Since the release of the 2009’s album “Isolation Songs”, Finland’s Ghost Brigade has solidified as one of the most engaging and inventive acts within the metal scene. Their break-through record was elected album of the month in both Metal Hammer and Inferno magazines and now three years the Finnish group returns with another mesmerizing release that proves that “Isolation Songs” was no fluke.

Scratch the Surface questioned bassist Janne Julin to find out more about the newest album “Fear No Longer Define Us”, which was released this past September.

Photo: Jussi Ratilainen / www.juspic.com

Do you think you were subconsciously pressured to write songs that would equal or surpass your most successful album when you first started approaching the writing for this new record?

I think everybody wants to and is pressured subconsciously or not to make better record than the previous one, otherwise no reason to continue. Where this pressure comes from or what are the reasons for it is another thing then, in our case it is because we wanted to come up with songs that we are satisfied with, songs that we enjoy and pass through self-criticism, time will tell how we succeeded. There was no pressure to gain maximum attention from the media, to reach mass sales, to please our record label, to make any sort of break through etc., that was not on our mind. 

We simply wanted to push ourselves forward to please ourselves and to fulfil our demands, and if more and more people enjoy it as well, we don’t mind it.

The process of making records can take a considerable amount of time and can be a daunting challenge for musicians. In your case, did you immediately figured what you wanted to do and soon struck the right songwriting mode?

We started to write the songs pretty much immediately after “Isolation Songs” was released. We didn’t have any strict guidelines, a detailed master-plan or concept for the record, although we do know what we want from our songs, we kept writing songs until we had enough material that works together on a record. Sometimes it takes more time to complete a song, others are easier to complete, but the whole writing process for a record takes around a year/a year and a half.

This record didn’t differ that much from the two first ones, you just have to be patient and take your time and the songs will come up, no need to hurry, better to make sure you’re not forcing it and end up with some useless half-assed crap.

So what inspired you when it came to writing “Until Fear No Longer Defines Us”?

Broadly speaking, things you do and experience in daily life on this planet earth, feelings and situations you go through, what goes around in your head, our surroundings, then of course music we listen to, movies, books and so on. 

There’s not any specific influence that you could point out, more like a picture painted from all of those influences but trying to keep it coherent and not wandering off to too many directions and of course adding your own touch to it all.

Musically those influences mainly come from metal, rock, pop, electronic direction, with some underlying connection between them all being some sort of dark or atmospheric general feature.

How do you feel about the record now that it’s coming out? Now that it’s finished, can you give us your thoughts on it?

I feel good about it, it’s strong and tight, the whole works well together with good continuation from song to song bringing all the atmospheres and emotions to fullest and all in all it’s very good picture of this band, what it’s made of and what it’s about. But it takes time to make up your mind about your own record, we finished this record in the end of April so it’s way too early to say what is my complete opinion about this album, I’ll have better idea of that in a year or two, that’s how it seems to go. 

And we haven’t played these songs live yet and that’s also one thing that might affect your opinion of the record. But as of now I have to say I’m satisfied with our latest grand opus.

Luca Niero

Read full interview here.

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“Until Fear No Longer Defines Us” is the highly anticipated follow-up to 2009's stellar “Isolation Songs”, and despite starting off with a breathtakingly beautiful and entirely acoustic song “In the Woods”, the rest of the album falls in line with the band's previous output.

The Finns sound has always been about contrasts, especially the one between light and darkness, and each song on this record sees soothing and beautiful melodies contrasting against bursts of rampant energy, constantly creating an emotional tension that never erupts. In one minute, they sound really mournful and introspective, and in the next one they offer some raging and intense moments, all this with a swaggering level of confidence. First single “Clawmaster”, really emphasizes the remarkable dichotomy that characterizes most of the album.

Luca Niero

Read full review here.

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I’ve first seen this interview from 1989 with David Vincent from Morbid Angel done by a Swiss fellow on an Invisible Oranges post a while back, and man that was simply hilarious and I almost laughed myself to death with such stupid questions. Who in their right mind would have ever thought of asking Morbid Angel’s frontman their thoughts on lemon pies, microwaves ovens and the Goo Goo Dolls? Admirably, Vincent never looses his composure and answers every question politely when others would have simply laugh at that journalist’s face and ask him if he’s serious or just taking the piss.
I was curious to find out if other moments like that ever happened to other bands, so I’ve questioned a few of them on what was the dumbest question they ever been asked in an interview.

“I guess there's at least one dumb question in every interview haha! Yes one time I had to answer to an e-mail interview. I think the guy didn't know Mumakil at all, or he never listened to our music…
One of his questions was “I really like the atmospheres and ambience in your music, can you explain us how you can deliver such emotion through it?”
I mean... Maaaaan come on, what is this question??!! haha!!”

Sebastien Schacher/Mumakil

“You have used Greek language in your last album...Are you nationalist????????
Yes I have heard this!”

Sakis Tolis/Rotting Christ

“Would be quite a cliché to answer "this one", wouldn't it? Heh ... well, I don't know about "dumbest", but I've indeed got many amusing questions due to bad language skills. Sometimes you wonder if they simply run it through some free online translation tool. It's quite common you get a "statement" rather than a "question" which makes you quite uncertain on what to say...”

Patrik Lingren/Thyrfing

“I don't actually recall any especially dumb questions. My answers are usually dumber, haha. One question got me bit offended though, but I think there might have been some language- issues there too, how they were putting out the question. Anyway, question was about fans and how we kind of "select and approve" ours. I mean wtf? If you get your kicks out of Ghost Brigade, that's everything and enough to me. At that particular second I was that offended that I politely refused to answer, haha.”

Tommi/Ghost Brigade

“I have probably been asked a lot of stupid questions during interviews, but I tend to forget them afterwards. I don’t want to spend energy on remembering negative things, especially such un-important things a weird question. I’m pretty sure that no harm is meant by asking a question, even if it might be slightly stupid, so I feel there is no reason for getting angry about it.”

Jørgen Munkeby/Shining (NOR)

"Are you djent?" A new fashion term that means nothing for me and seems to represent a certain style of music.”

Franck Quintin/Eryn Non Dae

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Responsible for one of the most surprising and interesting works released last year, Finland’s Ghost Brigade are one of those bands most musical journalists simply hate to write about, but can’t stop listening to. See, said work “Guided by Fire” is a marvellous gem of music that exhibits an eclectic musical exploration and completely defies any sort of common and known categorization. Guitarist Wille Naukkarinen also finds it difficult to place Ghost Brigade’s sonority within any genre or style when we first contacted him to gather some revelations about their past, their current activities and their future work. Read more...

There's a rare breed of bands out there that don't seem to fit comfortably within any genre or categorisation the music industry so pleasantly likes to shelve and market their product for easy consumption. Finland's Ghost Brigade is one of those acts, having carved their own musical niche with a debut recording titled "Guided by Fire" that touches a lot of territories, but don't exactly settle a residence in any of them. Does it mean Ghost Brigade can do whatever they want to?

“Well yeah in theory I guess so but I don't think we would ever write a reggae or a ska riff for example, because for one, It's not our cup of tea and secondly it wouldn't fit us either. But whatever we collectively think sounds good and what ever it is that we think fits under the musical umbrella of Ghost Brigade is what we'll of course continue doing. We try our best to not set any limits to what we can do and what we can't and try to be as open-minded as possible when writing new songs.”

Not many people know, but Wille along with bassist Janne Julin and drummer Veli-Matti Suihkonen used to play together in a Stoner/Rock group called Sunride, who had released three albums on the German label People Like You before being put on hold in 2006. So how come members of a rock act like Sunride end up forming a more emotional guided band?

“Well I don't know if many people are aware of this but, the first Sunride demo in 96 had actually growling vocals on it so you know, also the roots of Sunride are deeply in metal even if the stuff released after that was groovier, melodic rock-oriented stuff. But we definitely started as some kind of melodic death metal-ish band back in the mid-nineties. So I guess partly because of that, it wasn't that big of a step really to go from Sunride to Ghost Brigade. I just felt that it was time to move on and do things that inspire me. After 3 albums and some Eps with Sunride, composing basic rock music didn't really do it for me any more, I just felt like I didn't have anything more to say for that kind of music. I wanted to try something new, write music that would kind of cover everything that I never had had a chance to do in Sunride, something with a little bit more edge, dynamics, extremes and heaviness. I had actually talked about forming a moodier, heavier band like Ghost Brigade for years on numerous occasions to the other members so I guess it was just a matter of time really before we made it happen. And I got to say, even though I loved what we did with Sunride and I'm very proud of that band and all the CDs we did but to be honest Ghost Brigade feels like I've finally found home. I feel like I have so much music in me for this band. It's a great feeling.”

So does Ghost Brigade give you the opportunity to expel or exorcise inner ghosts, something you weren't able to accomplish with Sunride?

“Yeah definitely. This is one of the main reasons why Ghost Brigade exists and that is exactly why it is so much fun to be in this band.”

"Guided By Fear" was released last year and has garnered excellent reviews worldwide so far, but there's a common dominator in those reactions that is the difficultly in finding a suitable tag to file Ghost Brigade's sonority. Is it Post-Hardcore? Sure, there's a certain rage flowing around that's merged with emotional melodies, but "Guided By Fear" is way darker and melancholic than Glassjaw or Quicksand. Is it Dark Metal? Sure it's dark and it has a Metal influence and there's also a common thread with bands like Katatonia, but it's more than that! Atmospheric and desolated like Neurosis? Yeah, on a few occasions!
How would you define Ghost Brigade's sound without necessarily pulling out adjectives or genres?

“Well, I wouldn't and I can't either. Ghost Brigade is influenced by so many bands and artists that I don't think there is an easy way to describe or define it. I guess I would myself just call it Ghost Brigade and I hope some day people will start calling it the same way also. When we formed this band, we soon decided that this would be for once a band without any musical limitations. We agreed that let's just do good music for the sake of it and let's not think about if anyone else is going to like it or if it fits this or that genre because in the end, all kind of tags, genres and other people's opinions don't really matter. What matters is that we are happy with what we do and we think the shit sounds good. That is also why our album has such a title. But yeah, I sometimes hope there was an easy tag for us because it sure as hell would make answering interviews a lot easier but unfortunately I don't think there is.”

Have you already started working on new material yet? How are the new songs shaping up?

“Yes we have. We have actually a lot of new stuff ready already, but it is still too early to say how the next album will sound like because we don't know yet which songs are going to be on it and there is still more writing left to be done. But it is going to be better than the first one for sure and a little bit different as well. You won't ever get two same sounding album from us so don't expect a “Guided by Fire” part 2.”

I've read somewhere, you had quite an interesting method of piecing together the songs featured on "Guided by Fear" by committing some ideas onto a computer individually and only afterwards the band started to work on them collectively. Are you comfortable with this working method and how do you feel it affects the end results?

"I think that this is actually pretty common way to write ideas these days when everyone has access to the internet and everyone has a computer. I mean, when I for example come up with a new riff at home I immediately demo it with my computer because it's faster that way than having to wait for 2 weeks for the next rehearsal to present my idea and find out how it sounds with drums, bass and everything else. I can do it on a computer using computer drums right away, then email it to the other guys if I still like it and they learn the riff at home and at the next rehearsals we just start playing it. It's very effective, productive way of working actually.”

I've found the Neo-Noir style of the artwork cover really great and it sort of reminded me of Sin City imagery when I first saw it. The whole design was created by Wille and it features a black and white photograph of an individual standing in what looks like a cornfield that was shot by guitarist Tommi Kiviniemi. What sorts of concepts have influenced you to construct these visuals?

“Basically it is a visual reflection of the title “Guided by Fire”. The light in the guys hands obviously being the fire, spreading everywhere like water. The original cover was actually only the guy on a completely blank, white background but we added the cornfield to get a result that looks more like our music sounds. I like the end result though and I think it looks pretty much like the album sounds. It has the same mood.”

Ghost Brigade has a very independent, almost DIY attitude towards their music and the things surrounding it since they're responsible for their artwork, website and merchandise. This sort of posture comes from the years of experience with Sunride, playing small venues, riding vans and crashing on sofas?

“Yeah it definitely comes from there and especially touring with punk and hardcore bands back in the day and getting to know those people personally. We learned many important things from some of those bands and their hard-working, humble attitude towards doing things in general rally had a huge impact on me. And you know, even if it's more work to do everything yourself, I couldn't even imagine some else for example designing a record cover for us or produce our record. We like to do stuff ourselves.”

Ghost Brigade has recently completed a handful of live performances outside Finland, including a presence on the Hellfest festival in France. How did it all went down and are you happy with the reactions and experience of fronting a more metal audience?

“It was great!! Hellfest crowd was awesome, the tent was completely full and I didn't see anyone leave during our set. And as far as I can tell, a lot of people seemed to enjoy it. Good fucking times!”

More info at: www.ghostbrigade.net

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