Interview with Juha Raivio of Swallow The Sun

We had the chance to talk to Swallow the Sun mastermind Juha Raivio a couple of hours before the show in Aschaffenburg.


finnbands: A lot of things have happend since we did the last interview at Tuska 2006 and you had not done touring outside Finland at that time. Now you did the European tour with Moonsorrow, the US tour and now you are on tour with Amorphis. How does it feel?
Juha: This year we've done about a hundred gigs and about seventy of them where outside of Finland. So at least we got the band away from Finland and I'm glad about that. We signed to Spinefarm and it's much easier to go on the road. So basically this new album is like a first album for us because now we can go to other countries and promote the band. I wished we could have done this with our first album but Firebox is such a small label. They couldn't help us in that way and I understand that. There are already three albums and now we have a chance. I don't know how things would be if we had this chance with our first album.

finnbands: How was the US tour? I read in the tour diary of Insomnium and it sounded horrible.
Juha: No, no. It was the best tour ever. You know, even if it was really hard travelling in one van with eleven people 15 or 16 thousand kilometers. Even if that was quite rough and we were sleeping in the back trunk and on the floor. Even if this was quite hard, the gigs were really great and the audience was great. They were expecting us to come and there were a lot of fans there already. That was quite surprising for us because it's so hard to get our music in the States. I think internet has done some good in this case.

finnbands: You were co-headlining with Moonsorrow and now on tour with Amorphis. Is this tour different compared to the one with Moonsorrow?
Juha: The audience in Germany is a bit different than with Moonsorrow. It was a bit more ‚our' crowd than with Amorphis. And that is pretty strange because I think we got a bit more in common with Amorphis than with Moonsorrow. I don't know. But this has only been in Germany. Everything has gone really good. There has not been a big differences. The venues have basically been the same size but there are more people here on this gigs because Amorphis is a so much bigger band than Moonsorrow. So it has been good and people seem to like us even though they prefer much more faster stuff in Germany. Well I can't understand that but we have to teach them some lessons, maybe a few tours. That there is live underneath Manowar or Stratovarius tempos.

finnbands: You have been in Wacken this summer so how did you like it?
Juha: Wacken was a great show and the tent it was so packed that people have to stay outside there. It was like ten or fifteen meters from the tent people try to get in front of the stage. And this was really surprising people were so fanatic there. So there's some hope in Germany. Same thing with Summerbreeze and ‚With Full Force'. Even though we played the worst gig ever on ‚With Full Force'. We didn't get any of our equipment there and just fifteen minutes before the show we got some guitars and electric piano.
finnbands: You borrowed it from some other band?
Juha: Yeah, The ‚One Man Army' guitarist just came ‚Here's some guitars' and he gave us this really old tuner and then an electric piano for our keyboarder and then ‚Ok, go to the stage' so was quite bad. Yeah, but Wacken was really great. I enjoyed it even though if I would go there as a fan it would be a bit too big for me, being in the audience. But playing there was great.
finnbands: I saw the gig in Wacken and I was really surprised that there were a couple of crowdsurfers during the show.
Juha: Yeah! (Laughs) Because on this kind of shows we try to put more of the faster songs on the setlist, but even our faster songs are not really fast. (Laughs) So it can be hard for some kind of audiences, but it depends on the countries and on the venues we are playing in.

finnbands: When reading some of your latest setlists, it appears that you don't play any songs from the second album 'Ghosts of loss' except 'Descending Winters' during the last shows.
Juha: Yes. We're gonna play 'The Ship' and 'Descending Winters' in tonight's show. You know, the second album is so slow and so crushing that we really have to play it on some doom metal festival or something like that. Then we will play many songs from the second album. People all gonna fall asleep otherwise. The album isn't any kind of party album. There are a couple of songs, which are good in the set like 'Descending Winters' and 'The Ship' for example. We used to play a lot from this album but now we want to make a bit faster setlist, to make it a bit easier for the common people, who don't know the band. But still those fast songs aren't fast anyway. But maybe in the future we'll play more. I love to play ‚The Giant' we have played it lots of times, but it's a quite difficult song and it takes something like 13 minutes from the set and we have to think carefully about the setlist.

finnbands: Talking about 'Hope'. The title sounds a bit hopeful but the album is not at all. Mikko wrote some lyrics and the lyrics are not that dark as they used to be in 'Ghosts of loss'. Are there any further changes in this album and what is the difference to the last album?
Juha: 'Ghosts of loss' was really dark, there was no hope on anything and it was a hard time for me. So, now it's been a bit better and 'Hope' isn't really hopeful anyway but there is still some and always have been some glimpse of hope in our music or at least in the melodies to make it even darker or heavier. As I say: pure black isn't interesting. It's boring. You need some light and some hope because you can loose the hope, too. It's like one second that can change all your life or the rest of your life. Like when you enter through the door, in the album cover there is a doorknob, you never know what's behind the next door. You can get hope or you can loose it in a second. Life is full of not so pleasant surprises behind the doors.

finnbands: I saw the tour shirt it says 'These tours of despair' that sounds a bit like a joke to me.
Juha: Yeah. It's from 'These hours of despair'. You know it's been quite a hard year. We toured so much that we start to be a bit ruined. I want to play even more gigs in a year but I am working at the same time in my normal day job. So, there have been no days off except maybe a few Sundays now and then. So it starts to get on your nerves. So, that's why it is 'These tours of despair'. Of course it's a joke, but it has been a quite hard year. We never played that much gigs in a year. This year we have played more gigs than in our whole career before. So, when you look at the back of the shirt it's quite many shows. We've been travelling so much, even thou I love to travel. It's pretty hard not just party all the time. Like the American tour fifteen thousand kilometres in a van. No beds, no toilets not anything. But it was still the best tour we did and that was a big surprise. I didn't know what to expect from America. I read so many horror stories about the clubs and the venues. They are much worse than here. No showers, no catering and for the boys it was pretty hard because you didn't get much alcohol from there. I couldn't care less about alcohol but showers and food these are the two things you really need on a gig place. But they don't care pretty much. The audience has been really great.

finnbands: You are going to play at Helldone Festival this year. That was quite a big surprise. Is it some kind of honour for you to be chosen for the line-up?
Juha: Of course it's an honour because every body in the band is a huge HIM fan. HIM isn't going to play that day but it's like a HIM-Festival. It's pretty much that Ville chooses the bands he wants there and he likes. So yes it's an honour to play there because people really want to go to this festival. Well, this years line-up is pretty strange. (Laughs) I saw the bands and thought 'What is this?' but you never know what the man has on his mind. But I'm glad that we are playing there, anyways. I think he wants the people to listen to different kinds of music as well. But there are a lot of good bands but that night it's a pretty strange line-up.

finnbands: Are you going to do more stuff with Plutonium Orange?
Juha: We got the band together again. We're going to play one gig next spring. You know, it's like party-time for us to play this old songs. It's really fun. Some day I will release a Plutonium Orange album. I know that this band could have a chance if someone would have a brain and release it! (Grinning) With a good production and a good longer time in the studio like one or two months we could make a really good album out of the songs. But anyway I don't know what's going to happen with Plutonium Orange. It's really a band from my heart. I loved that band and I love this songs. We have been playing again and making new songs, but I don't know if it's called Plutonium Orange when we come up with it.

finnbands: Do you already have some new material or a date settled for going to the studio?
Juha: No, there is no date yet. But I hope it's gonna be pretty soon. Because the music was already done in summer. Everything is ready but we didn't have the time to rehears the songs. So we need a few weeks or a couple of months to rehears all the material. It's gonna be pretty interesting and special because we're trying to get some guests again. The material it's going to be pretty dark a bit more like the 'Ghosts of Loss' album.

finnbands: Thank you for the interview.

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