The discovery of the month happens to be the debut album ‘Jäähyvästi’ of the Finnish band Saattue. Fifty minutes of intense doom metal with fluttering, emotive guitar soloing inspired by Pink Floyd sent shivers down my spine every time I listened to this record. The variegation in vocals (ponderous grunts as well as thoughtful clean vocals) and the Finnish lyrics resulted in a unique blend, so amazing that one may speak of a real sensation. Of course this asks for a bit more detailed information and we found vocalist Tuukka Koskinen and guitarist Jani Koskela willing to tell more about Saattue and their remarkable entry in the metal scene.
Congratulations with your amazing debut album! It is the surprise of the month for me! I guess these are quite exciting times for you, reading all the first press notes? J. Koskela: Yes, indeed. We are very anxious to read reviewers thoughts about the album. Especially the foreign reactions are interesting to read - due to the language aspect. We do feel that we have a strong album in our hands and so far the feed back has been supporting this feeling very well. The music is powerful and it has proven to be able to break the language barriers, which is good.
Well, let us go back in time. The band was founded in 2001 but released two demos first under the moniker of Kiduttajat. Can you tell a bit more about those early beginnings? J. Koskela: The original line-up, of which H. Lampinen is still remaining, was formed in 2001. Another long time member T. Kalliomaki joined quite soon after the first demo recording and became the main songwriter for the band. The first recording as Saattue was ‘Kivisydän’ EP and it was published in 2004. After this the original vocalist left and T. Koskinen joined in. This change is probably the most noticeable change that there has been. The next EP release ‘Ikiuneen’ (2006) was the first release to feature the line-up that we have now and on the debut album. Since the beginning the idea has been to write heavy, dark and slow metal with Finnish lyrics. There's been some development in style and quality, but there's also a lot of old material that we could very well use these days. As a matter of fact, at the moment, we're still playing one song from the ‘Kiduttajat’ period and one song from ‘Kivisydän’ EP.
2004 was an important year for you with the first EP ‘Kivisydän’ and adding two new members. It struck me that these both musicians had been active in Yearning (another great Finnish band), so I guess you know the guys of Yearning pretty well? T. Koskinen: Riihimäki, the town that we're living in, is such a small town. So, more or less everybody who is involved in making music knows each others. As a matter of fact, I visited on their last CD and sang a few lines. Some aggressive grunting parts.
J. Koskela: T. Kalliomäki was a member of Yearning up to the second album. T. Kristian played drums on Saattue's ‘Kivisydän’ EP and another old Yearning member Pete Salo was involved in ‘Kiduttajat’ for a short while. Yeah, it's a small town. Everybody knows everybody in Riihimäki and quite a few of us have managed to get records out, which is quite cool. After all, we live in a town of only 30 000 inhabitants.
Do you have (many) contacts with other Finnish metal bands? J. Koskela: Sure we have - population wise we are living in a very small country. A lot of bands are co-operating with each other, when arranging live gigs and so on. We don't really have connections to the biggest bands that you know, but a lot of contacts to those who are active on the underground level. We just made a mini-tour with our label mates Hanging Garden and we have been doing co-operation with acts like Murdershock, who are a very promising death/thrash band.
Finland is a huge supplier of excellent bands, so I guess it is pretty amazing to live in an area with a vivid metal scene… do you think to have any advantages as musicians by living in Finland? J. Koskela: Sure there are good bands and good concerts over here, both on the bigger and on the underground level. However, I don't think that it's any different than anywhere else. As a Finnish metal band you yearn for possibilities to play outside of your country borders and I'm sure that in return there are people out there, who would like to be able to play in Finland. Anyway, basically it's the same everywhere. If I compare Finland to some other countries, then I do think that bands are bit more co-operative here than in some other places. At this moment I would be a lot more amazed, if I would live in an area where I would be able to see some Dutch bands alive - such as Asphyx or Pentacle for example. There are still a lot of bands, who don't come to Finland on their tours and in this sense I do think that our situation is still a lot behind yours.
Your first show abroad was in Tallinn. What about this experience? J. Koskela: Great! It was arranged by the guys of the band called Nitrous and at that point we were very surprised that someone asked us to play there. It was a great show and we would love to go back. It's definitely the biggest club and stage that we have played so far. We played in front of an audience, who didn't know us before the show. We got good reactions and people liked it, so we can say that it was a small success. As a return favour we invited Nitrous to play in Finland, when we did the ‘Jäähyvästi’ record release show in our hometown. Hopefully we can make some kind of small tradition out of this and continue doing this kind of gig exchange in the future as well.
Now you just did a tour with Hanging Garden. Was it your first tour? Can you tell a bit more about this happening? J. Koskela: Well, we asked them if they would be interested in making some shows with us. They were and in the end it turned out to be very fitting combination of bands. It started from one booked show and then we managed to book two more in the row. It was our first mini-tour and the first time that Saattue was playing something more than just a one-off show. It was a very good experience for both of the bands. Especially the last show in Joensuu was something very rewarding.
It was a long process before you decided to record a full length album, and even this one wasn’t planned to be a full CD. Can you tell us how things evolved? J. Koskela: Yes, we went to the studio without a record deal and recorded four new tracks. Sami from Spinefarm had shown interested in us after hearing our ‘Ikiuneen’ promo EP in 2006, but he still wanted to hear more. As a back-up we were thinking that we would release the new tracks as a self-financed EP, but luckily Spinefarm offered us a deal right after they had heard the new samples. So, we decided to go back to the studio, recorded three more tracks and partly re-recorded the ones that we had done earlier. I think that this is what all of us wanted to do in the first place and we are glad that we got the opportunity to do so. I think that it was definitely the right time for us to make a full-length album now. We had already released two self-financed EPs and a few demos. At this point a full-length was definitely the most pleasant and natural way to go ahead.
Your lyrics are in Finnish. As I am not able to understand it, please can you go a bit deeper into the lyrics, subjects or concept? T. Koskinen: The lyrics are basically very dark poetry, telling stories about death and depressive thoughts. It may sound a bit cliché, but the main idea was to write such lyrics, which would describe our musical ambitions and would fit to the common atmosphere of the songs. There are stories of suicide and a drunk driver, who hit and run over your own child. So, I guess you get some clue about what we're all about?
What can we see as the main influences of the band, these elements may describe the general feel of your music… J. Koskela: Metal music in general, but obviously doom metal, death metal and atmospheric metal influences are the most prominent. You could say that the other end of our influences is Slayer and the other one would be Pink Floyd. Generally Saattue is very heavy and oppressive music, but meantime the sound is also very dynamic and rich.
Though Saattue absolutely sounds different from any other band! You inserted lots of atmospheric parts and some melodic soloing. Can this be seen as a way to sharpen the heaviness? J. Koskela: Thanks, it’s always nice to hear someone saying that. Yes, we like to play around with the dynamics. This way the heavy parts sound even heavier and the atmospheric parts sound even more atmospheric. The album is full of contrasts and antithesis and this gives a very powerful nature to some of the elements. There are also guitar solos, which don’t only support the general feeling of the song and the riff, but also give a little extra dimension and identity to it.
Vocals of Tuukka Koskinen are amazing and very varied. But you even add any female vocals from time to time. Who is Ines Lukkanen and how did you get in contact with her? T. Koskinen: Actually, T. Kalliomäki found Ines Lukkanen accidentally from Finnish musician's sites, and was fascinated by her voice, which is really beautiful. Somehow he managed to contact Ines and asked her to sing few lines to our CD. Luckily she accepted the invitation. I think she brought something very special to this CD and I'm very satisfied with the result.
Can nature be seen as a source of inspiration and in that prospect; are there any links with pagan ideology? J. Koskela: Not really, not in the case of this album. The main theme on ‘Jäähyvästi’ is death and most of the songs deal with human nature and inner human thoughts, but not really with the natural environment that is surrounding us. You can sense an influence that comes from the Finnish folklore, but the lyrics are generally very human centred. Also, it’s important to say, that we're not pointing out any kind of religious views on ‘Jäähyvästi’.
Are there plans to play abroad or go on tour this year? J. Koskela: There are some small things that might very well become reality. I would be quite surprised if we would go on the road for several weeks this year, but I do believe that it is possible that we make some shorter treks. However, it’s all very much up to that what kind reactions ‘Jäähyvästi’ creates. We have a lot of work to do in Finland, but I would like to think that there's always a chance that we'll do foreign shows as well.
You are signed by Spikefarm Records, a division of Spinefarm. How did you manage to ink a deal with them? J. Koskela: We simply did send them our promotional EP and they wrote us a personal e-mail that they are interested, but wanted to hear more still. We recorded four ‘Jäähyvästi’ tracks down and that is when they offered us their contract. Obviously we feel very honoured about this chance that we have gotten. We can't possibly think of any better option than Spine/Spikefarm for a band like us. I mean, we play metal and write our lyrics in Finnish - how many other labels are there, who would be as ideal option for us as Spinefarm is? Not too many, I'm afraid.
You call your music “saattometal”. Well, some more explanation about this would be nice… J. Koskela: Saatto and Saattue are both meaning procession in Finnish. We tried to come up with a short description of our music, but none of the existing genres felt comfortable. When thinking of all the elements that we have in Saattue's music, saatto (procession) sounds very fitting word to us. Our music is like an advancing funeral procession - slow, calm, extremely focused and has a dark aura all over it.
You have made a promo video for the song ‘Kaaosmaa’. Can you tell a bit more about this video? J. Koskela: The video for ‘Kaaosmaa’ was made in 2006, at the time when we released ‘Ikiuneen’ promo EP. It isn't a promotional video for ‘Jäähyvästi’ album, but rather a visual extra sample for Saattue-minded YouTube visitors. The director of the video contacted us, because he had a chance to make a music video at the school where he was studying. We agreed to do the video and we had a lot of fun while making it. It is a low budget video, so don't expect any MTV quality.
Aren’t you afraid to get reactions in the vein of flirting with suicidal thoughts? J. Koskela: No. It's very much up to people's imagination how they react to this video. I'm sure that most of the watchers sense the grim humour on it and that it is not to be taken as dead serious.
T. Koskinen: Hehe, not afraid at all. Of course, there are always some people accusing us for using such a cliché, but in the end, I couldn't imagine any other topic to write about - which would fit in with the music that we've composed. And we've never asked anyone to cut their wrists! If they will, we didn't ask them to do it, he he!
Another thing that struck me is the promo picture with the dogs… man, they look dangerous! J. Koskela: Yeah, the evil Dobermans! The owls are not what they seem. It was the photographer Jarno Lindén's idea to bring his Dobermans to the scene. They looked better than us, so we decided to pick this photo.
Are you planning to make a new video clip or release a song as single (since Swallow The Sun hit the Finnish charts with one long doom epic)? J. Koskela: There are no plans for a single, but there's been some talk with the director of ‘Kaaosmaa’ about making another video in the future. Well, we didn’t make it to the charts with ‘Jäähyvästi’. Maybe we’ll make a quick visit with the next album, who knows? However, I think that video should be made for some other purpose than to gain chart success. I mean, these days it’s probably just a waste of money if you would do it for that reason – unless you are really big.
What are the plans for the near future? J. Koskela: To book more shows and to do as many interviews as possible. We have also some new music written and we are just starting to rehearse it.
If there is any news we should mention, this is the moment to tell us… J. Koskela: Our debut album ‘Jäähyvästi’ is out there, go and check it out at your local record dealer, or visit www.myspace.com/saattue to listen one full song and the samples.
Thank you so much for this interview. I wish you lots of success with ‘Jäähyvästi’ and we are waiting for a proper doom package live in the Netherlands! J. Koskela: Thanks to you Vera! We're also looking forward to be able to play in Netherlands. Sooner or later it'll happen. Until then, proost! In Finnish it's kippis, always remember that when you rise that shiny yellow drink of yours hehe…
Congratulations with your amazing debut album! It is the surprise of the month for me! I guess these are quite exciting times for you, reading all the first press notes?
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