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Interview // 2021-11-09

Swallow the Sun

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Swallow the Sun has been encapsulating me with their beautiful anguish! There is an air of ambiguity surrounding the work they produce, which is fair, due to its personal nature. Their music tugs on the heart strings. 

I got the chance to talk to Matti, their bass player, and chat about their two newest releases.

Twenty years is a big benchmark to be cut short on the tour. I know I had tickets to see you guys in Ottawa right as the world shut down. 20 Years of Gloom, Beauty and Despair: Live In Helsinki - is there a highlight for you, personally, from that show?

MATTI HONKONEN: It was cool because we played with the real orchestra people and stuff like that. It was different, and it was challenging, and it was cool. We aren't going to do it again soon; no one knows, because it was easier to arrange in Finland, because we live here, basically. Shows are always cool to play, anyways. That was a little different, to play two shows in one night. So, there was the acoustic thing with the orchestra, and then the heavy metal. At least I was a little nervous to play the acoustic strings. You can hear your every movement. I am not used to it. It is easier to play heavy metal and have distortion. Now you are like, really soft. It was a cool experience. It was almost two years ago.

You had reached out to your fans to find out their favourite songs from the albums, and that's what made it to this live album. Any surprises for you on what your fans liked? Do you feel like your favourites are very different from fan favourites?

MATTI: Not that much. Maybe a few songs. For me it has always been that it doesn't matter. Basically we can play any songs, and I like them always. It is our own music, so it is really hard to pick favourite songs while you are playing live. It doesn't matter. But I can probably pick it if I listen to our music.

Twenty years is quite a long time to be working with a group of people. I know there have been some lineup changes, but in your relationship and experience, what has changed over those twenty years?

MATTI: We are still friends with people that are not in the band anymore. Basically we have grown up a bit. We are like old guys already. The biggest difference is that we don't party much on the tour. That is a very good thing. It is much healthier. Play better shows and feel better. We used to drink a lot when we were touring, and party hard and stuff like that. It is more like just being on the bus, playing shows, and having a good time, and going out in cities if we have time. That's probably the biggest difference, nowadays. But when we started twenty years ago, I was twenty. Now I am not twenty anymore. I can feel it! 

Is there a certain mood you might feel, and a song you might listen to for that mood?

MATTI: Yeah, usually I find melancholy music, for some reason, makes me feel good. For example, our music. I have seen people crying at our shows, but when I listen to it, it feels like it is relieving. I like that feeling. Of course it feels strange to see people crying, watching a show. I think that our music has some healing elements in it, even though it is melancholic and has sad themes. I am a Finnish guy, so it is understandable. 

I know I heard Mikko talk about Finland, and the music he grew up with was sort of depressing and stuff. Was that your experience too? Is that something you grew up around?

MATTI: Yeah, when I was young I was into a lot of black metal kind of stuff, like Dark Funeral. For example, when I wanted to go to sleep, I would get very good sleep and I would listen to very fast music and I fell asleep fast. The melancholy melodies are the thing. I don't like happy happy music. I don't get it. 

Yeah, neither do I, to be honest. So, what would you listen to if you were in an excited mood?

MATTI: If I was going to a party or something like that? Probably something like 80's music, like Queen or Genesis or stuff like that. I love Queen. They are one of the best.

You were just talking about the effect music has on people - you have seen people crying, and stuff like that. Did you ever have you ever have people share with you how the music touched them, personally?

MATTI: Someone has come to say that our music has saved them because they had very bad things going on in their personal life. You know, that our music has healed and it helps. That is the thing that we want to hear. Of course that is why we are here. Music, even though it is melancholic, it is a language between people. We want to have people having a good time, and we don't want them to hang themselves and listen to our music. We want to see them getting better and be able to feel the music. It is very weird seeing someone crying at a show. I don't know how should you react when you are on the stage and he or she is crying. It's like, "can I help you?" Maybe it is because our music is quite emotional and it touches people. It is good, because nowadays music is more like, listen to it and throw it in the dumpster. There is no soul behind it.

It was really cool that you guys released that live album, but now it is really exciting that you also have your new album Moonflowers that's coming out on November 19th. I have heard it and I am in love with it. I think it is awesome. 

MATTI: It is pretty good. I am satisfied with it.

Juha said about the album, "I know full well that I should not say this but I deeply hate this album. I hate where it takes me, how it makes me feel, what it stands for for me. I wish it wouldn't but for all it's honesty I got no option but also to love it. That's all that matters to me the music anyways. It doesn't matter how it makes me feel as long as it does." So, the topics on this album are heavy, and many people will find them cathartic, like we were just talking about. How do you think this process of creating music affects Juha and the rest of the band? 

MATTI: Juha is the man behind it. He is very personal. The art he is creating and, you know, he is honest about it. And the themes behind it that are so dark are 'cause they are about his life and what has been going on for many years. But I don't want to speak about that more because it is his thing, and he is putting it into music. He is doing it very well. But if you want to know how we are doing the music, Juha is creating basically the music, and we put our arrangements into it. It has been like that for many years now because we live in different places so far away from each other. We don't have a rehearsal place. Juha is doing the music in his home and sending the files to us. For example, for this album and the last one, I just demoed my parts in my home, and then sent it to Juha, and he was cool with it. Basically we did the demo stuff like that. And our drummer recorded his parts in his rehearsal place in Helsinki, and sent them to Juha. Then he was like, "yeah, it's good" and "you can put it a little bit like that." You know, we arrange them together. We put our touch into it also, and when it's good, then we go to the studio. So, basically for this album, we didn't see each other at any time together. It has been done in, I think, three different studios. I record my stuff in Finland, and drums were recorded in Sweden. Nowadays, it is easier because we have internet. Juha couldn't even come to Finland because the borders were closed. But it wasn't that big of a problem to us. Now we have to rehearse a lot before the tour, because we have to play those songs together.

So, that is great that you are going to get that experience to come together again for this new stuff.

MATTI: It is always pretty hard to arrange because I am living in central Finland and other guys live in Helsinki and one is in Sweden. We have jobs still, and it is very hard to arrange things, anyways. We don't live in the rehearsal place anymore. We are too old for that.

There was a series of videos that were released featuring Trio Nox, prior to the releases of the full songs. There was artwork for each video. Did you have much input into this? 

MATTI: No, I don't. I always wonder where the footage came from but I think it was Dronicon Films. Juha had a connection with those dudes and he arranged it. It is cool nowadays to have extra things, not just the music, when you release something. It is good, and it deepens the experience to listen to music and see the footage. I think Juha used the same Dronicon Films on his solo album, so that was the connection. Those things came from there. But I don't have any input - I was watching, like a fan.

With Luminae Aurea, it was an example of a song that went into a really intensely dark place. I remember hearing that it was a little surprising for the rest of the band, and a little tough to listen to. Has Juha presented any material that was that intensely dark, since?

MATTI: No, that was pretty dark. I was scared when I saw that for the first time. I think it was like a horror movie for me. It was like, "Wow, this is cool!" when I saw it. No, he hasn't shown anything that dark for us, at least not for me, and hopefully it stays like that. We could never perform that, because it is impossible to arrange to play that kind of stuff. It is too slow.

I am not a horror fan, but I watched Twin Peaks a couple of months ago, and I thought it was really suspenseful, and since watching, nothing seems so exciting on television. I know some of the people in the band were, but are you a Twin Peaks fan? Which character do you identify with the most? 

MATTI: Yeah, I watched it when I was young, and I have the DVD box and I have watched it once after that. I am more like a Matt Carter guy, you know. I can tell you when I was watching the whole series, I got the DVD box and I was watching like two or three episodes a day. Then I started to feel like if I go up and go to the bar or something else, it was like, "My goodness, there is something wrong with those people over there." I started to see things in that way that I was curious about, and it was a very cool experience. So, I started watching every person like, "is he or she normal? What is going on? What is going to happen?"

For sure, yeah, it screws with your mind.

MATTI: So, the question, what was the coolest dude in the series? Of course Agent Cooper is a cool guy. Bob is cool. It is very hard to pick one person. I should watch it again, because it is like many, many years ago. I have been thinking about watching it again, because this time of year in Finland it is dark and it is raining all the time. It feels like Twin Peaks fits into my mindset at this time of year. I haven't started to watch it again, yet, but I definitely will because it is a cool series. It is sick, in a way.

Well, thank you very much for taking the time to meet with me. I appreciate it a lot. I think the album is awesome, so I know people are going to love it. Take care. All the best to the band.


Playlist Pick

After interviewing Swallow the Sun, I decided to add the song Keep Your Heart Safe from Me to my playlist.

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