Hell Awaits / Spain 12/2002
I see your style as classical melodic Heavy with a modern touch. But, describe your music style with your own words.
JARI: I think it is just as you said. I don't care much about classifications though, they dismantle bands too straight. Of course they help the listeners a little.
JANI: I'd say it is a classical style of traditional Heavy music, meaning especially the 80’s Melodic Heavy music. Our influences come from Whitesnake, Rainbow, Dio etc. So in that way, our music is traditional, but with a touch of modern style like Dream Theatre.
MAKE: We would simply like to deliver good, melodic and impressive heavy songs.
If I’m not wrong, originally you founded your band for fun and used to play covers of Whitesnake. To what extent does this influence you when it comes to writing music? I mean, do you WANT to sound like traditional Heavy or is it something that just comes out?
JANI: Of course we like to keep a few things of the 80’s music, but there have to be modern influences as well. Our style comes very naturally, because we all have been listening to old Heavy music, nowadays we also listen to modern Metal bands of course.
JARI: We don't want to put just pieces together to sound some kind of weird and say, hey this is so difficult to understand, it must be some prog. No no , not like that. There must be a certain THING in it.
MAKE: We like the sound of the 80´s a lot, and like Jani already said, we were very much influenced by certain bands in the beginning, like for example Dio, Whitesnake and also Black Sabbath. Our early demos sounded like that. But we don't want to copy anyone either. I think now we have found our own style and sound.
I think I heard backing vocals in your debut, "Invitation", and in some moment I thought I heard female backing vocals, but there’s no woman appearing in the album credits. Who was in charge of performing those vocals?
JANI: Yes, you're right, there are female vocals in the background. The reason why there are no credits for her on the cover, was a printing mistake. There are also some other mistakes on it.
JARI: The background vocals were sung by a lady called Natalie. She is from the Netherlands, and that's about all we know.
MAKE: It was our label's idea to add her vocals. They arranged the recording with Natalie.
I read you’d like to release one or two album songs as singles, but Mastervox and MTM don't want to release any singles. Other bands with the same problem, release their singles in vinyl through specialised underground labels. Have you ever thought of doing that? Or your contract with your label won’t allow you contacting another label?
JANI: We haven’t thought about releasing a single in vinyl, but anyway, Mastervox/MTM own the rights of the songs on the "Invitation" album. So we can't release those songs with any other label. At least not in the next few years.
JARI: They said it's useless to release any singles, and even in vinyl it is just a waste of money. But I don't think so, because good distribution and marketing gets the money back very fast.
MAKE: We would also have liked to send singles to radio stations.
The drawing on the cover of "Invitation" is rather poor, although the concept behind it is not that bad. But I understand it was the label and not you who chose the artist and you didn't even see it before the release, is this correct? I think this cover is inspired in one of the songs in the album. But did your original idea for the cover have anything to do with the final result?
JARI: Nope, and that is sad.
JANI: We saw the cover maybe one or two days before it got printed. MTM said this will be the cover and that’s it. This cover is nothing what we planned it to be. MTM has never answered why they chose this kind of style.
MAKE: MTM chose the artist. When we saw the cover, we were shocked and called our Finnish label, who had licensed the album to MTM, but they said they can't do anything against it. It was fully MTM's decision.
In your homeland, Finland, there are lots of melodic Metal bands who are triumphing in Europe. Do you think this is going to help your band despite having a style not so popular nowadays?
JANI: Yes, of course it helps a lot when people hear that we are from Finland. Many times, especially in the reviews, there has been mentioned that we come from the same country like Stratovarius, Sonata Arctica or Nightwish, and sometimes they also compared us to Sonata and Stratovarius.
MAKE: It is good for us that bands like Statovarius and Sonata Arktica are so popular in Europe, they have opened some doors for other Finnish bands. People can expect quality music when they hear that a band comes from Finland.
Your debut was released a year ago. I saw you already have a new song in your website. Are you already recording the new album? When is it intended to be released? What else can you advance about your second album?
MAKE: Not yet recording, but we have many new songs ready. We are just in the process of changing the label.
JANI: So we don’t know yet when we will go to the studio. As soon as the new contract is sealed, and such things take their time.
JARI: But we of course like to release it as soon as possible. The new songs are very melodic, and I personally like them even much more. They have very catching choruses and melodies. Keep watching our website www.snakegod.com because it gets updated immediately when there are news.
A question for Jari. In your debut "Invitation" one can notice you have a talented voice. In some songs you reminded me of The Cult but mostly of Coverdale and Dio. What are your real influences? How do you train your voice to sound like that?
JARI: Thank you very much. You mentioned those magic names already. I must confess, David and Ronnie are my main influences. I really love to sing with power and emotion, and these guys are to me a great example how to do that. Can't say it any better. But my voice came with the mothermilk, so to speak, because I never had any singing teacher. My practise is the singing in the rehearsals, and also in the shower.
But apart from training you need to have a potential as a Heavy Metal vocalist, something often not taken into account today when founding a band. Nowadays it’s not so common to be listening to a Metal band and feel moved by a really incredible vocal part in a song (something like Rob Halford’s screams, not to mention Coverdale’s!! to name a few). Can you mention some present day vocalist with an outstanding voice or do you prefer to talk about the old masters?
JARI: All glory to the old masters, but actually there are also a few very interesting names in the current vocal-field. For example Jörn Lande and Russell Allen are very good. Sometimes I feel though that real vocalists are nowadays a forgotten treasure in Metal.
MAKE: I also prefer the old masters.
JANI: So do I, especially Coverdale and Joe Lynn Turner, but of course there are also great vocalist nowadays like Jorn Lande and James LaBrie.
What do you think about the present Heavy Metal scene, with so many bands with similar lyrics and sound, who seem to copy each other without paying attention to the other styles within the Heavy Metal tradition?
MAKE: When someone sells well, many bands will copy the same idea. Labels don't want to risk their money for something uncertain.
JANI: It is very hard to create something new nowadays, because all chords, riffs and lyrics etc have been used already thousands and thousands of times, but still I think that Snakegod has succeeded to create something unique, even though it is traditional and melodic music.
Also, it seems like today bands tend to take European bands as a model, forgetting about the American Heavy Metal scene, perhaps because, nowadays, US bands tend to play Speed Heavy. Do you listen to present-day American Heavy bands?
JARI: Jep, SymphonyX is really great and there are lots of other good bands.
JANI: I don’t listen so much American music nowadays, mostly European bands, so I don’t know much about the current style of American Heavy music.
MAKE: I think there are many good progressive rock bands, like Dream Theater and Symphony X.
Thanks a lot for your time.
Thank you too, and greetings to our fans in Spain!