Excalion

The First Emission Of Konnevesi

Interview With Keyboardist Jarmo And Drummer Herni By Vera (June 2005)

These guys look very young when I look at the pictures. Young talent of Finland. Not exceptional – the fantastic bands in every sub-genre of metal keep coming from Northern Europe – but their first full length CD ‘Primal Exhale’ surprised me positively. Their power metal with fairly high vocals and thick layers of symphonic keyboards sounds very mature yet. That’s why I wanted to hear more about their past, present and future. Songwriter/keyboard player Jarmo Myllyvirta and drummer Henri Pirkkalainen put the instruments aside for a moment and answered my questions.

I have heard that the release of ‘Primal Exhale’ has been postponed in Europe as well as in Japan. When will it be available now and what is the reason of this delay?

Henri: The exact release dates are as follows:

15^th of June for Japan and 17^th of June in Europe, so it’s really close at hand.

The reason for the delays are that this Japanese label Art Union Group wanted to buy the licence for our debut “Primal Exhale” from our record label “Sound Riot Records” and they thought the release date in May was way too early for them (they wanted to promote the album before it will be released) and we had to change the dates.

I also noticed a tiding of line up changes. Timo Sahlberg would not play bass anymore. But he’ll keep helping the band. How? And who’s going to play bass in future?

Henri: Yes, this is true. Timo wanted more time for his studies and he has been lacking for enthusiasm for quite a while now so we all decided that we’d go on without Timo. Timo shared this opinion because playing bass isn’t that important to him anymore. He has started to help us in finding and organizing gigs so this is really cool that he still is involved with the action.

As our new guitarist Vesa joined band after Kimmo left the band in late 2004, we decided to test how we would sound with only one guitarist. Tero (our guitarist) grabbed bass and this was one of the best decisions that we’ve ever made. To make it more clear, here’s our definite line-up:

Voc-Jarmo Pääkkönen
Keys- Jarmo Myllyvirta
Guitar-Vesa Nupponen
Drums-Henri Pirkkalainen
Bass- Tero Vaaja

Excalion

Can you resume the history of the band?

Jarmo M: Our first rehearsal was in December 2000. I asked Henri, Timo (our former bass player) and Tero come to play some tunes that I had. Shortly after that we asked Jarmo to join the band, cause we needed a singer. With this line-up we played one gig and after that Kimmo was introduced to us by Jarmo and he joined right after. After that we had rehearsals as often as we could, but it was hard time because at least one of the band was in the army. We had few gigs along. I wrote more songs and we recorded a demo in summer 2001 and another one in spring 2003. Our second demo was convincing enough and we signed with Sound Riot Records. Before the studio we recorded three new songs and our record company used it as a promo. Last September we were in studio to make “Primal Exhale” alive and now we are here. More detailed version can be found in our homepage.

Most of the songs are written by you, keyboard player Jarmo Myllyvirta. Will that always be the case or are there plans to write and build up songs together in future?

Jarmo M: It remains quite same. I have always written the songs for Excalion and I think that it won’t change in future. But there isn’t a rule that nobody else can’t write songs than myself. I guess that everybody is satisfied with the songs. Making a song goes usually that I do the basics for the songs and then we add together some rhythms and some little things if the song needs it.

Do you have already any ideas for the second album?

Jarmo M: I would say that the vision is quite clear. Many songs are already written and practiced.

Can you tell a bit more about your musical roots. And why you decided to form a power metal band with symphonic elements?

Jarmo M: I don’t like be categorized. I prefer just heavy or melodic heavy, nothing more. Well, I think that the band is formed liked it is, because we all liked Stratovarius a lot at the time. But after that it had gone its own way. ‘Visions’ was the album which turned me in this road. Shortly after that I started to play keys and make my own compositions. Stratovarius was a big thing for me but I don’t hear much of musical connection between Stratovarius and Excalion.

Excalion

Finland is also the home of many good bands who started as death metal and evolved later. Do you have any affinity with that kind of metal? Or can we rather speak of divided scenes in Finland?

Jarmo M: Finland is a small country, so the circles are quite small in here, but scenes are divided more or less around here.

You come from Konnevesi, central Finland. Can you give us some impression of that area?

Henri: Konnevesi is a small village, near Jyväskylä city which is a great place for rock/metal bands. Great smaller venues which are really popular amongst the bands in Finland. Konnevesi is a cosy place with a lot of forest and lakes. Most of our band members went to school there and we started rehearsing in there also.

Can you shine a light of the expectations of the band concerning touring? Would you like to play as much as possible or can the band be seen more as a studio band?

Henri: Yes, we are definitely going to play as much gigs as possible but we’re still in search for a gig promoter. Hopefully we’ll find one really soon. Until that we’ll handle it on our own. I think it’s really hard to get abroad without a promoter.

Are there any real plans for touring?

Henri: No not yet. We’re arranging some gigs here in Finland but when an opportunity comes to play in other countries, we’ll not think twice.

Excalion

Are there plans for a single or a video clip? (I think ‘A Moment In The Spotlight’ surely has some hit potential)

Henri: Actually we didn’t even plan to do a single before the album. I’m pretty sure that we’ll not even shoot a video from this album, let’s see if we’ll do one for our next album that we’ll record in the future. It would be really nice though. But it needs some kind of budget to shoot a video. I wouldn’t want to see us in TV in some blurry and crappy video, jumping on our backyard shot with our own camera. hehe

Can you tell something about the artwork and who did it?

Henri: The artwork was done by C.A. Interactice. Our record label suggested that we could use their artwork and I was sold straight away when I saw the portfolio. Really impressive work. We wanted that the artwork would look really professional without swords and castles or anything similar, and I think they did a damn nice artwork. Don’t you agree?

Indeed, kind of mystical. On the website www.excalion.com people can read a fine studio diary. Maybe still a few impressions for our readers about the recording process of this first album?

Henri: It was a really compact three weeks in studio Watercastle, Jyväskylä, central Finland. We used 10 days for the recordings and 10 for the mixing, or at least I remember that it went like that.

This was the first time that we really spent time in the studio for the recordings so it was continuous learning how to do things. We didn’t use a producer so we had to manage by ourselves and with our recorder Arttu who owns the studio. Things went in a really great mood and no bigger problems occur while staying there.

You went to England for the mastering. Are you satisfied with it and how did you come to this decision?

Henri: Yes, we decided to give Digital Audio studios a chance, as some of the best Nordic mastering studios cost pretty much and we knew that we could make it sound as good in England than in Finland. A lot of great bands have used the same studio for mastering (Ring Of Fire and Royal Hunt to mention few).

We are really satisfied with the outcome.

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And of course, a fine label is important. How did you get in contact with Sound Riot Records?

Jarmo M: Sound Riot contacted us when they our second demo. A month later we signed a contract.

What are your wishes for the band in the near future?

Henri: Of course to do gigs as much as possible. That’s the one thing we are waiting very anxiously. We’ve trained ALOT since Vesa joined the band and I think we’re as ready as we can for it!

We’re of course started rehearsing some new material already and the next obvious goal is to raise the bar a bit higher of “Primal Exhale”.


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