Interview with Soulwound, Thrash Metal Band from Finland

Interview with Soulwound, Thrash Metal Band from Finland

Soulwound, Thrash Metal Band from Kouvola, Finland. Soulwound are Arto Jauho - Vocals, Niko Huusari - Guitar, Mikko Huusari - Guitar, Joni Järvenmäki - Bass, and Janne Huusari - Drums. Coulwound gave us some information. Check it out.

Tell us about Soulwound?

Drummer Janne here. Soulwound is basically the culmination of my brother Niko and I picking up our respective instruments as kids sometime in the 90s. We played covers with a bunch of other guys over the years until we finally established  a steady line-up and a name for the band, and released our first demo in 2006. Holy fuck, it's already been 10 years?! Anyway, in total we've recorded four demos and two full-length albums, the second of which is about to be released. The cool thing is that we recruited our younger brother Mikko in 2014, so all three of us brothers are now in the same band.

What are lyrical themes of Soulwound?

I write the lyrics, and the short answer would be that I'm just ranting and raving about things that piss me off, ranging from personal issues to social phenomena. For instance, the second single "Altars of Skin" off the new album deals with the pathological attention whoring and desperate need for popularity that's rampant on social media sites nowadays. I've been an angry son of a bitch all my life, so there's never a shortage of things to write about. I do, however, try to leave the lyrics open for interpretation.

What are your influences?

The music is written by us brothers, and what's cool is that collectively we have a very  large pool of influences that we draw from. For example, Niko knows pretty much all old-school thrash inside out, whereas Mikko listens to a lot of more contemporary metal and I'm a sucker for everything that's rhythmically crushing. I think all of our influences come together in a pretty cool mix.

Can you tell us about Metal Scene in Kouvola?

Not much going on, it seems. The problem with the whole scene in Finland is that it's completely over-saturated. Finland is widely known as some kind of a promised land of metal, but the downside is that when there is an over-abundance of bands, it's hard for any band to stand out from the crowd and for people to stay interested.

Who are Your Favorite Finnish Thrash Metal Band?

There was a Finnish thrash/speed metal band called Stone in the 90s, who were pretty big inside Finland and quite possibly the best Finnish metal band ever. Unfortunately, they never made it big outside Finland. Their riffage and guitar work in general was fucking nuts and way ahead of their time. Roope Latvala, who played in Children of Bodom for a long time, was one of the founding members.

How were the songs written?

Over a long period of time. The most typical way we write is that one of us presents a rough demo of riffs and ideas and we arrange those ideas together into a song. Then we play it over and over and come up with small tweaks and changes on the fly. The lyrics and vocal ideas are always the last thing that gets written.

How did the recording process go?

Smoothly. We tracked the drums in a couple of evenings at a studio and then recorded everything else gradually in Niko's basement. It's sometimes really hard for us to schedule sessions because we tend to have conflicting work schedules, so the fact that we could record stuff at home whenever we had the time was crucial. Of course, we didn't want to fuck around and spend half a year putting the record together, so we tried to record everyone's parts as efficiently as we could. For instance, all of Mikko's rhythm guitar parts were done during one weekend.

What are your future plan?

We're now waiting for the international release of the album and trying to book live shows, which is turning out to be really difficult because of the work schedule conflicts I mentioned earlier. We're planning to do another European tour sometime next year, once our schedules allow it.

Are there any countries you’re interested in touring or performing in? Why?

Any country, really. It was a blast to travel from country to country on our previous European tour and see what the local scenes are like. Germany would be a cool country to play, whereas Japan would be the ultimate dream come true.

What bands would you like to play alongside?

Anyone that's fun to hang out with. There's very often an instant camaraderie between metal bands, 'cause at the end of the day we're all of just a bunch of guys who love playing heavy music and laughing at dumb shit. We have zero ego and a good work ethic when it comes to live shows, so we're really easy to get along with.

Any last words?
Thanks for your attention! Be sure to check out our new album "No Peace", out on October 21, and keep supporting music that comes from the heart! Cheers!

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