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Interview ShamRain, Ghost Frequency Night, Gloria,
MEM: About your name... There is this Celtic harvest feast called Samhain which translates to "end of summer" and is connected with witches and ghosts, the Celts celebrate the end of the harvest then and that tradition is nowadays carried on by Halloween feasts etc. - Is your band name a wordplay of the word Samhain?
Kalle: No, actually it’s just two words, “sham” and “rain”. I think it was first “sham” only and there kind of needed to be another word added and it sounded cool, so…
Mika: Yeah. It was Matti’s idea. He said: “Okay, ShamRain.” I was like: “What is it?” “Nothing, but it sounds cool. I like it.” And we were: “Okay.” (laughs) No deeper meaning in that.
MEM: How important is it for you to use images of mystique and darkness and such for your songs?
Mika: I don’t think it’s something that we do, that we want to do, use that kind of images. It’s a natural way to express yourself.
MEM: It’s Matti who writes the songs…?
Mika: The most of it, but Kalle writes as well.
Kalle: I’m writing songs or music too, and also lyrics to my own songs. But mainly Matti.
Mika: And I’m kind of the producer of the lyrics.
Kalle: Yeah, Mika arranges the vocal lines and creates melodies for vocals.
Mika: The thing is, sometimes it can be like “Okay, this chords, it is going to be the verse, it works better” Changes in the lines and stuff like that…
MEM: Reason I was asking is because the next question is lyric related. What do you usually do to get inspired for the lyrics? Maybe walk over graveyards at nights?
Kalle: (laughter) No, no, it’s nothing like that. It also comes quite natural to write about such things. I get these lyrics from books I read, movies. Some lyrics are real life experiences inspired, but their stories are kind of lived in a different way, so that you can’t recognize them anymore.
Mika: Fact and fiction.
Kalle: Mostly fiction.
Mika: (laughs) Liar!
MEM: Your latest album is entitled "Goodbye to all that" - what is "that"?
Mika: Ha! That’s the thing. You can think about it. There is – Was there actually anything for “that”?
Kalle: Actually I thought it could be this code in the cover and it could be Goodbye to all that, meaning life, happy life and such. But it can be anything you want actually. It can be goodbye to all good things or goodbye to all bad things.
Mika: It’s kind of an opportunity for everybody to choose their way to go, you know. Goodbye to all that, if you got some shit behind, you have to leave that, you have to learn to let go and stuff like that. If you want to put it that way.
MEM: Could you possibly name a personal favourite song of this album and why?
Mika: Oh, too hard for me.
Actually, Stars Will Fall, for me, is – I don’t know, it just grew up when we went to the studio. Before that it wasn’t such a good song (Kalle, who wrote it, shakes his fist), but the thing is that, by the time you start working on it, it started to grow inside me. It’s like “Okay, this sounds kind of good.” And then it grew more and more and it was like “This is a fucking great song.” I don’t know what it is, but the song is so intense, like you get sucked into it. For me it goes like that. It’s not a mainstream song, but maybe that’s why it’s so good, for my opinion.
Kalle: I think Evangeline, because the lyrics, I love them. They are so sad and beautiful at the same time.
MEM: Tell me something about the album cover. Who came up with it, and is there a story behind it?
Kalle: Actually I got this ideas of doing sketch-like drawings and then I asked my friend, who drew them, and then I manipulated and put them together and made them negative. They were originally black drawings on white.
Mika: So is it kind of reversed colours or something?
Kalle: Yeah, kind of. I had my computer with me in the studio and made it there one night. I thought that it looked really cool and it was finished. (smiles)
MEM: You were supposed to tour in
Kalle: I think the person who was organizing that got sick or something and she couldn’t arrange it. So she told us. But it wasn’t that serious. It was unfortunate, but hopefully we can arrange something later on.
Mika: We will see what is going to happen. We are trying to get the tour – probably next spring or something.
Kalle: Hopefully.
Mika: Hopefully, yeah.
MEM: What do you do when you have a really bad time within the band? Do you rather fight and not speak to each other for ages, or is everything solved right away in discussions?
Mika: We don’t fight so much, yet. Sometimes we did, but…
Kalle: We’ve had some fights in the studio last summer.
Mika: Yeah, we did!
Kalle: (sheepishly) It was kind of horrible.
Mika: Everybody was like “I want this.” “And I want this!” “Oh, fuck you!” “Fuck off!” But it’s just – I think it’s pretty natural. Everybody is so, kind of nervous all the time, because everybody wants the album to sound the best, you know. And if you have different opinions it’s always like banging your heads against the wall. But we’re not actually fighting so much. Maybe that’s because we’re not so much together. (laughter) Should be more, you know.
MEM: What do you think about people who come from abroad to see you?
Mika: Oh, it’s nice.
Kalle: Yeah, it’s really cool. It shows some kind of deep devotion to come from so far.
Mika: But of course, there’s like our album releasing party, we had to cancel it a couple of weeks ago, because I got totally sick (A/N: It was actually a week before this interview and is rescheduled for 14 December) and I was lying in bed for three or four days, I couldn’t do anything. I’m still sick. You can hear it in my voice and I’m all the time sneezing and coughing like hell. In those situations, it feels very bad because there were those people coming from
Kalle:
Mika:
But I felt so bad. It feels very bad. And it’s not the first time I had to cancel, because the last year has been very hard for me because of my throat and stuff like that. And I think it started last year after Entwine’s Fatal Design album. I have had a lot of shitty things with my throat. And it is what it is, you know.
But it’s nice that people are coming to see us.
How does it make you feel when people are very moved by your lyrics and they tell you that? Like when they have problems and your lyrics have helped them.
Kalle: It feels really good. When someone is saying “This song has helped me through” or “This song is the best I’ve ever heard” or something, it feels really good to get such feedback.
Mika: For me, it’s personally the main thing, when you hear something, that somebody says “This song helped me to realise something” or “go through a lot of shitty things” or “I got very good vibes from this” or whatever. That’s why I do music, to get something more out of it, to realize you’re not alone with your shitty things. That’s what it’s all about for me, personally.
Kalle: And it’s nice, since our lyrics mean so much to us, when someone else also finds them important. So it feels good.
MEM: Can you relate to that sort of feeling from your own experience with listening to songs or lyrics?
Mika: For me, it’s both actually. Especially in ShamRain because I’m not writing any songs. But the thing is that I can get really deep into those lyrics, because that’s what I have to do. Not have to but that’s the thing that I do, I want to express, you have to be like an actor kind of to – how can I put it? You have to be behind the lyrics and that’s what I’m trying to do. Not only with the melodies, but also the expression. What was the question about, I forgot? Did I answer your question?
MEM: Not completely, I meant more if you listen to other bands’ music rather than your own.
Mika: Oh, both for me, definitely. I’m not listening so much to the lyrics, but if something, you know, some melodies or some hook, layers, I get touched by that. I get deeper into it. But I have to admit that I don’t listen so much to the lyrics. I should. (laughs)
Kalle: I actually watch the booklet and read all the lyrics for albums first.
Mika: For me, I have to get moved by the music first. If it’s very good, I get goosebumps and go like “Okay, what the fuck is this?” and then I go to the booklet and “Okay”. I don’t know when it happened, but it kind of turned upside down. I used to be like first the lyrics and then what’s the rest… Maybe it’s the age thing. (laughs)
MEM: If you could be a mysterious animal of your choice, what would you be and why?
Mika: (thoughtful) Mysterious animal… What are those ghost – ghost animals, you know, the small ones in the rainforest or somewhere...
Kalle: With glowing eyes…
Mika: Yeah, glowing eyes, they are the ghost – ghost monkeys or ghost something, I don’t remember the name. Probably that. Big eyes and (makes ghostly sound)
Kalle: I think ehm…
Mika: Unicorn! (laughter) High five!
Kalle: Sure. Okay, let’s move on…
MEM: And why would he be a unicorn?
Mika: (looks at Kalle who is laughing a bit uncomfortably) That’s about it. But for me, ghost animal – ah, I can’t remember the name! Ghost something. I don’t know, there’s no reason.
MEM: They’re just cool.
Mika: Yeah. They are mysterious and stuff like that, but after all, they are a little bit like pretty normal things. They’re both, you know, very mysterious and very down-to-earth. (laughs) Both sides: the darkness and the light… (chuckles)
(A/N: Despite an extensive search on the internet, I couldn’t find the right name of the animals Mika is referring too. The closest to it are perhaps the squirrel monkeys, with big white rings around dark eyes.)
MEM: Okay, the final question: do you believe in life after death?
Mika: Depends. I guess… Yes and no. It depends what the life is after death, and if there is, where is it, you know. Is there a heaven, is it that your spirit just goes to some place and wanders around or is it left in here to check on the living people, trying to help them or whatever it is. But I really do believe that we do have a soul. Because if you see a dead person. When it’s lying in a coffin, it’s only a kind of a – what is it? – a shell. There’s no life in it, it’s just like a statue or something. So, there’s no life… Yeah, there’s no life, when you’re dead. (laughter) But you know what I mean, immediately it’s not a person anymore, it’s just some “thing”. That’s why I believe that your soul leaves your body and where it goes, you never know. Everybody can believe where it’s going. I really don’t know. Probably there is a heaven and hell, but this is different for everyone.
Kalle: This is too serious a question for me right now, I’m a bit hangover. (laughter)
Mika: (still pondering) Where do we go? Somewhere. (smiles)
MEM: Somewhere… Okay, that were all my questions. Thank you for your time and answers.
Interview: Heidi van de Vreken
© MadEyedMoose.com 2007
