Rotten Sound
Wywiad przeprowadził Tomasz Osuch
I suppose that lots of grind maniacs are waiting for the next Rotten Sound album. On their previous masterpiece entitled "Murderworks" these Finnish grind masters showed their huge potential and they gave us interesting and fresh grind stuff! I think that Rotten Sound have been one of the best bands on grindcore scene since I don't know when. I talked to Keijo and we discussed a lot about new Rotten Sound album, band's plans, and many other things. So just check out what G said below!
You have recently played as headliner on Polish Hell Fest vol. 6, 66 in Leszno and you did a really great show! What is your impression from your visit here in Poland and the concert in general?
"We were really impressed about all arrangements and the professional staff in the festival. I really hope that we can have another show at Hell Fest some another year. It was also cool to see other bands from Poland when they don't really come to Finland that often. And I guess it's worth mentioning that you guys have good vodka..."
Most of the people who participated in the fest were impressed with your drummer Kai Hahto, he is magnificent! By the way, I heard that drummers like Dave Curloss and Per Moller Jensen were also impressed when they saw how Kai plays drums. Aren't you afraid that one day somebody will want to steal him from you?
"I guess that impression goes both ways - K really admires Per Moeller and Dave when they play. And we don't 'own' Kai, he wants to play with Rotten Sound. He's also our really old friend and I think that quite strange things have to happen before he would leave RS over some another extreme band. Kai has done and he will do some session drumming in future, but that's just so different from us that. So, no worries."
Did you have any time to see bands which played before Rotten Sound? Did you like any of them? You played a cover of Brutal Truth, polish Deformed and Pyorrhoea also played Brutal's covers. Did you enjoy their interpretation of BT songs?
"We watched some of the bands and as I said, they were cool to watch. Vomigod had a good potential for future, Dead Infection is just brilliant and Pyorrhoea is a band to keep your eyes on in future. I must have missed those cover songs tough, too bad, playing covers is pretty fun to watch when there's always some hooks from the performing band that make them different from original songs."
Do you remember your show in Warsaw 3 years ago when you played with Malevolent Creation and Hate Plow? Then you played as a support on a normal concert, now you played as a headliner of extreme festival.
"Being a headliner is really great, but the whole tour with Malevolent Creation and Hate Plow just ruled from day 1. It was our 1st European tour and we had really good luck to do it with such cool guys, who treated us really well. Warsaw show was one of the best ones on the tour, the audience came so early that we didn't have to play to an empty room and I also think that we got pretty good response as an opener back then. We also had great time with some Polish drunks (all Finnish are drunks as well, no offense here...) & did some blurry interviews after the show."
During your show on Hell Fest you presented a few new songs. Can you tell us anything more about next Rotten Sound album? What would be the best recommendation, especially for maniacs who loved your recent masterpiece "Murderworks"?
"I guess that our next album will be more grind than ever. I mean that there will be 'too many' songs (like 20 or 30), catchy mosh-parts and some ultra-fast blasting. My lyrics will remain serious (like always except for the 1st EP) and I guess we'll stop using fake blood after the next album - it's kind-of cool, but we're getting bored after 2 years and over 50 shows with paint."
When should we expect the release of successor of "Murderworks" and which label will release it?
"The album will be recorded during this August and will be released as soon as possible after recording (like October or November). Spinefarm will release the album. We just signed the deal last week."
"Murderworks" was recorded at Soundlab - studio owned by Mieszko from Nasum. Are you planning to continue work with him? Will be the next Rotten Sound materials recorded there?
"Yep. Why to break something that's working perfectly. We were not even thinking twice when we chose the studio to use. Mieszko was doing great job last time and I know that this time it'll be even better."
From the time of releasing "Murderworks", Rotten Sound's line up has changed a little bit. Can you introduce us the new member?
"Our bass player (H) moved to Gothenburg one year ago and we found immediately a great replacement from Toni Pihlaja (or T). He's a cool guy, likes to drink even more than H did, is into HC and Grind music, plays great and has picked-up our line-up faster than anyone else before him. I really hope that he stays with Rotten Sound for a long time, because we've been changing bass players roughly every other year..."
A couple of months ago I found the info at your website that you are working on the songs for different split releases. Please reveal us all the details about that.
"We were supposed to do some splits, but then we thought that it's making more sense to do the next album instead of them. I just hope that we have more material than last time to make some splits, because many labels and bands are contacting us all them time about them. Nasum split has been in discussion, but we'll see if that will happen some day."
Rotten Sound members are involved in other bands from Finland. Isn't your participation there clash with Rotten Sound? By the way, can you say what's new in the bands you are involved in?
"We are actually not so much involved anymore: Q is playing in ...And Oceans and K plays as a session drummer in Winter Sun. Nothing else anymore, Rotten Sound takes all of the time we want to use nowadays and this way we can get the best results. Having a side project is a good thing for widening our musical perspective, but too much is too much (Q used to have 4 bands and K had something like 5 in his busiest times)."
There were a few materials released via different labels before the release of "Under Pressure". How much the band has changed during these years from the debut album in your opinion? What are the current reactions to Rotten Sound music? Are there any differences in responses from crowd between present and past years?
"We're changing on every release we make. "Under Pressure" was a good debut, but we are doing much better job on "Murderworks" as a whole. The response on our performance has also became better, but I think that we are also doing better job when we are performing. We are, of course, playing to bigger audiences nowadays and we also are playing to more diverse places than back in 1993-1998 when it was just few clubs around Finland."
You started as a death metal band named Vomiturition over 10 years ago and soon you changed the band's name and music. What was the biggest success of Vomiturition, did you record any stuff under this name?
"Whoa, you really know your background information. Yes, Vomiturition started on year 1988 and we did couple of demos, one EP, one Mini-CD and one CD with that band before we split up on year 1996. I guess that "A Leftover" - CD (1994, Invasion Records) was our high-point - it's having some ok songs, but we performed it really badly and the production wasn't that great either. The biggest problem in Vomiturition was that we were too serious with it and could not just loosen-up when we were recording something. Rotten Sound has always been just so fun to do that it's much easier to do a good job in the studio."
Rotten Sound is the most knowing grindcore band from Finland in extreme world. What is the current situation on grind scene in your country, what is it like? Can you recommend any new interesting grind bands from Finland?
"We have some new grind bands coming up and then there's also some great death-grind bands like DeepRed and Sotajumala. You should also check out To Separate Flesh Form The Bones and Cause For Effect"."
Yes, I know Cause For Effect's "PQ-2". Very soon you will start a Scandinavian tour with Defleshed and Sotajumala under the name 'Grind Declaration Of War'. What was the idea with that name? It sounds a little bit similar to Mayhem's album. Do you like their album - "Grand…"?
"We just wanted to make something under grind and when all bands are pretty violent, we thought that this name would be good. There's no relation to Mayhem here, it's just a co-incidence which we noticed quite late."
You are involved in extreme music and I heard that you are also a game programmer. Is it your job and passion too? What do the other members of Rotten Sound do?
"I'm not doing games anymore. I'm nowadays back in Nokia and working as a project manager. That's just one way to make a living. Our guitarist is doing school photography, drummer is a semi-professional musician (he works with some lame bands to get some income) and our bass player just went to civilian service."
Do you remember who was the author of idea to name the members in Rotten Sound as a one letter? What was the idea to do it? Why are you exactly G?
"It was just an idea to create an identity which is easy for non-Finnish people to remember. No reason for G, K was just already taken by our drummer. I think it came from some nickname, 'Geigor' (close to Keijo in Finnish) and to be honest, I should have used C instead to get it related to Chaos, but that's probably too late now."
These were all my questions, thanks for the interview Keijo. One of your songs is titled "Targets". What are the Rotten Sound targets?
"Thanks for the interview! We would like to break some barriers with grind-core. To make it as big as black-metal was at some point or to create an own type of grind in long term (if we haven't done that already...). We also want to play many tours in future and go to all possible countries in the world to play. Our targets are set high, but that's the only way to achieve even half of it in our opinion."
