Amoral
No Familiar Faces

21.10.2014

Sometimes an interview that you’re looking forward to so much, ends with a big disappointment. Some other times it’s vice versa: a conversation with musicians whose albums were never on your all-time favorites list may enable you to see their work in a different light and really understand what they do. Ben Varon, guitarist and mainman of Finland’s Amoral, is a nice example of that. The band that previously recorded albums in such different styles as death metal and hard rock, has now ventured into progressive metal territories, and Ben’s own words about the origins of his songs will definitely help listeners get a better understanding of such dramatic creative moves. We met with the guitarist behind the scenes at Tuska Open Air, and he was happy to share with us some insights…

You've already been interviewed for our portal, it was about two years ago, when you were promoting the previous album, "Beneath" (2011). So let’s talk first about your new record and the differences between this record and the previous one.

Sure. The new album is called "Fallen Leaves And Dead Sparrows". There is a big difference in it for us 'cause we'd done five albums before and they'd always just been a collection of songs. I write a song, I write another song, maybe another time Masi (Hukari, guitar) writes a song. Then we have a bunch of songs that we like, we make an album out of them. But this time we decided early on that we wanna make certain guidelines for the album so it wouldn't be just every kind of songs we come up with, but we wanted to focus on more progressive stuff: longer songs, more epic feelings. We kind of put the hard rock vibe on the side and decided to focus more on metal but also on a lot of acoustic stuff, a lot of moods and long songs. We quickly realized that we were kind of playing with the same melodies in different songs, which gave us the idea like, "Hmm, maybe this could work as a concept album, like we start with the same melody as we finish, and in the middle you'd hear a riff from a different song, so that it would be a criss-cross of similar elements. I also had some ideas for lyrics that would work as a concept album which I'd never done before. It'd always been different 12 short stories, each of their own song. So it was a challenge, but a very welcome challenge to try something different this time.

Yes, I think that's your best album for now, it's my favorite one.

Thank you!

You've just said that that's more metal than a hard rock album but I hear strong classic rock feeling in some songs, for example, "Blueprints".

Yeah-yeah!

It reminds me of Led Zeppelin and some Eric Clapton riffs, so...

(laughs) That's funny, 'cause I only thought about Led Zeppelin when I wrote it. I thought this sound was a bit Zeppelin-esque. It never occurred to me, "Oh, it's like the song ‘Layla’.” Than we did a radio show, and the host was like, "So did you listen to Eric Clapton while writing it"? "Oh, yeah, how did I miss that?" Yeah, there is a lot of classic rock influences from maybe the 70s or something like that but the hard rock stuff we did on "Beneath" and "Show Your Colors" (2009), the more 80s stuff like Bon Jovi, Motley Crue riffs - those are kind of gone at the moment. It's funny now - the new stuff is more of a mix of the 70s with our metal sound without the 80s stuff which we did in the middle. It fits better with our old stuff, the first three albums which were more death metal.

What song from the new album would you recommend to listen to a person who has never heard your band before?

I think the third song, "Prolong A Stay". It's still my favorite at the moment, I really like how it turned out. Essentially how Ari (Koivunen) sang this song, he did a great job with it. And I like... I don't know, I think we really did one of our best songs with that one.

If we've just said that there is some classic rock stuff in the music of the new album, then the psychedelic thing about the album is its cover artwork. It's definitely not a metal album cover, so whose idea it was and who painted it?

It’s my friend Aki Siltala, who's done covers for our second and third albums, "Decrowning" (2005) and "Reptile Ride" (2007). He's my friend from school, we were just 8 years old when we met, so I’ve known him forever. When I had the whole story and we had the music done and the lyrics and the album title, then I started thinking what kind of album cover I would like to see with it, and I just knew that Aki could do something with it. Actually we just sat down for a beer one night and I told him about the story and I told him about the bunch of words I wrote down that we could use - maybe we could have an old guy in the picture, maybe we could have this, maybe that. Then we just brainstormed for a few hours, I came up with the idea...and yeah, it's totally related to the album and the story. I like that there's so much for you to look at, especially on the vinyl version – you look at it, and there’s bunch of stuff and a lot of details.

This cover differs a lot from all your previous covers.

Yeah, but we've always had different covers. We've always tried something a bit different.

Do you have any idea for the next album cover?

It depends on the music and the title. At the moment I have this grandiose vision that the next two albums combined with this one will make a trilogy. I don't know if it's just gonna happen but I would like to see them having similar covers, three albums with a similar vibe. It wouldn't be like a continuation of the story but something similar, with progressive elements, maybe three concept albums, each standing on their own. But I think it could be a cool thing.

And as far as I know you've already started the preproduction process for the new album. How do you manage to be so productive?

It's funny, 'cause always until now, for the past ten years it's been so that we work hard on an album, write it and then finally record it and when it's out there's a long, long break before we start writing again. During that break we only play live, we do other things, and then at some point the inspiration sparks again and we start writing new stuff. Usually it's like a year's break. This time around, I don't know why, the songs just kept coming pretty much immediately after the first one ended. We just finished this album, and it’s like, "Hmm, I have a riff... Oh, it turned into a song. Oh, I have another thing, this idea, that idea…" Then I just went through my files and went like, "God, I think I have almost the whole next album written already".

Have you completed the stuff for the album, I mean the writing of the songs?

We’ll see. We have enough stuff for an album, but I'm not sure if this is the right bunch of songs as a whole. I need to listen to them more, we need to play it together, demo them and then hear them together and see which song fits where. If one of them does not fit the album we will just leave it out and write something else.

How do you technically do preproduction? Do you record some home demos or do you record rehearsals...

First I record everything at home and then I send it to the drummer with just a click-track. He doesn't even want a drum demo, he wants to hear it without any drums first so he can come up with ideas by himself, and when you hear something, it sticks. So I send it to him, then he shows me what he has, then I record his drums at the rehearsal studio and put that on my demo, then we start working with the other guys, and finally me and Ari will go and demo the vocals by ourselves.

Ok, and who's the guy who writes the vocal melodies? Is it you?

Most of it, yeah. Ari has some ideas here and there, but usually it comes with the song.

So do you sing yourself or you just have the idea?

I show the vocal parts to him with my crappy singing, or play them on the guitar, and that’s enough for a vocalist like Ari to sing it properly.

Do you have any idea of the release date for the next album?

No, we don't even know when we’re gonna start recording it.

And how does the process go technically? Do you reamp the guitars and bass?

We've done that lately. I think last time we reamped everything. It's just so convenient, you can write at home...

Yes, I practice it, I know it.

It used to be so nerve-wrecking, when we entered the studio, like, "Is the tone OK, can we start playing? Or maybe we can tweak it more?" Now you just can focus on playing first and when you have the perfect takes down, then it’s like, "OK, let's start figuring out the sounds". I really like the whole reamping thing.

What are you main sources of inspiration? You have the ideas for three albums so you should be inspired.

Yeah. I think it's pretty much anything and everything. It's really not just music or just books. A lot of it just comes from the living, like travelling, especially on tour you see new places. I always like to go out, see the towns and the landscapes, meet new people. The lyrics are usually about the stuff that's been going on in my head for the last few years. And the music just comes, I don't know. It could be anything – you go and see a good show, like maybe today I'll see a band that has a great riff, and that riff will inspire me to try something similar, and then it turns out into a song. Or it's gonna be like I'll pick up acoustic guitar at home and start fucking around, find something interesting, maybe just one chord, and that's gonna inspire the whole song.

Speaking about touring, you've already been to lots of countries, such as China, Japan, and the USA. What are the most memorable things from those shows and where does the crowd support you better?

On European tours we found out that the warmer countries like Italy and Spain have been very good for us. They really like our stuff for some reason, even when we were warming up for bigger bands, when it was not our own show. And then, the Eastern European countries as well, for example, Prague has always been really good. China was amazing. Last time around we played two big festivals, especially one in Beijing was in front of 10,000 people, and that was the biggest show we've ever done. That was really, really nice. And Japan, of course. All the stories you hear about Japan being crazy - it really is, and it's always a pleasure.

Do you have any plans of visiting Russia?

Well, that's what we've been talking about. We’ve only played there once, in 2006 we did one show in St. Petersburg, and we haven't been here since, for whatever reason. I don't know if there is enough demand in Russia yet for anybody to bring us over, cause of course it costs a lot of money to bring a band.

Actually St. Petersburg is not far from Helsinki…

Yeah, I know Heta (Hyttinen, the band’s manager – ed.) has been working on it.

So maybe it's just a question of logistics.

Well, maybe.

There are quite a few people, like our photographer, for instance, who prefer your early albums to the later ones. This year you're celebrating the 10th anniversary of your first album, “Wound Creation” (2004), and I know that you had a special show in March. How do you feel about it now? It’s been ten years since that record.

I like it. I think it's very naive, the album. You can totally hear that we're green to it, as composers and especially as arrangers we're still getting there. It's all over the place, the songs didn't always make a lot of sense and the playing is not as good as it should be. But a lot of people like the album. I think there's a lot of good ideas there, it was a decent death metal, technical death metal album at the time. We had so much fun going back, practicing those things, and we're gonna play tomorrow again this big 8-minute medley of pieces of songs from that album.

Great, it would be interesting to hear! In the interview that you did for our website two years ago you said that there are some haters that don't like your new albums and they tell some bullshit about the new sounds. Is the situation the same after two years?

It's a lot better now! It's easier with every album. It was the worst in 2008-2009 when the radical change came. I can totally see it now after this period. It was a bit too much to go from "Reptile Ride", which was our hardest album, to "Show Your Colors" which was our "pop album". They couldn't be more apart, those two albums. It was too much for a lot of people and I can see that. But we felt like doing that at the moment and I'm not apologizing for it. It goes better with every album release with Aril, people recognize more this new sound even though it's been changing ever since. It seems like the haters just don't really care anymore. They don't waste their time talking bullshit so much and some of them have even changed their minds, like, "Oh, actually this new stuff isn't that bad". But I don't have any problems with people enjoying the first albums more. I think it's cool that every album of ours has its own fans. I know people who like "Show Your Colors" the best and I know a lot of people, like you said, that only prefer the early three albums. I really like those too, especially our second and third album, I think they are good death metal albums.

We all know that you're supporting Dark Tranquility on their forthcoming tour, but as long as you are no longer a melodic death metal band, how do you feel about it? Do you find yourself an appropriate supporting act for Dark Tranquility?

Yeah, totally! We noticed early on that you don't have to be in the exact same genre as the main band to go on tour with them. We played with Finntroll, they are a folk, polka metal, party band, and we played total death metal - and people loved us on that tour. Than we did a kind of black metal tour with Dark Funeral in 2006 and that was OK. It wasn't the best tour but still it was good. We played with Norther who is... (pause)

Modern..?

Modern, metal, whatever. Then we played with Amorphis which is more prog, easier stuff like that, and with Ensiferum, who are, again, folk stuff and it all has been great. I don't think it matters. You shouldn't underestimate the audience 'cause if the main band plays folk metal it doesn't mean they wanna hear 6 hours of folk metal before. They can hear a black metal band, than they can hear us in the middle, and then a folk metal band like Ensiferum as the last one.

As far as I know, you've already played Tuska several times. Has anything changed about the festival since those previous times, and what do you expect from tomorrow's show?

Well, the festival's changed a lot. The venues changed, it used to be in the park, and it's getting bigger and better. I don't know what to expect, I'm kind of nervous about tomorrow. We're gonna play a lot of the new stuff and also a few songs with our old singer (Niko Kalliojarvi – ed.) who’s gonna join us on stage for a celebration of the old album. I just hope there's a good turn-out tomorrow for us. Kind of nervous 'cause there are so many good bands playing at the same time. We're playing at the same time that Bring Me The Horizon is playing.

Well, I would prefer to see you.

(laughs) I hope that there’s a lot of people think like you.

Amoral on the Internet: http://www.amoralweb.com

Special thanks to Heta Hyttinen for arranging this interview

Paul Vlasov
June 27, 2014
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