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"There is power in a name, as ancient wisdom claims. And sometimes a prophecy. It was a moment of rare foresight when guitarist Esa Holopainen came up with a name for his new band: Amorphis. Derived from 'amorphous' (without determinate form, shapeless), the choice would subsequently prove more apt than anyone could have imagined at the time."

Amorphis, founded in autumn 1990 by Jan Rechberger, Esa Holopainen and Tomi Koivusaari, released their first full-length album 'The Karelian Isthmus' in 1993. Although rightfully overshadowed by the band's later work, this assertive debut showcased many of the elements that eventually became the band’s trademarks: majestic, doom-laden riffs combined with concise, folk-influenced guitar leads and atmospheric keyboard passages set this album apart from many of its contemporaries.

The band’s second album 'Tales From The Thousand Lakes' (1994), a concept album based on the Finnish national epic Kalevala, is nowadays considered an all-time classic. While still rooted in death metal, the added melodic clean vocals made this album the band's first step towards a new direction and won them a solid fan base.

In 2005, four more albums ('Elegy', 'Tuonela', 'Am Universum' and 'Far From The Sun') and a few line-up additions and changes later, the band started to reach for new heights when the position of the frontman was taken over by Tomi Joutsen (Sinisthra), a powerful, multi-faceted singer with breathtaking on-stage charisma. Himself a fan of Amorphis since their early days, Tomi brought a truly fresh perspective to the band as well as the initiative to revive the use of contrasting vocal styles.

Ever since Amorphis have been on a continuous upward journey. With the following albums, 'Eclipse' (2006) and 'Silent Waters' (2007), the band decided to reconnect with its own past on another, even more surprising level with a thematic return to the sources of Finland’s literary heritage. While 'Eclipse' recounted the fate of Kullervo, the most tragic character of the Kalevala, 'Silent Waters' told the story of Lemminkäinen’s hunt for the Swan of Tuonela. Both albums sold gold in native Finland, something no earlier Amorphis album had accomplished, and this, combined with heavy touring in Europe, Russia, Japan and North America, won the band a large fan base around the globe.

The band's ninth studio album, 'Skyforger' (2009), presents Amorphis tighter, more versatile and more focused than ever. The album combines the sheer energy of 'Eclipse' and the sensitivity of 'Silent Waters' with the unbridled creativity of older landmarks like 'Elegy' and 'Am Universum'. Bringing the archetypal blacksmith Ilmarinen to life with a depth of character far beyond the one-dimensional portrait of the hero rendered by the Kalevala, the poetry of 'Skyforger' reinforces the role of Amorphis as modern-day storytellers of an age-old tradition in their very own way - not confined to any predetermined shape, yet always instantly recognizable, always true to their own vision, and always unique.

Amorphis are:

Tomi Joutsen – Vocals
Tomi Koivusaari – Guitar
Santeri Kallio – Keyboards
Esa Holopainen – Guitar
Niclas Etelävuori – Bass
Jan Rechberger – Drums

At Pellavarock, idyllically located at the shore of one of the almost 188.000 Finnish lakes, Amorphis performed their last Finnish summer festival gig for this year. Just before the show Suomirocks had the chance to have a little chat with the two Tomis of the band, whilst melting in the (possibly) last rays of summer sun.


SR – Let’s start with the new album. Skyforger was released a couple of months ago. How have the reactions been?

Tomi K.: The response has been very good. It’s not easy yet to say how we can see it on gigs, because we have only had these festival gigs so far. But I feel that the response has been very good.

Tomi J.: Yeah, the feedback has been very nice. In Finland several radio stations have played songs from the album. And they are really mainstream stations, so it’s kinda weird that they are playing our music, but of course it’s a good promotion for us. The biggest station, YleX, is playing one song from the album, which is really nice. And of course Radio Rock is supporting us. But it’s easier to say what people think about this album when we are playing the tour and we have more, or enough, time to play lots of songs from the new album. But it’s been great this far.

SR – The album went straight to number one right after release – congratulations, by the way...

Both: Thank you!

SR – What were your feelings when you found out that you’ve done another number-one album?

Tomi K.: It’s great, of course! But it was easier as well, cos it’s summer time and there aren’t that many albums coming out. But of course if feels good, because buying it is the response from the fans.

Tomi J.: And we were a bit scared because we had some problems with the digipak versions. So it was a bit confusing for us because we didn’t know what will happen. But it seems the people have liked the album and bought it.

SR – I have the new digipak version of the album and no idea really about this sound stuff – so was that error very obvious?

Tomi K.: Yeah, there is one song where the volume goes down for like 30 seconds, and another one where it’s about one second. But you shouldn’t have that kind of amateur things happening in 2009.

Tomi J.: But the jewel case was perfect, which was a big relief for us.

Tomi K.: We heard about this problem like two days before the release and all the shippings had already gone to the shops.

Tomi J.: And we were quite scared, in a way. What’s going to happen? (laughs)

Tomi K.: But it doesn’t feel like such a big thing anymore.

SR – I don’t know about the sales figures so far, but I’m quite sure you’ve already made some space on the wall for the next gold record to come? ;)

Tomi K.: Nooooo. Not yet, at least… But it’s very close :)

SR – Let’s talk a little about the lyrics. You have used the Finnish national epic Kalevala as main influence also on Skyforger, like it has been the concept for many of the previous albums. Obviously the Kalevala is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature and culture – but how did you get the initial idea to use it as a concept when you started?

Tomi K.: I think we were on our way on this ship from Sweden to Helsinki, coming from the Karelian Isthmus studio sessions and we talked about the lyrics and how hard it is to do them, because none of us feels too happy to do lyrics. And I think it just came like some kind of idea: why not use Kalevala things. I can’t remember how exactly, but we were drunk, I think. (laughter)

SR – And what does the Kalevala mean to you? Do you keep using it cos you figured this works fine or do you want to bring something across to people?

Tomi K.: We just got into it after we started to use it. I don’t think we want to bring it to other countries or try to spread this Kalevala book to anywhere. And I think it fits really well to our music, the themes are kind of timeless.

Tomi J.: And of course, nowadays it’s in a way like a trademark for this band. What will happen in the future we don’t know, are we using the Kalevala again, or not. Of course now it’s been great to use it again, and people seem to be really interested about the lyrics. So we wanted to use Kalevala again because it worked so well with the two last albums.

SR – Was there a particular reason to focus on the character of the Ilmarinen with this album?

Tomi J.: We had some ideas and we talked to Pekka Kainulainen, who wrote the lyrics, and he was really into this theme. We gave him free hands to do whatever he wanted.

SR – So how does it work in general? The guy doesn’t belong to the band – do you go to him and say: hey, here is the story, do something about it?

Tomi J.: Actually, everything we do, we trust each other. It was the second time working with Pekka, and he did a great job last time. So we were pretty sure he’d again do good work for us. He wrote like 15 poems and we used the best ones, or the themes we found interesting. When we are recording, lots of things happen in that moment. When we make the songs, we make the music first and after that the lyrics. So funny things happen in the studio when we are recording. (laughs)

Tomi K.: We knew about this theme when we started to make the new songs, and I think we saw the final lyrics when we were in the studio.

SR – Yeah, I noticed there are slight differences between the lyrics on the album and the original poems…

Tomi K.: Yeah, the original poems, his own versions, are quite long.

SR – And you decide later how to adjust them to the music, which parts fit and so on?

Tomi K.: Yeah, actually the producer does that. Pekka is not doing the lyrics for a particular song, he’s just doing lyrics in Finnish.

SR – So you basically make the music totally independently from the lyrics and then you see how it fits.

Both: Yeah.

SR – That’s kinda cool.

Tomi J.: Yeah. In a way it is a really scary thing to go to the studio! (laughs)

SR – Because you don’t have the song concepts ready…

Tomi J.: Yeah. Of course, Marko Hietala, who was the producer for the vocals, he composed and did a great work for the vocals, so I have to be really thankful to him. Again. :)

SR – Is there some sort of boss in the band, who takes the lead and coordinates this kind of stuff concerning the music, or do you do everything really democratically?

Tomi K.: It’s very democratically. Naturally, everyone does what they do. But no, we don’t have a boss in the band. (laughs)

Tomi J.: Yeah, we are really open-minded when it comes to music and it doesn’t matter whose idea we will put on the record. We all have some kind of melodies or riffs or songs in our heads and then we go to the rehearsal place and just fit the ideas together.

SR – Over the last three records you have developed this distinct style, combining the rather melodic stuff with death metal elements. Is that the Amorphis style of the future?

Tomi K.: These last three albums have a lot of similarities. For the first time in our career there is kind of the same style. That’s why we started to think that it’s some kind of trilogy. But I think we are trying to find some new elements as well in the future, we don’t wanna get stuck.

SR – You’ve had the same line-up now for the past three albums, you’ve worked with the same team in the production – do you think this sort of stability in the team is one of the success factors for this positive development?

Tomi K.: Yeah, I think so. Everybody knows better what we are doing, it has become clearer with every album. On this album we had our sound engineer recording, so this was a good new element as well, because he wanted to record everything in the way we sound like live. And of course also Marko, who was producing the vocals.

Tomi J.: The line-up has been the same, the people behind the band too, the guy who’s mixing us. We have the same label and we have the same management. So there is a really good team and I think you can hear it from the album. I don’t know what will happen in the future. As Tomi said, it would be interesting to do something completely different in the next album. But now we’re promoting this one (laughs) and the next album will come out, I don’t know when. We’ll see.

SR – It’s been four years since you (Tomi J.) have become the new singer and I believe that your extremely versatile voice has also contributed positively to the band’s development. But what is in your opinion the biggest change that happened since he/you joined?

Tomi K.: When he joined we got this kind of spirit again in the band. He was so motivated and doing everything very professionally. The last years with Pasi weren’t like that. He brought back this good spirit and it was again fun to make music and to have gigs. Especially the gigs.

Tomi J.: For me it’s almost impossible to say, because I wasn’t there. (laughs) But of course I have heard some stories and as I see it, I think people in the band are maybe more relaxed or happier with what they’re doing at the moment. And of course the band has developed in a way. We have sold more albums, which is of course nice because this is what we want to do. I see the future of the band really positive and I think we will continue many more years.

SR – To shortly come back to your voice – it’s amazing how easy you’re able to switch between the clean vocals and the growls. Is this kinda natural or have you ever had some professional vocal training?

Tomi J.: No. I took maybe 2 or 3 lessons about a year ago and I got some new ideas. Of course it would be a big help for me if I knew the technique better. But in a way it’s really natural because I started with death metal vocals and then I had another band and there was only clean stuff. So now it’s really nice that I can use the whole scale of my voice. Sometimes it’s hard but at the same time I really like that I have a big scale and I can use different feelings and different styles. As a singer I’m really satisfied.

SR – Let’s move on to the touring. This is the last of the Finnish festivals today. How has the summer been for you? One to remember?

Tomi K.: It has been a good summer. Not that many good weathers (laughs) but this is nice now! (points to the sunny sky)

SR – It’s actually almost too warm now!

Both: Yeah!!

Tomi J.: But it’s been nice because the album just came out and it’s funny that we are not making a tour now, just lots of festivals. And we will tour in Europe after the summer and I guess we will make some kind of tour in Finland after the Europe tour. It’s funny to promote new material in festivals, because we can play only like an hour or a bit more. But it’s nice, of course. And I really like summer, the weather is nice and people are more relaxed during summer time. In a way I’m a bit surprised we haven’t played so much outside Finland, we only had like two shows abroad during the summer, in Germany, the rest was in Finland. I hope that the people are not getting bored with us because we are playing at so many festivals here in Finland! (laughs)

SR – As you said, you’ll start the tour after the summer. You’re going to South America, Russia and then Europe for quite many gigs. And after that you’ll definitely do some shows in Finland as well to tour the album…

Both: Yeah!

SR – And after that? Any other plans?

Tomi J.: Yeah, there’s some plans, but it’s stupid to talk about them because things always change. There’s some interesting rumours going on too. (laughs) Of course we hope that we will go to the States again…

Tomi K.: And maybe Japan…

SR – So, you basically will be on the road for quite a while…

Both: Yeah!

SR – What’s the situation with regards to the support act for the coming tour?

Tomi J.: I guess nothing is confirmed. But there are ideas, yeah…

SR – How important is it for you who you get as support act and how much say do you actually have in this?

Tomi J.: We’ve had some ideas and of course we are working with our management and trying to find an interesting and good band. Last time we toured with two Finnish bands, Insomnium and Swallow The Sun, and it was really nice. It was so easy to communicate, of course, because we have the same language and maybe some kind of same humour. So it’s really nice to tour with Finnish bands. But of course it’s not a problem for us to tour with, for example, a German band.

Tomi K.: And normally we get along very well with every band we tour with. :)

Tomi J.: And for us it’s in a way really easy to think about bands because we can play with death metal bands and we can also play with power metal bands or melodic metal bands or whatever else, because we have different elements in our music.

SR – When you’re on tour, how do you get on with each other? Total chaos or total harmony?

Tomi K.: Hehe. We have ipods and laptops, so we can go and relax.

Tomi J.: Sometimes we’re trying to figure something to do. Sometimes we go just walking around in the streets, trying to find something interesting. Or sometimes we just sleep. :) And sometimes we even do some jogging.

Tomi K.: But we don’t fight. That much. (laughter) Some arguments, of course, but not that much.

Tomi J.: It’s really easygoing when we’re touring.

SR – But of course it’s also hard being stuck together 24/7 with not much space and so on…

Tomi K.: Yeah, that’s the main point, usually…

Tomi J.: But it’s really easy to have your own privacy if you want to, you just go to your bed and close the curtain and you can be there. And nowadays it’s also so easy to have contact with your family, because we have laptops and can just use Skype or something to stay in touch – that’s a big relief.

SR – I’ve seen that you have this mobile blog on your website… (both of them start to laugh) This is  actually quite a nice thing, it’s not just all about the business, and it’s fun for the fans to see what you guys are up to. So do you as a band generally feel that now with the Internet you have a much better way of getting in touch with your fans?

Tomi J.: Yeah. But to be honest, we’re lazy bastards! (laughter) Because it would be so easy to have more contact with our fans… But I feel that when I’m not playing or practicing or touring I don’t want to think so much about the band. So I’m not so active on the forums. But I know that sometimes there are really interactive things. In Finland there are quite a few bands that are communicating with their fans in their home pages and so on…

Tomi K.: Actually, we don’t comment so much in the Internet. That’s why it’s so good and easy with that mobile blog.

SR – Yeah, and it’s nice to see some funny pictures…

Tomi K.: And nice video clips… (laughter)

SR – The Internet gives artists good opportunities to promote themselves and their music and to get in touch with the fans. Do you think these positive things outweigh the negative part with all the illegal download hype and so on? So in other words, do you think of the Internet as something good or rather bad?

Tomi K.: I think it’s good. But it’s not an easy subject, this downloading thing. There are many sides. For example now we can go to Romania and there are some 5000 people who know our songs, but we have sold like three records there. I don’t know if this is good or bad.

Tomi J.: But of course it’s a good promotion in a way. But the thing that pisses me off is when the music leaks to the Internet before the official release. That’s really something that pisses me off. But in general I really like MySpace, and YouTube is great too. I have found lots of interesting music and interesting bands from MySpace. It’s a great thing for the smaller bands.

SR – What do you think about the future of the CD? Do you think music will be digital only at some point?

Tomi J.: I hope not! (laughs)

Tomi K.: When I was young there was only vinyl and I didn’t want to give this up. Throughout the 90s I only had vinyls and then I had to surrender and start to buy CDs. So of course things probably will change. But personally I like to have something more than only mp3s. I also like to have a cover and this stuff.

Tomi J.: I think our generation likes CDs and feels comfortable with CDs. But maybe younger people, they don’t even know what a CD is, and don’t want to buy it. It’s just their way to act. I don’t really know.

SR – You (Tomi K.) and Esa and Jan have started Amorphis almost 20 years ago. What expectations did you have then? Is the band where you thought it would be or where you had wanted it to be back then?

Tomi K.: I don’t know if we could even imagine we would be together still after 20 years. It was hard to imagine at that time. But 20 years go really fast! At that time we were like 16, 17 years old and there were some bands where the guys were something like 25 and we were already thinking that they are quite old. (laughter) I could not even imagine that we would be together after 20 years. But it’s still fun!

SR – At the end we have Suomirocks’ standard question, which is some sort of ‘compulsory’ question for everyone: Have you ever been to Moominworld and who is your favourite Moomin?

Tomi K.: I’ve been there, yeah! And my favourite… hmmm… if I have a hangover, it should be Muumimamma, of course! (laughter) Sometimes maybe Haisuli (Stinky) or Nuuskamuikkunen (Snufkin). I don’t really know.

Tomi J.: I’ve been there too. Actually, I was there maybe a month ago. It was my first time there, and it was quite okay. (laughs) My favourite character is maybe Haisuli (Stinky). He’s this hairy guy and he’s always doing tricks and acting like an asshole. So that’s me! No, just kidding… (grins)

Tomi K.: Mörkö (The Groke) is nice as well. He’s just coming and being there (shows how he’s being there ;) and everybody is scared. He’s cool!

SR – Is there anything else you want to say at the end?

Tomi J.: It’s pretty hot here! (laughs) Last summer we were here too and it was the same. But then it was allowed to go swimming and we really did that. (editor’s note: at this year’s festival swimming in the lake wasn’t recommended because of some blue-green algae)

Tomi K.: Yeah, we were like five hours in the lake!


The show Amorphis pulled off later as the main act of Pellavarock was possibly the best I’ve seen this summer. Make sure you catch them live on tour this autumn!