SWALLOW THE SUN

Plague of butterflies

As you may know, last year SWALLOW THE SUN released an EP entitled „Plague Of Butterflies”. The title song was written specially for an unique project combining ballet and metal. Unfortunately, the project came to nothing (because of the money issues) and the band decided to release the EP featuring the aforementioned track plus remastered version of their never released first demo tape „Out of This Gloomy Light”. In my personal opinion "Plague Of Butterflies" is a very special yet still underrated release. It's a pretty good reason to interview those Finnish doomsters, isn't it? Unfortunately, SWALLOW THE SUN are currently on tour in the States, so it wasn't an easy thing to get in touch with them. An additional difficulty was that well known fact that Finns drink a lot (to relieve their unbearable pain of existence- as they used to say hehe). Fortunately, guitarist Juha Raivio declared himself a teetotaller and we had a pretty nice chat.

-Hello SWALLOW THE SUN! How are you doing? Hopefully, things are going OK. What are latest news from band's camp? You are on tour at the moment, so... is everything going OK?
We are doing fine thank you. We just started the North American tour and things has gone pretty good so far, but still 47 gig, 22 000 km and couple of months to go this tour, so everything can happen. We tought that we gonna espace the Finnish snow and cold to America, but it's bloody cold and loads of snow here too, haha!

-How did you actually embark on it? Your music style is pretty much different compared to the other bands appearing on this tour, so...
Its pretty hard to find a bands to tour with this kind of music, so we must go pretty much with everything that is just metal. Only bigger bands that come to my mind that would suit us touring with would be Opeth, My Dying Bride, Kataonia, Moonspell and maybe few more, but it's ok, people seem to have wider taste of music these days anyway.

-The second part of "Plague Over America" takes place in May. You will appear on that one as direct support to ENSLAVED. Wow! That's really impressive, two big US tours in a row...
That tour got cancelled by Enslaved, so it won't happen now. We were really waiting for that tour because that would also be one band to suit us by musically, but it won't happen now.

-Shit, I didn't know about the cancellation. Too bad! It could be a good package. OK, nevermind. This is your second tour in the US. If I remember well, for the first time you visited America in 2007, when you appeared on tour with KATATONIA, SCAR SYMMETRY and INSOMNIUM. How do you recall that tour?
That has been the best tour we ever done so far. It was so great to play that tour because people were really liking us and there were loads of fans on the gigs. That's the reason why we have been waiting so much to play here in US again, audience has been fantastic so far on this tour, even main band plays totally different music this time.

-"Plague over America" is the longest tour you have ever played throughout your career. Are you prepared both mentally and physically for it? Are you tough enough to survive fifty afterparties in a row?
Haha, no we are not prepared mentally or physically for this, so Im sure there's gonna be few hard times because we are touring in a small Van and sleeping between seats time to time when it's too long drive to next city. But hey, you got to work for the band if you want to bring the music to people. We got 2 days off between 50 gigs on this tour, so it's impossible to have 50 afterparties and stay alive, haha.

-Finns are famous for drinking a bit too much from time to time. What about you? The currently running tour is definitely a great opportunity for it. Who is the strongest drinker in the band?
Well, I don't drink at all, but other boys are famous to be most drunken bastards in whole Finland, haha. We have even been voted most fucked up band in Finland few years back. But these days things have been getting better, and really you can't survive alive if you are heavy drinking 50 gigs in a row and tour with a Van.. well... maybe our boys can, haha. We see later.

-Cross my fingers for it. What was the worst and most ridiculous alcohol- related incident featuring any member of SWALLOW THE SUN?
Well,, theres quite a few I can't even say aloud, but let's say boys been in jail and hospitalised on the road for drinking too much, but like I said it's been getting a bit easier these days.

-In December 2008 you appeared on tour in the UK, opening for APOCALYPTICA. Was it a successful one? What is the difference of touring with a big and worldwide known band compared to the smaller ones?
Well of course touring with big bands is a great chance to reach loads of new people at the same time, and usually things work well with the management and tour managers too. Apocalyptica tour was fantastic and boys and the whole crew were brilliant. Sometimes little bit smaller bands and their tourmanagers can be real asholes when it comes to handling things, but then again you just have to deal with it.

-OK, now I will try to be more serious with my questions. Last year you released a new EP entitled poetically "Plague Of Butterflies". It turned out very good. Actually, how did you come up with an idea for that? I mean not only the track itself, but also a metal- ballet project you wrote this track for...
I was asked to do the music for this project and I found it really interesting to do with Swallow The Sun, to make things a bit different this time. I'm a fan of bands like Rush, Marillion and Genesis and I had my own progressive band back in 90´s, so it was pretty easy to do this kind of track for this band too. People seem to like it a lot, even it's pretty hard track, but this music will never be mainstream so who cares if the song is 35 minutes or not, haha.

-Unfortunately, the project was cancelled, but I would like to know a little bit more about it. It's very interesting...
Yes it was really sad to hear that things went down because of the money issues. I was really thinking of the ballet when composing the music and it would worked out really good together, but then again there was nothing we could do about it when we heard it's not gonna happen. It was the Ballet and our record company that didn't got the thing together because of money, but we were left with the music and wanted to put it out anyway, and not as a long length but and EP before the next STS album.

-In the end "Plague Of Butterflies" was released officially and it isn't only "a filler release" between the previous and the next full length album. It contains one of the most amazing tracks this band has ever written. I mean of course the title one. The piece is... over 34 minutes long. Holy shit! What drugs did you take to write such track? Was it a challenge to work on it?
Haha, noooo I don't even do drugs. Actually the song was quite easy to do because of my past with progressive music, in fact it was even easier to do than regular STS track. As I said it was very inspiring to think about the ballet while composing the music, I'm still so sad that it didn't happen, but maybe we got that short movie made out of it in some point. Songs are always little soundtracks for me and this one is a big one, heh.

-Could you describe the three chapters of the track (Losing The Sunsets, Plague Of Butterflies, Evael 10:00), both musically and also lyrically?
Losing The Sunsets starts very calm and easy, and the whole feeling is like a calm before the storm. Lyrically its about loneliness and this hermits wish that someone or something would come and release him away from his pain. Plague Of Butterflies breaks all hell loose musically and lyrically when plague hits the village near by the hermits house in the woods, and kills even the last of the few people who are still alive. It's really violent and desperate track but got some of most beautiful moments too. Evael 10:00 closes the song with very dark and majestic atmosphere. Lyrically last song ends the whole story to the death of the hermit, but the way it comes is a suprise.

-I truly admire that very dark and dramatic feeling of the song. It contains all what SWALLOW THE SUN has been known for, starts with a pretty mellow guitar chords, keyboards, and in the middle part grows into a very aggressive, almost black metal track. Great vocal parts, epic keyboards, amazing riffs, brilliant leading melody lines, dark and gloomy atmosphere- it all constitutes the essence of this band. Can you agree with me?
Yes, I really feel that this album stands for everything that we are. There are all the elements that we are made of. I think that we found our own style already from the first demo and when you listen the first demo on the Plague Ep after the main song, you can really hear it's the same band playing.

-By the way, many people say that SWALLOW THE SUN is like a more melodic version of MY DYING BRIDE. How do you see this comparison?
Well, I take all the comparsions to MDB like huge compliments because without that band there would not be Swallow The Sun either, I just love that band.