AMBERIAN DAWN (Eng.)
– Hi, thanks for your time. What are you currently up to? How is everything doing right now with AMBERIAN DAWN?
Tuomas: Me and Capri are now concentrating on doing promotional work like interviews etc. It’s hard work but on the other hand also fun. We’ve just finished our new album and also our new music video and now we’re taking a little break from music. Later we start preparing ourselves for album release shows here in Finland. Everything is great in AD camp and we have a good feeling about playing music together.
– First off, what does the name of «Amberian Dawn» come from?
Tuomas: At the first I had a band project called Atheme one with Peter James Goodman on vocals. Later me and other founding member bassist Tomi Kuri started to feel like testing a new female singer, who would be able to sing quite complex vocal lines I’ve written. That’s how we started the second project as Atheme Two which we later re-named as Amberian Dawn. The name was just something that came up when we sit down together and started to work with name ideas.
– You will soon release your newest album, «Magic Forest». What are your expectations on it? And what are your feelings on the final outcome?
Tuomas: I’m really happy with the results and I think this is the best album of AD so far. Because I personally like it so much, I’m hoping that also other people are going to like it too. So far I’ve noticed that we’re getting better response than ever before and our new music video which has been online just for a while, has already reached over 40.000 views on Youtube with awesome feedback from our fans.
– Digging into this record; what are some of its main lyrical ideas? How strong is it connected to the album’s title?
Capri:The ideas of these lyrics comes by listening to every song with my eyes closed, time after time, without thinking about the lyrics or themes.I think I 
just let the music speak to me. It can be just one word that starts to ring in my head or makes me see flashes of pictures. But it is always the music that tells me which way to go. I think the title Magic Forest is the best title for this album; the first song I wrote lyrics was Magic Forest. I listened to the first ten seconds of the song, and I knew the title had to be Magic Forest the one originally given by Tuomas. I started to imagine beautiful dark haired evil witch singing with high voice: «Hey you little Songbirds, come here little Songbirds, We see you little Songbirds and we’ll keep you!» That was it.
– On the other hand, the cover artwork is quite outstanding. Would you mind to elaborate a little bit on the whole idea and the artist?
Tuomas: We didn’t give so much instructions for our graphic designer with this album cover art. I remember that I told Jan Yrlynd (the designer) that I would like the cover to have some kind of magical/mystical forest scene with a flying fairy on it. Otherwise Jan had free hands to come up with a cover art. He’s been doing work with us for so long now that he immediately knows what we’re expecting from him.
– After giving the album some spins I could say is most mature and also with a more tranquil feel, not just in pace terms. Is there always room for evolution or you have reaced your highest degree of maturity here?
Tuomas: Every AD album so far has been a little different compared with earlier ones. Evolution is one of the key elements on my songwriting in general. I don’t like to repeat myself musically. My way of writing songs varies all the time and now I was in mood for some more AOR- and even pop/rock kind of songs. It’s good thing for us that we’re not tied to any certain kind of music and I’ve always have had total freedom with musical styles. I also like to do experiments and at some point I even wrote one purely classical music piece (Virvatulen Laulu on End Of Eden album 2010). You might be right about that maturity thing…We’re all grown older and have been on music scene quite long now. It’s obvious that at some point the long experience starts to affect on the style of music somehow. The evolution of AD’s music won’t stop here. When I start once again to write new songs, the style might be just anything…
– The songs seem more well-worked in songwriting terms, and with a better equilibrium between different elements. Due to this I would like to know how was the songwriting process like.
Tuomas: I took more time with songwriting process than ever before. I wanted to have more solidness on this album. Also my own standards are getting higher and higher all the time and I’m not accepting anything mediocre from myself. On Magic Forest album I also put together a team of producers since I didn’t want to do it all by myself at my home studio, like I’ve been used to do. I summoned Mikko P. Mustonen as our co-procuder and also Capri, our new singer. Together we polished and finished my songs and did the final adjustments on vocal lines etc. I really liked to work with these amazing and talented persons. I’m sure that I want to work with these people in the future too.
– You recorded the album without any financial support, so did a fund-raising project, something a lot of bands are doing lately. Do you see this «DYI» way of working as the future of music, at least into Metal?
Tuomas: When we started to work with Magic Forest, we didn’t have record deal. Our previous label Spinefarm Records didn’t want to continue with us anymore. That label had some kind of crisis going on, there were for example 4 different label managers during 4 years and they didn’t want to continue with major part of their old bands. At that point we decided to try raising funds using crowd funding. We didn’t get all the budget we needed but we still got enough to get the project started. Later on the process we found great label Napalm Records which believed in us and wanted to start working with us. I’m really happy about this because I noticed immediately how good these people at Napalm are at their work. It’s now wonder that Napalm Records is still in business at the same time when many other records labels have bankrupted. I’m still very worried about the future of music business and also about the chance to be a professional musician in the future. If people aren’t willing to pay for the music anymore, the whole record business will go down, there will be less bands touring, less professionally produced music and even less professional musicians. I hope that something will happen here and fast because this trend of people wanting «everything now and for free» is going to drive musicians out of work. It’s still true that internet is doing good thing for bands by enabling free promotion worldwide. But at the same time it’s making music more and more into hobby instead of professional work. The quality of music will 
definitely drop down in general in the future.
– Anyway you recently signed to Napalm Records, so «Magic Forest» is your first release with this label. How did you hook up with them? And how is this co-operatioin working thus far?
Tuomas: We have a management which helped us with getting a new record deal. I’ve been very impressed about the start with Napalm Records. Their work seems to be very strict and professional. I’m sure that we’re getting AD more known now with help of this great label.
– All this about «Magic Forest» being said; how could you describe it in just 3 words?
Tuomas: Best album ever.
– And finally, what are your near-future plans?
Tuomas: We’re starting to prepare ourselves for the album release shows here in Finland and also are keeping our eyes open for chances to get on tour again. Our management/ booking agency is already working on this matter and hopefully we’re able to tour again, in Europe or in US for example. I might start composing new songs again in near future. Right now I don’t have energy for that because I still need to work with Magic Forest- release and do a lot of interviews for example. It’s also important to interact with our fans and we’re quite active on Facebook, on Twitter etc.
– That’s all, thank you once more for answering our questions. If you want to add some final words; feel free to do it.
Tuomas: I hope to see you all on tours in the near future. AD has always been best on stage and we just love to play to live audiences worldwide.
