Chad Bowar: What has the response to Korven Kuningas been like?
Jonne Jarvela: The response has been very good and positive so far. For us, the most important response comes from the fans, but of course album reviews in magazines are interesting as well.
As you make more and more albums, does it get more difficult to break new musical ground and do new things?
No, it is not difficult at all. That’s why Korven Kuningas is pretty long album with 14 songs. We even left some songs out of it, so we don’t have that kind of problem.
I really like to write new music, so I’m writing actually too much material. Also, we think, that we’ve found our own sound and “musical road” so we don’t try to write anything totally different. Just writing better songs is our goal.
The music on Korven Kuningas is still very upbeat and raucous, but it seems a little darker and more intense than your past work. Is that accurate, and if so, what caused it?
Everything is happenstance. We are not thinking too much when we write the music.
When the album is ready we see what we’ve done. I like it in that way. If you start to count too much, you will be deep in the woods with your work.
Do the lyrics follow similar subject matter as before?
Yes, pretty much. The red line of the album is a tribute for traditional Finnish lumberjack culture. Praise for those forest workers from past times, who did their works by shoulder force, without any modern working machines.
Korpiklaani has grown and had a lot of success during the past few years. Is the band’s success level now where you expected it to be?
We couldn’t believe that we could get this kind of success with this kind of music.
This success is a big but nice surprise for all of us. We’ve done lot of work in the last 8 years, so maybe now we are collecting some fruits of our labor. I started to write this kind of music and play gigs 15 years ago in 1993, so nothing’s come for free. Of course this feels good now after all these years.
How did the music video shoot go?
We all hate the video shooting days. It is nervous waiting all the time. We are not in our own home ground when doing that kind of thing. We are not actors, we are musicians and musicians should be on the stage playing the real thing, not acting for the camera. On the other hand, of course we understand how important the music videos are, so
we just have to live with it and do them every now and then.
How did you decide on Nuclear Blast after being with Napalm for several albums?
Some dudes from Nuclear Blast came to one festival last summer where we played.
They bought some beers and asked to join their label. Our deal was ending with Napalm,
so what can you say to people who has just bought you some beer? We said “yes we can join Nuclear Blast if you bring some more beer.”
Does being on a new label mean you’ll finally be able to do a U.S. tour?
We really hope so! Actually we are working on it all the time. Let’s hope everything goes fine with it. It is very expensive for us to come there because we need working licenses and flights from Finland to the U.S. are very expensive, but let’s hope we can work it out somehow.
What else do you have coming up tourwise?
We are just back home from a European Tour and next we have the summer festival season around Europe.
What are your van/tour bus essentials?
Drinking, joking and sleeping.
What are the largest and smallest crowds you've played in front of?
Largest is 60 000 people in Germany and smallest was in Sweden for 8 people.
What was the first concert you attended as a fan?
Motörhead in Hämeenlinna, Finland and the year was 1988.
Any tour horror stories?
This happened few weeks ago on our last tour when we were driving to Budapest, Hungary. Our bus broke down in the middle of the highway, in the middle of nowhere and we still had over 200 miles to go. The gig in the Budapest was to film for Hungarian TV. Our driver said, “it will take too much time to get help with the bus, so sorry dudes but you are not going to play tonight.” We started to drink there in the grass on the side of the highway. We drank pretty hard. Then the promoter called and said that they would send some vans to get the musicians to the stage. Finally we were just in time at the concert place, but totally drunk. The TV filming crew did their work and I’m pretty sure that it will be fun for Hungarians watch the show on TV in July when it will come out there.
What band did you have the best time touring with?
The last tour with Eluveitie, Moonsorrow, Tyr and Ensiferum. The atmosphere was so good with every band week after week, and there weren’t any bad things.
Do you and the other band members have day jobs, or are you able to make a living playing music?
Two of us still have day jobs, but hopefully for not much longer.
