Niilo Sevänen, Ville Frimen, Markus Vanhala, Markus HirvonenThe first time I saw Insomnium was when they toured with Children of Bodom, and that’s when they captured my attention. I had no knowledge of their prior studio material, but as soon as I got home I went on spotify and immediately fell in love with their sound and their work. With a tour that started going straight after New Years Day, we got to talk to them about what they’re looking forward to, and about their most recent compilation album.
Happy New Year! How is the tour in America going?
It’s been an awesome tour so far. Good shows every night! It’s good fun to tour with our Swedish buddies Dark Tranquillity.
What does it feel like going straight out on tour in the first month of 2015?
There is nothing special about this timing. We would rather tour North America when it’s warm but otherwise all is good.
You’re special guests with Dark Tranquillity. As label-mates, have you guys toured before together?
Yes, we made a long Euro tour back in 2010. It was a great tour and we became friends.
How do you think your musical styles, being paired and toured, will be received? Will the two bands complement each other musically, or are the styles dissimilar enough that it will satiate musical tastes across the board?
I think it’s a very strong package and most likely most people can dig both bands. We both operate in same genre but we have our own styles.
There’s a lot of melodic death metal out recently on the market. Compared to about 20 years ago, it’s starting to be recognized. How do you feel you’ve impacted the melodic death metal scene?
That’s hard to say. We just do our own thing and the kind of music we love. Slowly but surely we have grown bigger and gained more fans, which is very nice.
Earlier last year, you released Shadows of the Dying Sun and it’s reached near critical acclaim. What did it feel like getting so much praise from it?
We’re used to it. Seriously, it always feels good to get great feedback when you have put a lot of effort in making the album as good as possible.
You have a lyric video out for “Revelation”. What made you go in that direction?
It seemed like a good idea and I think the video is very nice. We already did a lyric video with “Ephemeral” but this was on another level.
INSOMNIUM – Revelation (LYRIC VIDEO)
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As far as the stylistic imagery within it, how do you feel the images relate to the song itself? Did you have a hand in the making of it?
It’s the director’s vision totally, but it suits the song perfectly. Eagles flying in the sun during guitar solo and all that.
“While We Sleep” also has a video that released 9 months ago or so. It certainly has a classic macabre/horror feel that flows into dreamy/hallucigenic style. Tell us about the making of that video and concepts behind it.
We filmed it in Poland with this Grupa 13 team who had done for example Behemoth videos. Also it’s totally the director’s vision, but we are very happy with it. We have birds in all the videos it seems, and the pretty girl there was very pretty indeed. (laughs)
INSOMNIUM – While We Sleep (OFFICIAL VIDEO)
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You’ve also released a compilation album, The Candlelight Years. How did you choose which tracks to pick and not to pick for it?
Candlelight Years includes our four first albums – all the songs.
What has inspired Insomnium to craft the music you’ve made over the past six studio albums? What changes have you spotted when putting The Candlelight Years together?
Inspiration can come from so many sources; any kind of music, books, movies, personal life, etc…Of course we have grown a lot since the first album and learned to do everything better.
What can we expect to hear from you in the future?
Lot of touring coming in 2015. Then I hope we have a special release coming early 2016. And a new album at some point after that!
