With „Cosmic World Mother“ the Finnish symphonic-black-metallers …AND OCEANS have made an unpredictable as well as fantastic comeback. In the following interview with band founder and guitarist Timo Kontio, you can find out how their experiences playing industrial metal under the name Havoc Unit influenced the band’s symphonic black metal, why the band has now returned to their old name, what problems they had (not) to deal with in the making of the new album and what role the keyboard plays in …AND OCEANS.
Greetings! Thank you for answering our questions. How are you doing these days?
My pleasure. We are more or less in waiting mode. How things are developing with this COVID thing. We have quite a few club gigs coming here in Finland, so we are hoping we are able to make those happen. Then we’ll see what next year will bring us.
After having played industrial metal as Havoc Unit for quite a long time, you have returned to your former name …AND OCEANS and to playing symphonic black metal. What inspired you to make this comeback?
We did one record with Havoc Unit and after that me and our drummer rehearsed for quite some time in case we would have had live gigs, but we didn’t manage to get a full band or session musicians, so it fell apart quite fast. This wasn’t a band name thing. Havoc Unit was quite a different thing and a totally separate band from …AND OCEANS even though it was kind of a continuation of it.
We had the idea for coming back a few times along the years. Just because we wanted to play this kind of music again and maybe even do some new stuff. That new stuff was one thing that prevented us from coming back sooner though. We didn’t really know if we should or shouldn’t do any music with this band. We were at first quite uncertain if we could create the same kind of feeling and atmosphere with our new material worthy of …AND OCEANS. Now that the album is out, we could say that it was unnecessary hesitation.
Are you now finished with Havoc Unit for good or is a second comeback as Havoc Unit still a possibility for you?
Yes, like mentioned before it ended quite quickly and we have discussed it and we are not coming back with that band. We have already resurrected Festerday and now …and OCEANS.
Your band line-up has changed a lot in the meantime. Why do you think it was nevertheless the right decision to take on the name …AND OCEANS again?
We had almost the original line-up when we started again. Even our first drummer from the ´95-´97 era. I don’t understand why we wouldn’t take the original name if we wanted to continue with that band. Why come up with a new name?
As far as I know, your former singer left the band shortly before the recording of your current album. How did this come about?
Yes, we had to let him go. Well, there are several reasons for that and most of them are more or less personal or something that is only band business. I won’t go into any details. All I can say is that this decision had to be made in order for us to be able to continue as a band.
You already had ties to your new singer Mathias Lillmåns through his other band Magenta Harvest. However, what exactly made you decide to bring him in particular into the band at short notice?
Yes, I played with him in that band. I started that band also quite soon after …AND OCEANS fell apart. One thing was that we needed a singer quite fast to make new lyrics for our songs and make arrangements before entering the studio. We knew him, what he can do with his voice and his work ethics so we knew that he can pull this off. The end result is as great as it can be so we are so happy with this solution.
Generally speaking, the lead singer can have a huge impact on the image and style of a band. In what way did Mathias put his stamp on …AND OCEANS?
That stamp remains to be seen. (laughs) Well, we have had only two gigs so far because of this pandemic. Though, of course, we knew that live situations won’t be nothing else than great. His vocals on the record are also amazing even at such a short notice and time to arrange etc. So far we are more than positive of everything. We’re anxious to start making the next record and take everything even further. New songs are already made.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a serious impact on the music industry. How hard has the current situation hit you?
Of course, it makes our possibility to boost our new album difficult. Almost everything was canceled or postponed. Like mentioned before we hope that we can arrange those club gigs here in Finland in the coming months. The rest of Europe is planned for next year. Can’t say more yet.
Just afraid that this hits harder than we even know yet. We will see how many venues will survive this and how they will take bands when everything is uncertain and situations and restrictions change all the time.
Your return as …AND OCEANS seems to have been met with quite lot of positive feedback. Did you expect that people would be so enthusiastic about your new album „Cosmic World Mother“?
Feedback has been so great so far that we certainly know by now that it was our time to come back. People seem to have been longing for this kind of symphonic black metal which is not so typical today. Of course, you never know how people will take our new material even though we knew that we made a really strong album. Luckily, people share that thought with us and they have really positively taken our new stuff. It gives us a great boost and we really can’t wait to be able to have those gigs and festivals around Europe and hopefully all over the world.
Did it take you some time to get used to creating symphonic black metal again?
Actually, no. It was kind of strange how easily those riffs and melodies came. That is still the case and like I said earlier, we already have new stuff ready. Why stop now if that came so easily? A new album won’t be that bad of an idea considering the fact that we might not be able to promote this current album as we wanted because of this COVID.
In some moments on „Cosmic World Mother“ your electronic influences still seem to shine through. Do you think that your time as an industrial metal band helped you to create more special symphonic black metal?
We have those elements here and there. This time we wanted to create the sound of our two first albums and not make any electronic stuff just for the sake of it. You never know what a new album will bring, but those elements will be a part of our music in the future too, but maybe not so in-your-face like on our later albums. We have a new keyboard player, but he is also so into this kind of stuff, so these elements come really naturally from him too.
Your new sound is quite well-rounded, but at the same time a bit more conventional than before. Do you think that some of your experiments in the past didn’t turn out that great in retrospect?
Experimenting can always be a risk, so to speak. It’s difficult to say if we succeeded or not in those, but everything reflects us at that period of time and what we wanted to do. We are all pleased with the results, though, even after so many years. We can even listen to our albums through so that is a good thing. (laughs)
On „Cosmic World Mother“ you use keyboards quite much, but unlike many bands in your genre you don’t use them to compensate for the lack other instruments. Do you think that an orchestration without a real orchestra will inevitably sound cheesy?
You got that right, we don’t want to use them to fill some void in our music. More like complementing the song. Of course, here and there can be a place for them to take the scene, so to speak. For me they are more exciting if they are not in the front all the time and you will hear and find more nuances the more you listen to those songs.
I’m not really into such big orchestrations, so I can’t really comment on those. For me they are a bit too much for this kind of music.
So you would not be interested in working with a whole orchestra if you had the chance?
Like mentioned in the previous question, I’m not that interested at this point.
Besides the music, Adrien Bousson’s artwork for your current record has also been positively highlighted in many reviews. Why did you commission him in particular to work on the cover?
He works for Season Of Mist and he has done some great artwork for several bands, so that was quite an obvious and practical solution for us. Even more so after we heard that he is an old fan of …AND OCEANS and had the idea of doing several illustrations and even one for every song.
What directions did you give him regarding the artwork and how satisfied are you with the outcome?
Initially, for the cover we did give him the starting point. This idea came from one Russian painter and one particular work of his. For the track illustrations he got guidelines from our singer. So they are represeting the idea behind the lyrics for each song. That was really interesting too and the outcome is just amazing! I don’t think anyone can deny that.
What are your next plans for …AND OCEANS?
We keep doing new stuff for the next album. We wait anxiosly for those club gigs later this year and hope that next year we can start touring Europe. That would be a good start.
Let’s end with a short brainstorming. What comes to your mind while reading the following terms?
The Kovenant: In Times Before The Light
Space travel: Interesting
Dimmu Borgir’s „Spiritual Black Dimensions“: Maybe the last album with that old spirit and feeling.
Traditional black metal: Darkthrone
Climate protection: Something to think about
Spirituality: Not my cup of tea or more like not possible in modern society.
Thanks again for giving us your time. I would like to leave the last words to you:
Thank you for this interview. Thanks to everyone for the support so far and hope to see you on tour! That being next year or two years from now…
21. September 2020 Stephan Rajchl
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