewhere been so far, TIMO- Most mostly positive reaction that we have. I remember when we went to tour with Saxon in Europe and same thing most of the people had never heard of us. So for the first first few songs, guys, like standing in front of stage, what the hell is that? Suddenly they start jumping and screaming and try to sing the songs that they never heard in their lives. I think most people seem to like the songs I think it's, it helps that they're kind of, I think the melodies basically help So people can understand easier those songs because we didn't even write anything too complicated and too heavy to understand. So I think it's mostly positive reaction that we are getting, of course, there's some people that are never happy with anything, but that that's a small minority anyway, so things are going pretty well. MAL- Excellent. I think you will do very well. Let's talk about a time when you could actually go out on the road and tour. What's the funniest thing that's happened on tour? TIMO- The funniest thing. This actually it's funny for everybody except one guy. This, this will happen with our band this happened with an utter bank that I was playing here in South America. We were touring in Bolivia, and we were travelling from one town to another and with the bus, it takes about 20 hours. And between these two towns, there's practically nowhere to stop. There's no gas stations, there's no toilet paper to go on this one guy that ate something that didn't go so well. You know, you really, really, really needed to go to the toilet and was always at the bus stop to stop that if you find like on forests or something, stop there and yeah, okay but the next time we need to like a forest gonna be like in six or seven hours so but we want this to be free go out there so the guy just went to behind the bus and of course, as nobody's prepared for this, he was there out without toilet paper behind the stone and luckily for him, nobody was doing Facebook Live or anything of that but we could have done next time we're gonna do that. Could be interesting to start something if somebody could take the band to Australia to play because you know, that's a really cool contribution that's just once travelling with my wife, so That's really, really cool to bring the band over there one day MAL- Timo Kaarkoski from Brazilian band ARMORED DAWN, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. Excellent, excellent new album out 'Viking Zombie', wish you all the very best with that and hope to see the band out there on the road when this all calms down. TIMO- We're really, really, really bored of sitting at home so really cool to hit the road again. Hopefully in Australia also some some of these days. MAL- Hey, Timo, thanks for talking to me, mate, you, you have a great day and stay safe and back out on the road again when all sorts itself out. TIMO- Take care. Bye Comments are closed.
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AuthorMetalhead who hates bad parking. |