Wintersun has had a pretty strange and specialcareer. After a particularly excellent debut, they went all but silent on therecording end, to the point where the much long-awaited sequel “Time” hadearned a place somewhere in between a modern legend and inside joke among metalfans. Finally seeing a release last year, “Time I” was one of my favouriterecords of 2012, although there were clearly some who didn’t share the sameenthusiasm. Seeing the band live with Eluveitie was one of the most excitingshows I’ve been to in recent memory, and with the release of “Time II”somewhere on the horizon, I had quite a few questions to ask. A big thank youto Jari Mäenpää for taking the time to answer!
How’s this recenttour been? Any interesting stories, particularly good shows?
It’s been a really great tour for us. The fansreally overwhelmed us. We didn´t have much expectations, ´cause it´s our firsttour in the US and Canada, but from all the fan mails and Facebook comments wehad a hunch it could be amazing and it sure has been. People have been waitingfor a long time for us to come here, so finally we could make it happen. LA,Montreal and Quebec was particularly special, nice big venues, sold out showsand crazy audiences. We loved it!
In a few words,describe your goal and aim with Wintersun. The words ‘epic’ and ‘progressive’ certainly come to mind whenlistening!
For me it probably would be to make the perfectalbum whatever style that may be. I don´t like to limit myself and Wintersuninto any particular style or genre. If our next album doesn´t sound anythinglike "Wintersun", but as long as it kicks ass, then great! I wantWintersun to be really diverse and be able to do anything. Also we want to growas musicians and live performers and make really special shows. Maybe somedaywith a live orchestra even and shoot a DVD while where at it.
When did you firstpick up music? What were some of your musical influences growing
up?
There were always music around me when I was akid. My parents listen to Elvis and Finnish schlager artists. My father alsowas a musician, he sang and played guitar, so I guess I´m following hisfootsteps. But I wasn´t that interested playing music, until I was 14 and myfriend got a guitar and he was showing me these Metallica riffs. I just lovedhow the guitar sounded, especially the heavy crunchy tones. My dad had build mea guitar few years before, so I picked that up and started learning and Ipretty much knew immediately that this is what I want to do.
Suffice to say,“Time I” has received some pretty huge acclaim since it came out. What doyou think of the way it’s been received by themetal community?
Mostly it has been a huge success and all thecomments have been very positive. Of course there´s been few criticisms aboutthe album length and the material being too different than the debut, but thatwas expected. All I have to say is that there are shorter albums with lessinstruments and tracks and there´s never going to be another debut album. Soall in all we are very happy with how people have received the album!
What went into the process of writing “Time”? Tomy ears, it seems much more
orchestration-oriented and less riff-oriented thanthe debut.
Yeah, that was the direction from the start. Thetruth is I´m a bit fallen out of love of the guitar. Maybe because I don´t havean amp at home and even if I did, I couldn´t crank it because of the neighbors.And there just isn´t that much feeling playing modelling amps with headphones.I´ve actually played the electric guitar in my home acoustically now for manyyears hahaha! And getting a great guitar tone is really hard without the properstudio environment. I would need my own studio to spend few months to searchfor that ultimate tone! So I guess my writing and arrangement interests havechanged bit towards to the orchestral and synthetic instruments, ´cause Imainly compose and work with a computer at home, so the computer is almost likean new instrument for me. Also I wanted to put more focus on the vocals and thesongs, rather than guitar riffs, but of course there are still veryrecognizable "Wintersun riffs" on the TIME albums.
What was the mostdifficult part of recording “Time”? I hear you ran into some problems
along the way…
Definitely making the orchestrations. I didn´thave the resources to get a big computer farm which I needed to work fast withthe orchestrations. I only had one computer so I had to use lot of timeconsuming and frustrating workarounds. There were also lot of technicalproblems along the way, battling with unstable software, lot of hardwarebreaking and so on... All that caused me also lot of stress which slowed myworking rhythm as well. Also producing all the acoustic guitars, vocals andeverything else was really hard without a proper studio. So it was just hugestruggle.
Especially givenhow good “Time I” was, I’m really looking forward to hearing whatTime II will sound like. How do you think “TimeII” compares to the first? What can fans
expect?
It will beequally as epic and massive, if not even more and I´m aiming to upgrade theproduction to make it sound even bigger. There´s gonna some "faststuff" and shredding (7 guitar solos), so all those metal heads and guitarw**kers that have been asking for those are going to be pleased. The songs arevery individual and different from each other, there´s a big contrast withinthe songs and I´m sure some of the stuff will be a huge surprise to many people.
Looking back on the debut, how do you think itholds up now that it’s even more ambitious sequel has been released?
I think it´s a good album and songs are great.Just the whole production is a bit demo like, unfinished and raw. It´s muchmore simple effort. Nothing wrong with that of course, but the debut and TIME Iare different animals. You can´t really compare the two.
What advice orwords of wisdom would you give to aspiring metal musicians?
Have a clear vision what you want to do and whatkind of music / albums you want to make. Be original! If you don´t have thevision, just use your imagination and then do whatever it takes to reach thatvision. Use your ears, what sounds good and what doesn´t. Find and surroundyourself with great people that you can trust, ´cause it will be million timesharder to do everything alone.
I noticed you wereplaying a RGD Ibanez, what do you think of the 26.5 baritone scale?
I love it! Ibanez gave me this prototype RGD andit´s the heaviest sounding guitar I´ve ever heard! It´s the best soundingguitar (for heavy tones) of all mine and Teemu´s guitars. The longer 26.5 isn´treally a baritone scale, it´s like between baritone and standard. You candefinitely feel it at first, but after a while you get used to it and a normalscale feels bit like a toy guitar. :) It´s really great if you love the lowertunings, but don´t like 7 or 8-strings like me. It´s not the ultimate shreddingguitar, but you can definitely do some shredding and sweeping with it.
Any tips for otherguitarists specifically?
Just start slow doing exercises and do many manyrepeats and then raise the tempo. Be patient! Again use your ears what soundsgood and what doesn´t. If you don´t use your ears, your playing will be sloppy.Enjoy what you are doing. If it´s not fun, then don´t bother. It´s like whensome people enjoy going to the gym and torturing themselves, but still enjoyingit, it´s the same thing learning guitar. It sometimes can be hard, but when younail a new technique or a new riff, it´s a great feeling! And the best feelingis of course when you create something with your instrument!
What’s a typicalday in the life like for a member of Wintersun?
For me it changes a lot and I live in differentlife periods. I have the album making and mixing period, then playing liveperiod. Mixing period is something like I wake up, eat, mix, eat, mix, eat,mix, watch TV and sleep and repeat that for many months. :)
Live, Wintersuncurrently uses a backing track to bring forth the ‘symphonic’ elements of
your sound. Do you have any eventual plans toincorporate a keyboardist into the band, or even make use of a symphonic orchestra in liveperformance or otherwise?
We´re not looking for a keyboard player, but there’sbeen talk that maybe someday it would be a possibility to do a show with a realorchestra. We’ll have to see if we can make it happen at some point. It wouldbe useless to have a keyboardist on the stage with us, ´cause there´s notreally any specific keyboard leads or anything. The orchestras and synths Icreate are mostly just a huge wall of sound that creates this big universearound are basic instruments. Even 10 keyboardists wouldn´t be able to play allthat, but hopefully we can do that live orchestra thing one day, woulddefinitely be interesting to see how it would sound.
Favourite beers?Favourite cheeseburgers?
I like Sol and Finnish beer Lapin Kulta (means Lapland´sGold). I try to stay away from burgers, especially McDonalds and other similarplaces, but yeah, gotta still love cheeseburgers!
What have you been listening to lately? Anyfavourite albums of 2012?
Swedish pop, Agnes and Loreen.
Final words for themetal community?
Don´t stay metal!!! Hahaha!
Cheers fromVancouver- it was great seeing you guys live! -Conor
Thanks! Vancouver was awesome for us! - Jari