Interview:	ARCTIS
Title:	Exploiting the contrasts

Authentically close to nature, but technically equipped as modern as possible please - that is the declared motto of these Finnish Modern Metal newcomers. And so on their debut album of the same name, Arctis deliver a full broadside of surprisingly fluid, homogeneously combined contrasts.

The latter brings with it a tremendous - poppy - freshness that seems to leap out of every song. For the Scandinavian formation, the duality of their programmatically displayed attitude is completely plausible from their own point of view, as becomes clear in conversation with the two guitarists Björn Johansson and Michael Mikander, singer Alva Sandström and drummer Mika Paananen.

Congratulations for your upcoming self-titled debut album release … I hear an fully individual, thrilling hymnic and surprisingly original style ... with which moods and visions did you approach the current songwriting? 


Björn: We wanted to do something entirely new. A fresh new start with exciting possibilities. We wanted to merge the melancholy of the north with new sonic rumbling sounds! It was tricky as hell but I am very satisfied with the results!

Alva: We used to make metal music but wanted to start to blend it with pop and rock and challenge ourselves.

Mika: Yeah and this is a challenge that we want to dive deep into and work hard on! There are so many ways you can marry metal and pop music, so the possibilities are endless. I know that our sound will evolve all the time, for every album. It’s really exciting! 


How did you come together as a band? 


Alva: We all met through studies and realized we shared the same dream to make and perform our own music, and make a living from it. And from all the people I know in music, this crazy bunch felt like my kind of people to do this with, I would not have it any other way.

Björn: Weirdos are attracted to each other so that’s quite explanatory for our line-up.

Mika: Haha, Alva and Björn are right! All of us have been playing music forever, and we share the same passion to create our own material. I have known Björn since we were teenagers, and we started our own bands then already. But we all got together through music school!

"Arctis unite the opposites of nature and technology, just as the Nordic nature unites the opposites of light and darkness in a very special way" … what do you value most about Mother Nature and modern technology?

Björn: I love the nordic lights and the Finnish light summer nights! In Finland you can relatively easy go out in the woods/wilds and be by yourself and disconnect from the static noise of today’s world. Technologically I think tube amplifiers peaked in the 80’s. I value such innovations most. 


Mika: Yeah even though I could move away from Finland every November (it’s gray and dark as hell, rain and snow, the weather is the definition of depression here then), I still love the nature here. If we can keep as much as possible of what nature we have left untouched, I would be happy! Also, I think the extreme light difference here really messes with your brain. In the summer the sun never sets, and in the winter it never rises. It gives you perspective the hard way. When you start to take one thing for granted, it changes. Modern technology? If someone could figure out cheaper drumsticks, skins and cymbals I would be happy! 


Alva: Haha, Björn and Mika’s nerdy technology comments aside… We wanted to bring a little hint of sci-fi, cyberpunk, etc into our image, and not just fully draw our inspiration from nature. It came kinda naturally from how we started to use synths and EDM elements in our songs. We are not a band with flutes in the forest even though our biggest inspiration right now is the nature of the north. Just like pop marries metal in our material, we wanted nature to marry some modern digital vibes in our image as well. This is something that changes from video to video, and will develop over time, but nordic/arctic nature will always be our strongest and most important visual feature.

"Magic is unleashed and stories are told that go far beyond the music. Front woman Alva captivates with the charisma of an ice queen and the charisma of a leader, leading the way for Captain Björn, the magician Michael, the restless wanderer Mats and the wise man Mika" … what inspired you to create this particular characterization? 


Alva: We wanted to create strong stage personas for each member to lift our image and live presence. They are based on our own personalities, and help to strengthen and amplify ourselves and the band as whole. And let’s be honest guys, Björn simply cannot be a chill and cool modern guitarist. We had no choice but to create these stage personas so that Björn can be free to be himself, haha. And since we named our band Arctis, of course the blond front woman has to be some kind of Ice queen. And it fits me too, there is nothing that thrills me like the forces of our nature around us. When icy winter winds hit my face, it makes me feel alive.

Björn: I am a man of the sea. I am merely an amplified version of myself.

Michael: I love to discover and try out crazy ideas, to constantly get better at everything I do musically so that one day it almost seems like magic! 


Mika: I like books.

How do you see and evaluate the album within your musical journey so far? 


Björn: This is only the beginning! We are constantly working on new stuff and making plans for future concepts! I am very proud of the first album and how it turned out. We have only released one single at the time of writing and it has been received very well. We have a lot more up our sleeves so I am very excited! 


Michael: I think we are all proud of what we accomplished with the first album. We have learned a lot since its completion which we will bring to the second album!

Mika: Yes indeed, the first album was a very long and tough learning experience (experiment?), and we have grown so much as musicians, people and songwriters through that process. Can’t wait to continue this journey and keep creating and exploring new ideas!

How can the readers imagine Arctis writing, developing and finalizing one of their (new) songs?

Michael: It usually starts with one or two people writing a demo that we present to the other members. After that it’s a collaborative effort to finalize the song! 


Mika: Yeah, and a lot of rewrites! If we get stuck, we let the song rest for a while and work on other songs. And when we come back, we usually know what could be better. But sometimes we feel like yeah, this is perfect too! Some songs almost write themselves, and others require a lot of love. If we feel like one song isn’t good enough, we save it for later. Who knows, when you listen to it in a few years, it could be just right! 


Björn: The first album was quite chaotic. We would spend 18 hours straight everyday in the studio and work like maniacs! On the first song we wrote I passed out from lack of sleep and hit my head on Mika’s drum chair! Nowadays we are more organized when we write and record. We have a term ”someone has to drive around the gravel” which translates to someone’s gotta do the boring stuff too. There’s high points and low points in the process but mostly it is fun!

Who out of you guys did the lion's share of the new song material?

Michael: It’s almost impossible to think back and remember who did what. We all write music and everyone contributes to the songs.

Björn: Everyone of the band gave all they had on this production. This was not a solo race but a grand team effort. If one person would have had this workload he or her would not have been around today. Arctis is a cool band in this way, you can expect to both hear and see everyone’s contribution in everything we do!

Mika: Yeah this workflow is something we are really proud of and want to keep doing! Having everyone contributing to the writing process is such a nice thing. We have our own ideas and help each other out with them.

How was the selection of songs for the upcoming album done - was it difficult or rather easy for the band?

Björn: It came together quite naturally! We wrote songs together with Jimmy Westerlund and after a while we had a bunch of songs in the bag! We noticed later that we needed two more songs to complete the album so we added those in the last moment before the mixing started! One of those songs was ’I’ll Give You Hell’ which is our first single!

As we can read, you draw inspiration from the mythical nature of the north and its extreme seasons, which you translate into a futuristic scenario - what exactly does that mean?

Björn: We have a hidden backstory or lore behind the band. We draw inspiration from that and we intend to expand our themes from this lore in the future! We came up with the backstory one dark winter’s night while consuming red wine! It is amazing what you can come up with when you are on the same bandwidth! We will show more of the story in the future but we have to be a bit secretive at the moment, hehe!

According to the band info, you do an equally great balancing act on the sound level by skillfully combining modern metal with pop and thus creating an epic and original sound universe - which bands led you to modern metal? 


Björn: I am heavily influenced by bands such as Bring Me The Horizon, Rammstein, Slipknot, Type O Negative etc. For me it was probably Bring Me The Horizon that inspired me the most for our direction, I think they are very fresh! But I listen mostly to music from the 2000’s. I am very much into industrial music too! 


Michael: There’s too many to count but Bring Me The Horizon, Spiritbox, Bad Omens, Sleeptoken and Architects to name a few. 


Alva: I also listened to some Within Temptation when I was younger. They started to sound very modern with their album „Resistance“, that development was inspiring to me. We kinda discovered a lot of these modern (Metal) bands even more after we already finished our first album, so they inspire us more in our songwriting today. 


Mika: Perturbator and Carpenter Brut are also super inspirational. It feels like they are Metal bands. All these dark industrial techno acts inspire me greatly. I love the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack as well!

Who were your early pop heroes and how many of them even managed to inspire you creatively for your music? 


Alva: I partly grew up with some 80’s pop/synthwave like Eurythmics, it was pretty melancholic music even though it was pop. I of course went through all the 90's and 2000 pop like every other teenager but mainstream pop was never a genre that interested me. I like more unique and melancholic acts. Present artists like The Weekend and Grimes have brought some inspiration to my table.

Björn: I listened to Elton John when I was very young! I find Elton very nostalgic! I must also mention artists such as P!NK, Lady Gaga and Björk in this section. Catchy songs are not restricted by genre definitions! 


Michael: Perhaps not Pop but Deadmau5 has inspired me creatively! 


Mika: AQUA?

Are there any things, books, movies, etc. that can/have influenced you as musicians?

Björn: Aha! A very good question! I am a huge fan of Tolkien’s works and I would be lying if I said that the Lord Of The Rings did not influence me! I think Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the Lord Of The Rings is masterful in every aspect! And I love the music of Howard Shore who was the composer of those movies! Other than that I am heavily influenced by the Jack Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian! There are a lot of similarities in me and one of the main characters: Jack Aubrey in those books! Kinda fitting that we both are captains! 


Mika: The Final Fantasy game series has inspired me all my life. The different worlds and stories are so epic, and the music too! 


Michael: World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy games and music! 


Alva: Musically I am also inspired by gaming music like Mika and Michael. Björn takes care of the department of symphonic movie soundtrack-inspiration for the band. When it comes to stories I am more old school and didn’t grow up with games, but with books and paintings inspired by old nordic tales. I always loved the mystique and melancholia in these tales and paintings (go check out John Bauer!). That plus the climate/environment of where we live has definitely shaped me as a musician. I don't generally like “happy” or light music.

Please bring the readers closer to the main lyrical content of your upcoming release! 


Björn: Our lyrical themes revolve quite often around mental issues. Sometimes you can be your worst enemy and there is an internal fight ensuing. On the positive side we have themes about freedom and not giving up your dreams, no matter how big the obstacles are! Many of our songs deal also with anxiety and oppression and the counter reaction to those issues!

It's the first time I've heard of the Lambretta song in so many years, it got some TV-featuring back then - how did you come up with that one?

Mika: Hehe yeah it was pretty much the same for us! Someone suggested to us that, “you should cover this song!”, and when we heard it we got this awesome nostalgia! We hadn’t heard this song since we were kids, and it's still such a good song even today! So we were really happy to cover it. We had such a great time doing it too. It was a breath of fresh air to do a cover song in between original songs for the album. Trying to come up with cool things to make the version our own. It really gave us a good boost for finishing the rest of the album. 


Björn: I actually listened secretly to ’Bimbo’ a couple of years ago and thought to myself ”that is a really cool song, that would be awesome to write such a good song sometime!”. I did listen to this of course in secret not to upset Mika. 


Mika: God damnit…

Is there and in case yes, what is the o-n-e song with the most meaning for you on „Arctis“ and why?

Michael: For me it has to be ”Frozen Swan”. I think it symbolizes a lot for everyone in the band.

Mika: Yeah I have to agree, definitely “Frozen Swan”. It really is a song about breaking free, and since we are from a small town up in the north, we have always been terrified of getting “frozen” in place here. We want to play music around the world, and of course see the world! Music is a way for us to break free so to speak.

Björn: ’Frozen Swan’ is definitely one of the more ”Arctistic” songs on the album both sound and lyric wise but the song with most meaning for me is ’Theatre Of Tragedy’ because that song is about the inner struggle I mentioned earlier! A real banger with hard hitting lyrics! 


Alva: It is ’Frozen Swan’ for me too. I love to live in the countryside here in the north, to be somewhere where I can have peace and quiet and surround myself with beautiful nature. But any small town life can feel pretty narrow minded and boring sometimes, and I start to long for another kind of community, a different way of being and to generally see more of the world and to meet new - and likeminded - people. That feels so exciting to me!

Your album debut was produced by the multi-platinum award-winning Jimmy Westerlund (Sturm und Drang) - and he did a truly great job, isn't? How was the collaboration?

Alva: We were still pretty new to making something other than metal music, and to write together as a group, f.e Mika and Björn made music together before I came into the picture and even tried to write my first song. During this period with Jimmy we started to develop our songwriting together and discover new sounds and ways to write. He taught us a lot during our time together.

Björn: Yeah it was a very inspiring and learning experience! It was our first time in the studio with a producer and the tempo was fast! Jimmy taught me a lot and he is truly a man of melodies! It was monumental work but we came through!

Mika: He also taught us that you have to have fun in the studio! He said you can hear it on the record. On a serious note, we had many, many long nights and days, we worked so hard and he really pushed us to become better and better. “You need better songs!”- was a standard phrase.

„Arctis“ was mixed by Stefan Glaumann and mastered by the twice Grammy-nominated Svante Forsbäck, both known for their work for Rammstein - what an impressing reference, or? How was the collaboration? What factors of their work do you value most in your songs on the album and why? 


Mika: Yeah we were really happy that we got these guys to work with us! Our manager had worked with Glaumann before so he got us in touch with him. Glaumann was so helpful to us because he gave us a lot of time to work on everything and he was so patient with us. And that was what we needed, a calm person to help us get through the last part of finishing the album! A funny thing was that he was actually the one who mixed the original version of the song “Bimbo”, and now he got to do it again, many years later! We have to give a big shout out to Forsbäck as well! We have worked with him before in some other projects, and he is an absolute pro at what he does. You know for sure that it’s going to sound amazing when he masters your songs!

Björn: I have been a big Rammstein fan since the early 2000’s. Both Glaumann and Forsbäck have had their hands in the music I grew up with. I love their mastercraft in our sound, how it was mixed and mastered! It sounds absolutely huge and it was a dream come true to work with these guys!

Because this interview is so much about modernity and the future ... the world and its societies seem to be upside down again far too often in these times - how much are you looking forward to the future and how do you want to shape it best for yourselves?

Mika: We are very much looking forward to the future, and we have to keep up the hope for it all to get better in the world! We hope we can spread positivity through our music, to hopefully make someone's day a bit better. As for ourselves, we are always working hard and writing new music and coming up with many different ideas about what we want to do in the future of Arctis.

Björn: We are looking forwards with great interest! We want to tour around the world and do great memorable shows until we can’t stand upright anymore haha! I have longed for the day when we finally release our music to the world and now it is here! We will put the pedal to the metal and go hard now when we are out in the world!

Your upcoming European album tour with Apocalyptica immediately after the release - what do you like to report about it?

Mika: This is pretty much us coming right out of the studio straight to the big stages. It will be a terrifyingly amazing experience for sure! First to have the honor to join Apocalyptica on their tour is just unbelievable, and when we saw what venues and cities we were going to play we just got mind blown! We are so excited for this to start our journey in this big way, and we really hope to see as many people as possible showing up to see us - and Apocalyptica too of course!

Björn: Gigs ahoy! Cast away the anchor and string my guitar! This is going to be a blast! It will be the first live shows with Arctis so we start with a bang! We look forward to meet all fans on the tour and meet new ones! There will be some serious mileage and headbanging in November! Hopefully we’ll come to Germany soon!

© Markus Eck, 27.10.2024

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