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by PAUL SOUTHWELL
FINNISH heavy metal band Battle Beast have been making quite a noise on the international stage, with a steadily growing fanbase, and a concise, well produced back catalogue over the last decade and a half. Now, with a new singer, Marina La Torraca, in their ranks, they are about to make their debut tour to our shores. We caught up with long serving bassist, backing vocalist and co-songwriter, Eero Sipilä to discuss the new line-up and the upcoming tour.
HOT METAL: A vocalist change can be drastic as a vocalist could be argued to be the recognisable sound of a band in some situations. I presume you have to adapt your performance for a completely new individual, and how they approach things.
EERO SIPILÄ: “Yeah, absolutely. But for new things, it’s kind of hard to put your finger on it, as people aren’t interchangeable. You can’t just replace them like car tyres. Everybody has their own personality, their own voice and their own range. What we did in the past with every single song that we always sought out the perfect key for Noora [Louhimo] to sound the best in, even if that meant that the guitar parts were slightly more awkward to play; that was the price you had to pay. That’s what we’re doing with future songwriting, and with future performances; we are going to seek out the correct keys for Marina to sound her best. That’s just what we always do and melody comes first – that’s kind of the guiding line regarding songwriting in this band.”
HM: These situations can kind of arise where you’re on tour and someone wants to quit the band, and it’s all very dramatic, or you might know it’s coming and then you plan for it. I gather in this instance that everything was okay; Noora wanted to go on a solo career.
ES: “Yeah, pretty much but a band is not a prison sentence or a religious cult. If you want to go, then you go. I mean, this is how it goes and everybody has their own artistic aspirations about what you want to do, what kind of productions you want to be in. And we all just have one life. So, you know, if you want to do something different, then you’ve got to go for it. I mean, there’s no other way around, really.”
HM: You’ve got the tour starting in Japan, which then goes to Australia. So, that’ll be the first performances for Marina in a live environment with an audience responding. So, I gather you’re quietly confident that everything will be good.
ES: “Yeah, we’re confident. We’re excited. We’re scared. I mean, when we work together, when we rehearse, when we talk bad stuff, everybody has such a good mood that I don’t see a way how that good energy wouldn’t translate into stage as well. Obviously, it’s going to be a bit raw, but I think also is a strength that not everything is super rehearsed to perfection. People who come to the shows will have a chance to witness something unique to see a band in a kind of a formative phase of their career; fresh, new energy. No one really knows what’s going to happen, not even us in the band, because stage chemistry or band chemistry isn’t something that develops overnight. So, these first shows will be like, yeah, well, by fire. But I’m really super psyched and looking forward to seeing how it will go because I have all the reasons to believe that’s going to be fucking great.”
HM: Sounds excellent, and her experience is quite staggeringly good. There is the stuff that she did with previous bands like Phantom Elite, and then doing musicals and whatnot. Her vocal range, and her ability to project is exactly what you want for this style of music.
ES: “Yeah, yeah. She has a very strong… I don’t remember the word in English but let’s say, chest register, and that’s just kind of something you need for our music that you need to be able to go super high whilst still having a full body voice. But also, she has the kind of a headed voice, which is the lighter sound and a very strong lower register. And I think for future songwriting, we are going to take all of those attributes into consideration; making new melodies that will best suit her and bring out her amazing abilities.”
HM: The last album was out fairly recently. I guess that material has been able to settle with you quite well by now. But it’s interesting when you suddenly have a new vocalist in there. Does it alter the way you approach the music that you’re so familiar with?
ES: “I mean, not really; it’s still super new. We’ve only played a super long tour, the longest we ever did, but we’ve only done 39 shows, which was the first tour with this new album, and it was relatively fresh for the rest of the band as well. We haven’t played the new songs to the ground. But I don’t see us approaching these songs differently. We’ll give Marina the space she needs and deserves to do her magic, and we’re just going to do the best we can to back her up and support her from whatever we stage.”
HM: Do you feel there’s any songs from the back catalogue that she’s found challenging?
ES: “They are all damned challenging. That’s something we discussed with Marina. It’s like singing a set full of beats. It’s like an athletic performance, like art, but it’s also, athletics with the way you need to control your body and all the muscles you need for singing. All of the songs are challenging for any singer. I would be wrong to pinpoint any single one, but we haven’t really had time to go through the back catalogue. We definitely haven’t tried everything out, but, yeah, everything is challenging, but nothing is impossible. That’s what I would say.”
HM: Is everybody going to be adding in backing vocals live?
ES: “Yeah, I mean, that’s how we always do it. We got Joona [Björkroth], the lead guitarist, myself, and Janne [Björkroth] the keyboard player. We all do backing vocals. So, yeah, that’s
what we do.”
HM: The vocal harmonies and melodies are quite intricate, at times.
ES: “Those are all, prewritten when we write the songs, we do all these backing vocals in the studio. Then during the very first rehearsals, we’ve had those kinds of vocal harmony rehearsals where we plan from say using the highest voice, the middle voice, and the lower voice. Then we do the same, same thing for every single song where we sing.”
HM: Have you been writing new material at all or do you plan to do it later?
ES: “I would say, at least for me, I’m always, I wouldn’t say quite writing, but I would say, I’m gathering ideas for new songs and slowly going over what I already have. But the new album Steelbound, is still super fresh, so there’s no reason to really rush it. But the new music, like new singles or new album, whatever, they’re definitely somewhere on the horizon. But so far, ever since the beginning of last year, we’ve been insanely busy. There’s been no time to prepare anything, so we really had to act and think on our feet. But after this tour, I guess the next logical step is to kind of throw ourselves more heavily into the songwriting.”
HM: Marina’s got a credit as being a songwriter as well as vocal coach, a producer and so on. So, do you sense that there’ll be contributions from her that will be readily accepted?
ES: “Remains to be seen; we all know that she’s capable of that. But she said that she doesn’t want to kind of push too hard into the songwriting chemistry that we currently have. But on the other hand, it would be really stupid to not use her talent. So, I would wager that on the next music, future music there will be some contributions by Marina. That would be my guess. But like I said, we really don’t have a master plan ready or anything like that.”
HM: Does Marina have a different approach to harsh vocals and screams, to Noora?
ES: “Yeah, and that’s where she originates from; that kind of a more modern metal vibe than what we are used to, and there’s some older songs that we are currently playing where there’s just kind of a different kind of harsh voice that Noora has been doing and now Marina’s kind of making her own, bringing over the vocal technique from her previous music. So, yeah, it’s one of those things where I don’t think we’re going to alter our sound in any way. But if it makes sense to kind of utilise more modern sounding, harsh vocals in some parts, why the hell not? She can pull them off, and if they suit the song, then fine. But we are not going to deliberately put that in our future music.”
HM: How is the album sitting with you now? Is there a particular track that stands out for you having played it live?
ES: “Really hard to say and it depends from night to night because the album, Steelbound, is super varied. I don’t think we do a single thing twice on that record. They all have a kind of an identity of their own. They all achieve something different, and you can tell that during shows. On some shows it’s faster or more aggressive songs that really get your audience going, and other times it’s the more laidback songs or then the absolute craziness. Songs like “Twilight Cabaret”, sometimes it’s where you’re playing to a true metal audience and they’re like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ and other times it really gets the audience dancing and grooving or whatever. So, I don’t know, I couldn’t really pinpoint any single song. I like them all, which is probably a good point to be because I’m in the band that made those songs.”
HM: Have you noticed that there’s a fragmentation of the metal scene or has it become more unified?
ES: “That’s a good question, because it’s kind of both. I mean, nowadays there’s not MTV and there is not even major music press so there’s never going to be a new Metallica or Maiden, but you can still have big bands like Ghost and stuff like that, which kind of unifies, I mean, maybe even attracts people from outside the kind of metal audience. I know, for Ghost definitely that there’s a lot of metal heads who absolutely hate that band. It has more like a mainstream appeal. I’ve always had a very old school music taste. I have no idea what is hip and cool right now regarding metal. I notice some elements, but I have no idea what those genres are called. My focus is always kind of classic songwriting with the heavy metal instrumentation. But yeah, if I go online, like look at some heavy metal groups on Reddit or whatever, I have no fucking idea what people are even talking about.”
HM: Some of them act like the newer bands that come through have reinvented the wheel. I’ll then think, hang on, Ritchie Blackmore did this riff.
ES: “Yeah, I mean, that’s what I personally like. It took me a while to accept, but I finally accepted that if you come up with any musical idea that’s in any ways good, then, you know, somebody in the history of the world, even back to Beethoven or Bach, somebody somewhere has had that very same idea before you. So, you know, nobody is really inventing anything. We can all just, pick these things and the melodies come to our head. But nothing’s ever going to be new, but it’s going to be our personal take on the same musical idea. That’s how I see it.”
HM: In that light, do you prefer producing yourself or do you like bringing someone in?
ES: “The first album [Battle Beast] was different then. We had an outside producer, but ever since that, we’ve always had a person in the band producing the albums. It is something that really works for us. I have this working space [current location for interview] where we write a lot of the songs. Right next door is where we rehearse the songs, and then there’s the control room where we do a lot of the vocals and stuff like that. We have this one single complex where we basically do everything regarding our band and the music. So, it would kind of be awkward to bring in an outside producer. But on the other hand, I would be interested, if I can just totally daydream of working with some legendary producer like Rick Rubin or Bob Rock or whoever, and see what kind of an impact they could have on our music.”
HM: They probably charge a pretty high consultation fee to start off.
ES: “Yeah, exactly. Probably out of our pay grade, I’m afraid. But, you know, if I’m just there to daydream, for me personally, it will be something cool to experience. But if I’m being realistic, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.”
HM: Does a producer allow themselves to sort of ingrain themselves into what you’ve written as a song or should they stand back and say, ‘This is the song, I won’t touch that?’
ES: “It’s kind of both. Janne [Björkroth], who is the keyboard player, he’s been producing the last four albums, and it really varies. Sometimes, I’m in the studio with him and we’re like, ‘Okay, should we try this and should we try that?’ and he might suggest something. Other times it’s just he sends me a text saying, ‘Hey, we changed the drum beat on the chorus for this song,’ and then I listened to it and it’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s better now.’ That’s how it should ideally be; the producer of your band is somebody whose musical vision and expertise you trust enough to, kind of give them freedom to work on the songs. If something goes wrong, just give the feedback like, ‘Let’s cut that off.’ Yeah, it goes both ways, as I see it.”
HM: When some people listen to the final product, they just don’t appreciate the amount of time and effort and the editing that can go into making the track work.
ES: “Yeah, no, nobody really understands what’s going on. That’s funny because our band has a lot of haters, and it’s sometimes really kind of corny reading the online reviews where they say, ‘Oh, plastic keyboards, fake cymbals, blah, blah, blah,’ and there’s a big part of me would always want to answer like, ‘Hey, you don’t know anything. These are real guitars played with the Mesa engineering amp I’m looking at right now. These are real analogue keyboards, and real cymbals, recorded with one of the best percussion players in Finland,’ and so on. Yeah, people don’t understand shit about [producing recorded] music, if I’m being honest. But that’s how people online like to be angry and no one should take that too seriously.”
HM: Anyone that’s actually in the industry who’s dealing with other bands would know who’s using good equipment and so, agreed, it doesn’t really matter. You must be looking forward to coming down to Australia pretty soon.
ES: “I’m super looking forward to that. Those will be the first shows for us in Australia and some of our first shows ever with Marina, and some of our first shows for this year. So, yeah, a lot of firsts and from our perspective, Australia is pretty much the furthest place on earth we could tour. None of it has come easy or will be taken for granted. Now that we have this chance, we should experience it to the fullest.”
HM: Are you planning on making a different set list to what you’ve got currently?
ES: “Sorry to let you down, but honestly, we just don’t have the time. The schedules have been really insane. So, for now I think we’re going to stick to the new stuff, plus the greatest hits. Hopefully in the future we can mix things up. But right now, we’ve just had zero time for anything. So, we’re going to give you guys the tried-and-true Steelbound experience and hope people will enjoy it.”
HM: there’s just so many bands that come out of Europe and sometimes it’s really hard to keep up. Do you find that yourself or do you just put your head down and keep working?
ES: “I mean, sure, if you start thinking with your actual brain about how many bands are we competing with, it’s crazy. The metal scene is such that, if you are a fan of metal then you probably play in a band yourself or you play in five bands and so, the competition is crazy. Finland has the highest amount of metal bands per capita in the whole world; it’s insane.
There are such amazing musicians who play in bands no one has ever heard of because the competition is so tough and they just can’t get a break.”
