Battlelore
Messengers From The Middle Earth

09.08.2007

Finland’s Battlelore determined its mission in the very beginning – to use music and lyrics as a medium for delivering tales of the Middle Earth, fully based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s immortal books, to brutal music fans. Since that time on, namely, since 1999, the gang of two beautiful “elves”, and five not so beautiful, but still very nice “goblins”, has been playing the music that is now called fantasy metal. Over those eight years, Battlelore managed to record four albums, release a live show on a DVD, and even visit Russia, where they played at the Twilight of the Gods festival, making an unforgettable impression on Russian metalheads. And today we present an interview that was given to our website by guitarist, lyricist and band founder Jyri Vahvanen and drummer Henri Vahvanen.

Supporting your new album «Evernight» you did a tour in Europe. How did you like it? How was the response of the audience? Did you play a lot of new songs live?

Henri: Yes, it was great to be on a tour again. The response from the audience was awesome and once again we proved that we are definitely more a live- than a studio band. It is always nice to meet old and new fans around Europe and drink a beer or two with them! I can promise you that we always give 110% on our gigs and many people who don’t like our albums have really enjoyed our energetic live shows. On the Evernight tour we tried to play songs from our every album, but of course the focus was on the new songs. We also had a session guitarist, Tommi Lintunen, with us, because Jyri was traveling in Asia during the tour.

You run a tour diary on your website, it’s a very good idea, we think. But do you have enough time to communicate to fans? Whose idea was the diary?

Henri: Actually we have had a lot of good feedback from our fans because we wouldn’t ‘hide’ in the backstage or leave to our hotel or bus, but gladly meet fans after our gigs. All of the band members are very active on our website’s message board where we chat and answer the questions of our fans. The tour diary was something what every one of us agreed. It would be a shame not to do so.

Do you get any special gifts from fans? What were the most unusual and memorable things your fans have ever given to you?

Henri: Sometimes we have some gifts from our fans and especially our girls, Kaisa and Maria, have got some nice gifts like paintings, cards, flowers etc. especially from the male fans.

Jyri: I think that the most memorable gift was from one of our Spanish fans who gave us a bottle of whisky and bibs with a text “Give me beer” or something. That was quite hilarious.

Who designs your concert costumes and live make-up?

Jyri: Mostly we design our costumes and make-ups by ourselves but of course we use a help of professionals. We are very lucky to have highly talented friends who also made the designs with us.

Whose idea was to make those nice-looking elf’s ears? Do you use them on every show?

Jyri: In the very beginning we decided to make Kaisa’s look matching an Elf and I had a few pairs of those elf-ears which we decided to use. After that those ears have been like a “trademark” for Kaisa. She uses them almost on every gig.

What does your audience usually look like – common metal fans or people dressed in the Tolkien style?.. Did you see fans copying your make-up, for example?

Jyri: There are also common metal fans, but sometimes you can see some elves and orcs in our audience and that is always a great honor and fun for us. A few times we have seen some people wearing an elf ears like Kaisa and some of the fans also have their own weapons with them. Well, those are usually plastic, but axes and swords anyway! (laughs)

Several musicians have left Battlelore over the years due to different reasons, but Jyri and Kaisa have been in the band from the beginning. Could you say what the most difficult aspects of being musicians are? And what are the most interesting ones?

Jyri: If you skip our first demo tape “Warrior’s Tale” then also Maria has been in Battlelore from the beginning. The most difficult thing for being a musician is how to fit your dayjob or/and studies to your band activities like album recordings and touring. We do not earn our livings from Battlelore so it is sometimes very hard to make timetables or plan tour dates which are suitable for every one of us. But for all of us the music comes first. That is the reason why some people have left Battlelore. They just didn’t have time for the band. The most interesting and fun is playing live. We totally enjoy the excitement of our shows.

Henri: I think that there is nothing difficult in being a musician. It is always a choice of life.

You have four studio albums already, and for the fourth time album lyrics were inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien. Which of his works became the basis for the lyrics on “Evernight”? Does the album have any concept? Who in the band writes the lyrics?

Jyri: I write almost all of the lyrics. As I have said several times before, Battlelore is like a tribute band to Tolkien’s Middle-earth literature and we will use his writings for inspiration as long as Battlelore exists. If I or someone else in a band would like to write music from some other subject, then he/she must do it for some other band or project and actually we all have some side projects which play quite different kind of music than Battlelore. There is a small concept between some of the songs in “Evernight”. It is ‘Akallabeth’ the Fall of Numenor which you can find from “Silmarillion”. The original plan was to use that concept for the whole album, but then we decided to add also some songs out of that theme to the album. There are songs from Tolkien’s books, but also from the whole Middle-earth theme. For ”Evernight” I expanded my lyrical interpretation to include more than just plain events and characters and made more room for larger subjects and imagination. But still the main inspiration for every song comes from Tolkien’s written poetry. With “Evernight” you just have to be more careful and use your Tolkien-knowledge and creativity when you read the lyrics.

There are a lot of reviews of your latest album, the response is mainly good but sometimes it differs. How much does critics’ opinion mean to you?

Jyri: Of course we read the reviews of our albums and gigs and I would lie if I say that it doesn’t affect me. Not too much, but sometimes it is frustrating to read some bad or even good reviews where the appraiser has totally missed the point of the album, but hey, you can’t satisfy everyone. This is almost a cliché to say but in the end we are doing our music for ourselves and if the bigger audience also likes it, then it is also a positive thing for us and it keeps our record company happy, hahaha!

Did you have any guest musicians this time?

Jyri: For “Evernight” we planned to use some guests, but when we entered to the studio, we realized that we can do all the necessary things by ourselves. I guess that for our next album we might use some choirs or something but we’ll see about that.

What do you see as the main difference in music and lyrics from album to album? What influences you in the songwriting?

Jyri: Nowadays I try to write more comprehensive lyrics as I mentioned earlier. Not so direct and clear subjects like on our first and second album. Musically we all have grown a lot and we write songs more as a band. Earlier we mostly just composed our own things with our instruments and put all the stuff together and fixed it into a song, but nowadays we work more closely and share our ideas. For me the main influences besides Tolkien is the nature, seasons, Finnish folklores and of course my everyday life including relationships and up- and downhills.

Kaisa and Jussi have recently taken part in a radio show. How often is possible to see/hear you in mass media? In which country is fantasy metal most popular?

Jyri: Usually when you release the new album, the media fuss around the band is on its highest for a couple of months and we got a chance to do a lot of radio shows around the globe (in present or by phone) and in Finland we usually do a few television appearances in Finnish music programs. I think that fantasy metal is most popular in Central Europe, namely in Germany and Austria.

Battlelore includes seven band members. Is it difficult to get along together with each other in such a big company?

Jyri: Not at all. We have a great spirit in our band and for many of us Battlelore is like a ‘second family’. Many bands who we have toured with, have said that you can feel the good atmosphere in our group and we also like to make a lot of new friends from other bands. In that point of view we are quite an unusual Finnish metal band, because most of the Finns just like to hang around in their own group and drink themselves wasted. We just want to drink ourselves wasted in a good company with others! (laughs)

Your first DVD "The Journey" was released in 2004. The main segment of it is the live show at Tavastia Club, but it has only 6 songs. Is it indeed the full version of the show, or was it reduced for some reason? And how do you evaluate your first experience with DVD?

Jyri: We didn’t participate on the editing of the DVD so we have nothing to do with the final length of the gig. We played more songs than 6, but for some reason it was cut down. I think that there were some technical reasons why the gig was reduced into 6 songs only. For us it was quite exciting and weird in a way to shoot a DVD, because we never expected to release a DVD in such an early stage of our career. But Napalm Records wanted us to do so, so it was great experience for us.

In March this year, you played at the «Twilight of the Gods» festival in St. Petersburg. How did you like Russia? And what did you do to the bottle of vodka which was given to you on this show?

Henri: We had our doubts about the promoter and organizer, but everything went better than well and you can be sure that we will play there again! All the arrangements were professionally made and the audience was awesome and wild! We really enjoyed playing there! There was a plenty of vodka for us, but I think that the bottle you meant, was emptied by me in our bus on the way back home.

Jyri: I missed that gig also, because of my ‘wanderlust’ in Asia. I heard so many good stories from that gig that I really pity that I wasn’t able to play there. But next time I’ll be there for sure!

The metal scene in Finland is very strong. Do you feel the spirit of competition? Which bands do you think are your rivals, and which bands are beyond comparison?

Jyri: I haven’t felt any competition yet, because there are so many metal genres in our country and most of the bands know and support each others. I think that ‘rival’ is quite a strong word for the other bands but groups like Turisas, Moonsorrow, Ensiferum, Korpiklaani, Finntroll and Kivimetsän Druidi are in the same genre with us and we usually share the same audience. But on the other hand almost all of us know at least some of the guys from those other bands and we don’t have any reason to compete or argue. It is always best for everyone if we play the same festivals or gigs.

Speaking about the early days - some sources say that your band was founded in 1996, others claim that it was in 1999. What’s the correct date? Who gave the name to the band and what does it mean?

Jyri: The first steps of Battlelore were made in 1996 when we rehearsed with a totally different line-up and used the name ’Orthanc’. We never released anything and the whole ‘project’, as it was back then, faded away for a few years, but I still wrote some songs to hide them into my drawer for waiting a right time to play them with a suitable musicians. Then in 1999, I and our ex-bassist Miika Kokkola started to rehearse again and I discovered the name ‘Battlelore’. So the ‘official’ date for Battlelore’s birth is 1999. As a word, Battlelore doesn’t mean anything. It is more like a modification from ‘folklore’. I just wanted to make it sound more aggressive so I replaced the word “folk”- with “battle”.

Have you ever think of re-releasing your promo-CDs «Warrior's tale» and «Dark Fantasy»? How much are they different from the music that we hear on regular CDs?

Jyri: I think we won’t release them in a near future. At least we would have to record them again because of the poor sound quality. Actually songs like “Raging Goblin” and “Swordmaster” also exists on our “Dark Fantasy” promo. Those promo/demo recordings are made by young and anxious metalheads like we were in our youth, and most of the songs are quite ‘loose’ and without a clear structure, but that’s the case with almost every band’s demo tapes.

Do any of Battlelore members have side-projects or play in some other bands?

Jyri: Yes, almost all of us have some other band projects. Tomi plays guitar in a jazz/stoner band called Elephant Bell and he is also the mastermind behind the dark metal band called Evemaster. Timo and Maria play in a dark/black metal band called Elderthrones. Henri teaches drums in a local band school and he also plays drums in my unnamed side project which is something between stoner and black metal. Also Timo and Henri have their own project called Grey Inside. Kaisa and Jussi visit time to time a various bands as session musicians.

What are Battlelore’s plans for future? What do you expect from the three festivals you are going to play this year?

Jyri: There might be some touring in Europe in October and probably a few gigs in Russia also. We try to rehearse a lot so that we could start the recordings of our next album in February or March 2008. Of course we expect a lot from the up coming gigs and it is great and refreshing to play some single festivals besides the long tours around Europe.

Would you like to add something from your side? Or please leave a message for your Russian fans.

Jyri: Thanks for the interview and keep up the good work! Next time I’ll be also playing in Russia and we will surely blast the stage where ever we come!

Henri: Russia rocks!!!!

Battlelore on the Internet: http://www.battlelore.net

Special thanks to Alexei “KIDd” Kuzovlev (Irond Records) for arranging this interview.

Anna Babicheva, Ekaterina Fyodorova
July 26, 2007
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