Before The Dawn
Time To Show A New Side

09.01.2012

We get something new from Finland’s Before The Dawn almost every year, and we can’t stop wondering how many ideas are housed in the head of its mainman. Tuomas Saukkonen is basically outpouring with energy and devoting all his time to music. Music is simply his life. He is not only playing different instruments in five different projects, he also writes, mixes and records the albums of these bands, let alone producing other Finnish bands. He has an image of a very serious person, but turns to be very talkative and friendly. I managed to meet Tuomas during Before The Dawn’s recent tour with Insomnium in Germany, and though we didn't have much time, he tried to answer all our questions.

It has been a year since you got signed to Nuclear Blast Records. How did you manage to get the deal? Were there any other proposals?

The first three albums we had were with this weird Spanish label (Locomotive Records – ed.). And the following two albums were with a better German label. During this deal we took part in some festivals in Germany and we started to get many proposals from different labels. And when we already made the fifth album, there were quite many labels which were interested in a deal with us. Nuclear Blast was the biggest label on this list, and it is the international leader, which we couldn’t but take into account.

How did the life of the band change after signing to Nuclear Blast? Do they live up to your expectations regarding promotion and touring support?

The thing is that during this bad time, when we had also many changes in our line-up, we were already planning a lot of gigs, like a European tour and festivals, but suddenly there was only half of the band left. That's why we didn’t take any summer festivals' offers and we didn't tour outside Finland. We had to take a little time out, it was a really bad time for the band. But it was something that had to happen. And the label gives us good support, like media promotion which big labels offer. This stuff is very useful when you have a new album, they have a big influence when they promote it. And these we could not have with the previous label.

More and more bands are switching over to distributing their music in the Internet and abandoning physical CDs, or they are releasing and selling CDs themselves or sometimes give it for free. Have you considered this option? Do you think CDs have a future?

I believe that CDs will disappear within few years. But I am not that ready to give the music for free, and even if I know that our albums can be easily downloaded for free from the Internet. People don’t realize that it still costs the same amount of money to make the music. You have to pay the studio the same amount, if you want to have a professional studio, you have to pay for some new equipment there. You can't really cut the corners in making music. Where will we get the money for all these in the future? People don't understand how the music comes out and how the musicians get the money. It's really interesting what will be in the future, if there is some other form of sales that can replace the financial part in the producing of CDs, because obviously they are going away very soon.

Another technology question – your official website is no longer working, it only redirects the visitor to your MySpace page. (At the moment of publication it was up again – ed.) Do you think websites are no longer needed and that presence in social networks is just enough for your band?

Well if you are scrolling all social networks - Facebook is a big example, which is a big network and it is growing all the time - you can communicate with the fans really easy. There you can put your new songs, videos, photos online. The official website is also part of the promotion, but it doesn't have to be so interactive. Of course, it is still important to have an official website, because there you can find the information about the band, but social pages are more active and productive, there you can find a closer contact with the fans, you can see the reaction from the fans and this is really good for the band.

Are you satisfied with the way your latest album “Deathstar Rising” turned out? You said in a recent statement that the past couple of years were very difficult for the band…

The work on “Deathstar Rising” was really difficult. But anyway I consider that “Deathstar Rising” is a well done and successful album on the productive side. After all, the release was quite long ago, and we are already working in the studio with a new line-up. We have already recorded the core of the seventh album. It is the first time when we really knew how the album should be that early in the process, but this is the thing which I should not say aloud, because of bad luck. This is the first time when nothing went wrong and everything was really fast and smooth, we found the right sound really fast. We are now waiting for the album to be mixed.

We really have a bad karma when it comes to making a new album. In the past we had only a limited amount of time, we could not change songs a lot, because when you have to re-record the stuff and you have line-up changes in the band, you lose so much time and you have to be really in a hurry. Before we recorded in some regular studio, but nowadays I have my own studio and I have all the necessary stuff there, the guys play and I do the rest, like recording and mixing, so we were very flexible, we didn’t need to book the studio, we go to our own studio.

“Deathstar Rising” includes a track called “Infinity”, which is taken from Before The Dawn’s very first demo. What was the purpose of including it?

This song is from a really old demo. And we decided to do it like a bonus song. First we made the album as one package and everything was in the right order. But you need to make additional songs for the label, because they want some bonus tracks. These songs don't really fit this package very often, but this was a request from the label. This song is from the very first demo, from 1999, and I wanted to put it because nobody ever heard it. It was a special song for the fans as well. Many of our fans know that there is that demo and want to have that demo, but there is no way to get it or find the songs. They are not even on YouTube. It was something from the past to be used as a bonus song, it is not part of the album.

Before The Dawn started as your solo project and even when you had permanent members, they still performed your music and your lyrics. How will it be like with the new line-up?

Well, the new members of the band have a right to change something. There were already some funny situations. With the old line-up with Lars (Eikind, clean vocals, bass) and Atte (Palokangas, drums) it was absolutely different. We only saw each other when we were in the studio or playing a gig, we didn’t hang out together, there was no teamwork, we never had this “we”, and the band was like a working place, everything was different and separate. We got together when we needed to show out together or to play the gig, but we never became that kind of close friends. But with the new guys there is another situation.

Can you also introduce the new guys who are playing with you on this tour? How did you find them?

Pyry (Hanski), the bass player, I have known him already for eight years. Joonas (Kauppinen) used to be my drum student when he was 15 years old. I have already been friends with both of them. I have big respect for them as musicians, and it’s not that I tell them, “Play this and that and this way”. I give them as much freedom as possible. For me it would be really foolish to tell Joonas how to play drums, cause he invents the drums parts. Of course, I make the arrangement, but if I give him free hands for the drums, he makes the song even harder and faster. There is quite much impulse in them both. I still write the music, but how we sound right now is because of all the guys in the band. Pyry is young, he is 18, just old enough to play in the bars, but he is very professional.

Your statement about the departure of Lars and Atti reads that from now on the band will go more into the direction of melodic death metal and abandon gothic influences. What is the reason for that? Are you tired of gothic stuff?

I have been writing the music for Before the Dawn since 1999, and we have done six albums in that style. Basically I had to make some changes. I did everything I could in this style of music. My music roots are more into melodic death metal or even black metal. Before The Dawn became a mix of it. And the latest album “Deathstar Rising” - I didn’t write for myself anymore, I wrote it for the band. I didn’t want another album of Before the Dawn in the Before the Dawn style. I didn’t know exactly what kind of changes I needed, but I couldn't write albums of that kind anymore, there are already so many of them. And now, with the fast drummer it is much easier. There was also a kind of a problem in the band, a musical and professional one, it didn’t allow us to change. That’s way the changes in the line-up were also needed.

Does it mean that you have some other project to write the music for yourself?

No, not really. The reason for changes in the line-up and in the style of music is that I wanted to try something new. Now I can again write for myself under the name of Before the Dawn, I can play and see that people enjoy hearing it. I already have almost too many side projects, so I don’t think that would be a good idea. I understand that these are big changes for the fans. But this is how it goes. Now we can go forward and give the old songs something new. It is time to show a new side of the band, a new music. It doesn’t make sense to play the new songs live but we do it already, even if the album is not yet released. It gives the fans a better picture of what they can now expect. This way we try to explain how we will sound in the future.

What music do you like to listen at the present time? Is there any music that still influences you?

I tell you the truth, I don’t have much time nowadays to listen to new music. I visit quite many gigs when I do my stage manager job. Mainly what influences me is like individual musicians, how they are playing, and not the music they make. As I play a lot of instruments myself, I am interested how they play their part, how different drummers or bass players play. I get the influence directly from the musicians. I don’t pay too much attention to new trends, because you can never know what will be popular in another six months. If you try to be popular analyzing what is popular right now, you are going to be late. I’d rather do what I like and see how it goes. I don’t need to think or analyze at all, I do music and people like it, it's even better.

You have shot quite a few videos for Before The Dawn. Do you enjoy making videos, or do you only regard it as an efficient promotional tool?

Well, the videos are a good promotional tool if the time is right. And it's like a hobby of mine. I make most of the videos myself. Of course, when I need to play in the video, I can't do the shooting, but I do the edit. And it is also that I can do the videos quite cheap, I don't need to pay money to the directors or editors. It makes sense to make music videos even if they are not aired on TV, it doesn't cost that much. And for some bands, when you put out a new video a few weeks before a release, it gives quite a big impulse for the pre-sales. There are so many places and websites where you can show your video on your own, you don’t need a TV station. It would be cool if there was one, but there is none.

Where do you take the ideas for these videos?

I have good imagination, I don't really run out of ideas. (laughs) I have at least six scripts of videos in my head.

At your live shows you always play songs in a different way than you do in the studio, for instance, you make them heavier in many cases. Is it something that you do intentionally?

Well, that is our sound engineer, mainly because of him. But it's not only his fault, actually the album, on which we are now working, sounds heavier than before and even heavier than on stage. The previous time we tried to make the album nicer and cleaner and not that heavy, but the next album seems to be the heaviest album so far. And this heavy style fits the energy of the band.

Speaking about live shows – what memories do you have about visiting Russia and playing in Moscow and St. Petersburg a couple of years ago?

Really huge ones. The response from the audience was really huge and we were talking about when we could come back. We lost this year because of the problems in the band, so we are now aiming to get a big tour in Russia next year when the new album comes out. It was our first gig there and we are around ten years old. It is easy to get to Russia, it's like eight hours in a train, much easier than to Europe, we are the neighboring country. It would be a pity if we don’t play there anymore.

What is currently happening with your project Dawn Of Solace? Will there be a second album under this name?

Wow, I don’t know. (laughs) I intended to do many albums of Dawn Of Solace. But we had a deal with the same weird creepy Spanish label, which released Before the Dawn’s first albums, and the situation was so bad after the first release that unfortunately I was unable to continue the band because of legal issues. They gave me two choices when I was asking to break the deal. The first option was to pay a sum of euros and the second option was to find a Spanish lawyer and go to the court in Spain. So that was my option, and because of it I was completely unable to continue the band for four years. And I don’t have Lars there anymore. I had the possibility to form a new band with the same members, but nowadays I don't know if there is any point to continue with Dawn of Solace. I have Before the Dawn and Black Sun Aeon and I have some other Finnish bands, so I am quite busy already. But today I already met many people who ask about Dawn Of Solace and about the second album. If I make one, it would have to be a really cute one, and I have to put a lot of focus on it, because people expect me to make this album. Let’s say the band is in kind of sleeping mode.

During our previous interview four years ago you said that you have five projects at the same time. How many hours a day do you devote to writing and playing music?

It depends, sometimes it has to be the whole day. Actually I don't do the projects the same time, and they take less time that people might think. It is not like a full time job.

When can we expect a new album from Before The Dawn?

The seventh album should be out next spring. It is already done and I am booking the gigs and festivals for next summer. It seems next year will be a really busy one, with the gigs, albums and videos. I am looking forward to it.

Before The Dawn on the Internet: http://www.beforethedawn.com

Special thanks to Markus Jacob (Nuclear Blast) for arranging this interview

Interview by Victoria “Ewigkeit” Bagautdinova
Questions also compiled by Roman Patrashov
November 27, 2011
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