Interview mit Markus Vanhala von Omnium Gatherum

Hello, thank you for taking time to do this interview. How are you the days?
All’s pretty well, except waiting for this worldwide shitstorm be over. Record just released, finished the Finnish release tour and we even charted in Finland pretty nicely to top 3 physicals. Proud and happy for the hard work we’ve done surrounding ”Origin”!

All your albums since “New World Shadows” reached the Top 10 in Finnish album charts. How important are chart positions of your albums to you and do you always expect or hope for similar or better rankings before a release?
Finland is the metal capital country, that’s the statement you can see from these high chart entries. It’s cool if it happens, but it’s nothing that I’m thinking when doing new album. You always have to please yourself first before the fans and others…

You just finished your Finnish album release tour with Oceanhoarse. How was the tour, how was it to finally be on the road with the band again?
IT WAS AMAZING, to finally be able to play indoor club shows where the action is! We were the lucky few to be able to do few festival shows last summer even abroad Finland, but rocking inside the clubs now feels so good! Been missing this, this is what we’re living for.

How did the fans respond to the new tracks played live? Which song was best received?
There was highly a special evening sense in the air on shows, and people really waited to see some live action. So there was some magics in the air. People have taken this album really well, and even though the album was JUST released the feedback for new songs were really really good. Felt like playing old classic. (laughs) Probably ”Reckoning” was the one most loved played from the new ones, as also ”Fortitude” or ”Solemn” and ”Paragon” rocked the roof off.

How is the situation with Corona in Finland at the moment? Are there still many restrictions you have to deal with when touring inside the country?
The whole shitstorm is again rising on numbers in Finland too, but in the end we have pretty good situation with vaccination percent among the people and the clubs are now asking vaccine proof on most of the cities. Which is okay, to get the concerts back in motion in my opinion. I don’t really get this ”my body my choice” people, it’s your choice for sure, but why now. All of us have taken the baby vaccines et all for normal plagues et all, and I think last year the whole world finances and resources in science were pointed to this one particular vaccine. So it isn’t actually made that ”fast” and by accident.. (laughs)

After the cancellation of the tour with Insomnium you announced a new big tour with Fleshgod Apocalypse for next year. What do you expect from the tour and how do you think the package will be received by the fans? A tour with OMNIUM GATHERUM and Insomnium would have had two similar bands with a pretty congruent audience, now with this tour each band could bring their own fans.
It’s gonna be way easier for me, as I don’t need to be sweating and head banging 3 hours on stage and play two shows per day. So my neck, back and physiotherapist will be happy. Touring with InsOMNIUM GATHERUM family is of course awesome as always, but I’m not a huge fan of doing that double trouble exactly to be honest. Different bands. It was unfortunate that EU tour was cancelled, as also the previous North American double trouble tour that was a disaster with covid hitting the global pandemic market same day than we arrived to New York – 11/03/20. Seems like this duo is cursed somehow. Gladly now we were straight away offered this great special guest slot for Fleshgod European tour and it’s gonna be a wild round for sure. I know the FGA Italianos very well from past tours and they’re great band and great people. It’s a long tour and we all need that after sitting home a year and a half.

OMNIUM GATHERUM has been around for 25 years now, congratulations! How would you describe the development of the band from the first demo „Forbidden Decay“ and your own development as a musician until today?
Well, I was around 14 when I formed this band at high school, so few tiny things have changed inside me and outside me. ”Forbidden Decay” was released as a cassette for example, so there’s no digital release available. (laughs) We’ve been having a long road, but the direction have always been steadily upwards with every lil’ release and it still is. The mentality of doing haven’t changed a bit, always aiming to challenge myself and doing better stuff. Back in times of first demo though, I have to admit I rehearsed guitar playing way more. Hours and hours in the basement every day. That’s why I’m better player nowadays than back then.

The album is called „Origin“, why did you decide on this name? What origins is it all about?
Jukka’s lyrics connect to each other with every OG album where he is trying to uncover some of the great mysteries of a person’s inner self and origins of the human mind and why people act as they do. ”Origin” is a winding journey into the human’s mind – somewhere deep where „depth“ and ”height“ meet. We also got back to the origins via these lockdowns and had all this time to play and rehearse with this band, no matter how many challenges and obstacles come in front of us, we will not forget the original enthusiasm for playing this heavy metal! We also returned to the ”origin of OG’s first album’s” – to the Sonic Pump Studio with Nino Laurenne who made the first three official OG releases, ”Steal the Light”, ”Spirits And August Light” and ”Years In Waste”. So there’s many origins lying in deep here.

Since the last album „The Burning Cold“ there was quite a lot of movement in the line-up, and then Corona arrived as well. How did all this influence the creation and the sound of „Origin“?
Change isn’t always a bad thing… If you change one letter from ”change” you get a better word ”chance”. We had this urge to show our powers to the fans and especially the previous members and I truly feel we topped ourselves with this album. We can still do this. Better than ever. (laughs) Anger and desire to show is the great power of mind to channel into the music. The band have felt like reborn lately and we’ve had more fun on stage like for years! Of coruse, it was unfortunate to see this flow of a few members leaving. Two guys just got enough of all touring and traveling JUST before corona stopped all this, so timing was doomed and might’ve been different after corona happened. Then drummer situation might be then only some covid meltdown, as he left in the middle of lockdowns in last November and this happened from a clearable sky, and he only sent us an email and didn’t reply anymore to anything after that. Luckily we survived, found Mikko and Atte as the best ever substitutes, had all this time in the world to regroup and rehearse and now the chemistry in the band is like best ever!

„Origin“ has a lot of hard rock influences, 80’s vibe and some synthwave elements. Was that planned from the beginning, that the album goes in this direction? Which music and bands of the 80s inspired you while writing?
Oh yes, we did have a relentless 80’s season during these sessions, and it was where we wanted to head into with our melodeath madness. Some synth wave, Miami Vice, Corvettes, Pina Coladas at Oceandrive and some Def Leppard et all real 80’s hard rock and AOR. Mixed with the genuine traditional OG melodeath attack. Makes it something unique I hope. To be honest I was driving around a lot with my 80’s lime green Chevy Corvette and listening all these OG demos and rough mixes for this album, felt great. True dat!

I think „Origin“ might be your catchiest and maybe even poppiest album yet. The melodies are smooth and catch the ear outrageously fast. Nevertheless, it’s so proggy on the other side that you still discover new details after the tenth listen. How would you yourself describe the album and classify it in your discography?
”Origin” and ”Beyond” are probably my favorite kids of OG as we speak. There’s fine balance of melody, aggression, 80’s and pop and prog bashed via OG’s melodeath DNA. We were after hunting the poppy, but still interesting song structures but still keeping it metal enough. But I don’t wanna go even near where the fence is the lowest, and I always try to hide all interesting details and sidelines to every corner.

„Origin“ again sounds like a very emotional album. Do you let your feelings and the mood of the day drive your songwriting, do you let personal experiences flow into it?
Always! Music is emotion, as lyrics are emotion too. State of mind, state of time, stream of life can always be heard from the albums. You never know what feelings start a flow with the new material, it’s some black magics which I still don’t exactly know how it happens…

I think the album has a positive vibe and is more of a warm cloak of embrace compared to your otherwise gloomy albums. Would you agree with that?
Like I said, we had these 80’s cool vibes present even during the darkest 20’s lockdown. Our aim was to mix and breed these melodeathly metal vibes with the almighty 80’s AOR and hardrock and synth wave feels. Though, I think we’ve had these boogies present already beforehand, and I wouldn’t say OG’s never been THAT gloomy nor melancholic band as many our Finnish contemporaries that makes you having a sad time… OG’s always been more cool, than gloom!

Is there a song particularly close to your heart? What is your personal favorite song on “Origin”?
”Origin” is the entirety I am damn proud of and it should be enjoyed in full from the beginning to Finnish as it’s written and meant to be. If I have to pick one, then I would pick ”Reckoning” and ”Solemn”. (laughs) ”Reckoning” because it was written in a pretty dark period of this band end of last year, but it have really uplifting feel and lyrics tell a true story. As also ”Solemn” as it sums up this whole album pretty well, with something new something old something borrowed and something blue(s).

Like the previous albums, „Origin“ again feels like one big whole, like an ongoing journey. What’s your opinion on streaming services like Spotify, where people often don’t listen to whole albums but to single tracks in playlists?
I am definitely an old school music fan, and I always love to listen albums from start to finish and that’s how I also design my own albums. I am vinyl and CD guy, not a Spotify playlist listener. Albums are like movies or plays, and there have to be certain drama on the album movement.

Does a song already have to feel like OMNIUM GATHERUM to you during songwriting? So do you have a certain scope in which you work, or do you leave the song completely free to unfold?
Of course, it’s a mindset always to whom I’m writing as I do writing for 4 bands for now and they all have strong own identity in my head. OG though gives me a largest spectrum as it’s been my kid since previous 25 years, so it gives me the space to explore and adventure. But for example ”Reckoning” started as a whole synthwave song that I was just writing for my own fun and testing new synth softwares, and it really grow on me all the way to a great OG song! ”Solemn” then for example was my synth ambient stuff at first, before turned to OG wheels.

“In Front Of Me” seems like a very unusual choice for a cover version. Why did you choose this song?
Me and Jukka have been long time Infected Mushroom fans, and we wanted to do a cover outside the metal box and somehow ended up to play with this awesome song. It’s a really emotional song, and I feel it turned out amazingly to OG soundscape and to metal song. Not your usual metal cover at all, which is ´what we were after.

Let’s conclude with our traditional brainstorming. What comes to your mind first when you read the following words?
Current favorite album:  The Night Flight Orchestra – “Aeromantic 2”.
Be’lakor:  Awesome Australia, my favorite continent!
Climate: Finland is getting hotter than hell in previous summers!
Vaccination: A MUST in finishing this corona shitstorm once and for all!
Favorite Movie-/Series-/Book-Universe: Twin Peaks!
Something that makes every bad day better: The sounds of my two V8 Chevy sportcars!
OMNIUM GATHERUM in ten years: Doing our thing still and keep on rocking in the free world, as a 50 year old me! (laughs)

Thank you once again for your time! The last words are all yours. Is there anything left you want to tell our readers?
Be safe and be well, and thanks for staying with us during these weird times. See you soon on stages all around the globe hopefully. Never surrender!

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Publiziert am 7. Dezember 2021 von Stefan Popp