e-mail interview 

by Salvo "Lovedeath" Russo__    

05.03.2004    

organized by Mr. Matti Reinola  and Salvo Russo

www.shamrain.net

Hi Matti!! We're again.. to speak about this fantastic new album...ShamRain's project begins short time  ago, and we've already spoken about your demo , are you satisfied with  "Empty World Excursion"? would you also like  to describe in few words the essence of this album?.....

Hi Salvo! As i see the album, it's a smooth, hazy, dreamlike trip through an empty world. We tried to make it to sound as  an entirety, so it works best when you listen through the whole album at once. I'm pretty satisfied with the album and the sounds on it. I think the overall sound is quite timeless, which is great. The sounds are not like what we've used to hear in the production of most metal bands, instead, it has a lot of these Cure-like, echoed sounds, especially on the drums.  

In my opinion  "Empty World Excursion" is a fantastic album...what do you need in order to compose these Gothic jewels?

What do you need, hmm, just a certain state of mind, i guess. It's hard to explain, the songs just pop out from some dark nooks of mind. Whenever i come up with some melody line or a chord structure, I just record it at my home studio, and start to create more stuff, layers and harmonies and some noices over it. Then at some point, Janne and Kalle get involved, and do their parts. The final phase is, when Mika makes arrangements for vocals and creates vocal melodies. That's it practically. Some songs can come alive through a little different evolution process though. The first thing there is, can be some Janmes drum loop for example, but the first method is the most common way, i think.

If you'd give a suggestion, in which place, in which situation, your album could give those special sensations....

Well, i think it could give those sensations anywhere. Where ever you are, just listen to EWE through headphones, close your eyes, and you already are in someplace else. That's the beauty of music, it can take you out of this moment.

If  "Empty world excursion" could be the  soundtrack of a film...which film you'd choose?

This is an easy choice for me, what it comes to director, since i' m a huge David Lynch - freak. But which of his movies should it be. Maybe 'Elephant Man', that film is both, very beautiful and touching, and in the same time also very dark and desperate, just like our album in my opinion. 'Blue Velvet' could fit too, it has a beautiful and peaceful environment, but under the surface, something is definitely very wrong. I'm really interested in making music for movies, and I've planned to do a short film of my own to begin with. All i lack now is a camera. Ideas i have plenty, hehe.

Ok...!Let's talk about the lyrics of this album....you told me about mystic lyrics, which are your favorite ones?

They didn't turn out to be that mystic eventually, i think. My favorites are Sound Asleep, Dispensable and Drifter. Maybe those 3 are also the least 'straight' lyrics on the album. But songs like 'Funeral' need very straight expression, that's how you can load the most emotion in the song. I think it's harder to get a lot of emotion involved into a song, if it has some mystic lyrics that don't make too much sense.

Please, tell me something about the distribution of this album.......I see that there are many distributors...

I don't really know too much about that, that's mostly our labels business, we're just artists, they are the business men. But in Finland it's taken care by Firebox Records, and what i know, they have done their job pretty well, and the album is available in stores widely. But as always, more advertising would have been nice, hehe.

What do you think about Anathema's new album?

This is something everybody keeps asking. I like it a lot, it's a masterpiece. There have been a lot of comparisons with our album, and the new Anathema. However Anathema's newest album can't have influenced us in anyway, since our songs were written and recorded already months before that Anathema's  album was even released. But there are some influences from earlier Anathema - albums, that's for sure.

It's evident that ShamRain plays a different kind of music, but, concerning the Finnish Goth scene I notice that this one is  not a good period...is it the end of "Love Metal"?

I can't see the end of Lovemetal coming, not yet. There still appear new bands every once in a while, that play that kind of stuff. Maybe some of the earlier Lovemetallers have drifted a little further from their 'roots', for example Entwine's new material is a lot of heavier and more rocking stuff than their previous albums. Well, i think HIM will always be there to do that stuff.

Is ShamRain  a studio project or do you think to promote this album with a tournèe?

No, there won't be a tour at this time, but we have planned to do some individual gigs, if we get good offers.

The  last question is  a new game, the game we propose to all bands we interview for the second time. "The game of the Emptiness"! Imagine you're going on travel for two weeks, which is the first thing you put into your empty  baggage?

I just took a 2 week trip to Southern Europe a couple of months ago, and the first things i packed were a CD player, some CDs and an acoustic guitar. But if i had to pick just one thing, it would be a guitar, definitely. I bet that wasn't very surprising answer.

Thank you so much Matti!

Ok, thanks again for the interview, Salvo.

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