– Hello Jyri and thanks for taking your time. What are you currently up to?
Two days until the new album’s release date makes me quite exciting. Nothing special except that, just working, family-stuff and guitarring.

– For all those that are not too familiar with BATTLELORE, I would like to start with an introduciton of the band…
Battlelore is a band which plays majestic and atmospheric metal and uses J.R.R.Tolkien’s Middle-earth theme in their lyrics. Seven members, two girls, five guys, six albums, one DVD, and countless gigs.

– Your new album, «Doombound», will be out really soon; what are your expectations?
It is always exciting when the new album comes out. I believe that Doombound is not that ‘easy’ album for the listeners like The Last Alliance was. We like to try out new things and now there’s quite different kind of songs comparing to our previous albums and I dare to say that we made some very bold decisions with Doombound, but the main Battlelore sound is still very recognizable.

– I think this record, though still keeps your essence, has plenty new elements and details; has anything changed during the composition process? How has it been?
The main process of composition haven’t changed. We use the same working methods with our songs like before, only the content of the songs has changed. Now there was also more of us who wrote the basic structures and so called foundations of our songs and that obviously affects to the final result.

– As I said, this album could be considered a bit different to your previous thoguh without losing your character so; what could you say there’s new in «Doombound»?
Some of the songs might have a small touch from the field of progressive metal and the song structures are more unexpected. There’s also our first Finnish song “Kärmessurma” on this album. Doombound is also our first concept album and it tells a story of Tolkien’s tragic hero Túrin Turambar.

– Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe your lyrics use to deal with fantastic matters. What are your main inspirations?
This should be quite obvious by now, the main source of our inspiration is J.R.R.Tolkien’s Middle-earth theme. Of course the everyday things like books, music, movies, nature, people, cultures foreign countries etc. affects to our music in a way or another.

– Due to this I think you all might have a great creativity and imagination. How important and is this and your lyrics for BATTLELORE?
Open mind and huge imagination is very important in our case. Our music comes from this fantasy theme which is full of odd and mysterious things like magic, weird characters, wizards, gods and adventures. If your mind and thoughts are mainly “black & white2, you’ll probably can’t deal in this kind of field and mostly it comes out when you read our lyrics. Swords, dragons and epic battles aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.

– To be honest, the cover artwork caught my attention since it looks more «digital», because of it’s colors and it looks quite different from some of your previous works. What can you tell us about it? How’s connected to your muisc and themes, the artist behind it, etc.
The cover art is inspired by this conceptual story of our album and in this story the hero Túrin faces the dragon Glaurung. The illustration is made by South-Korean artist Keun Chul-Jang who also made an additional cover for our limited edition digipack release also.

– The digipack edition for the album will come with a DVD, how that idea arise? Was the label’s idea?
The idea of the bonus DVD came from us. We knew that Napalm Records wanted to release a limited edition digipack with some bonus material, but at that moment we didn’t have any “bonus songs” left. What we did have was tens of hours filmed material from our gigs and tours so we decided to put together a nice bonus DVD with two live footages, tour video, all our music videos and huge photo galleries.

– That DVD is «10 Years of Battlelore», though haven been actually a few more. Anyway, what are your conclusions for all these years of life for BATTLELORE?
It has been quite a journey and we’ve surely seen a lot during these years.We’ve been in a very lucky situation to have a chance to play and release music we like and to tour with great bands for such a great fans around the Europe.

– And how do you see the band’s future?
I don’t know about the future and I am not that keen to think about it. Anything can happen. At the moment we are in a solid ground on the eve of our next album’s release. It means only one thing: we’ll hit the road again!

– I’ve read in several reviews you’re too good guitar player to be playing in BATTLELORE… What’s your opinion about it?
Hah! I am the founder of Battlelore so I guess we are in a very lucky situation hahahaha!

– You’re playing in BATTLELORE with your brother, drummer Henri. Is it easy to work with your family or makes sometimes things harder?
It is very nice to play with Henri and it only makes our things easier. We hardly never fight and we know each other so well that it is easy to write songs together.

– If I’m not wrong, when you were still playing in HORNA you formed BATTLELORE. What prompted you to form a band of such a different style?
Horna was the reason why I founded Battlelore. In Horna I couldn’t express myself in a way I wanted so I needed a channel for my own music and that channel was Battlelore. I also wanted to try a bit different kind of music style than Horna played.

– Do you feel more comfortable playing in a band like this?
I loved to play in Horna, but Battlelore took all my time and was/is my main band. We actually did a special ‘reunion’ gig with Horna last year with the original members. It was awesome gig and hopefully we’ll do it again sometime.

– Last time we saw you guys in Spain was last 2009 with KORPIKLAANI and KIVIMETSÄN DRUIDI. What are your memories of that tour?
Awesome tour with loads of booze. The guys of Korpiklaani surely know how to drink a lot! And I mean A LOT!!! Hahahaha! Great people, awesome fans and nice venues in ten different countries.

– And is there any tour to promote the nww album on the works? Any chance of seeing you in Spain?
There’s not any tours confirmed yet, but we are really waiting for the festival gigs around the Europe and I am quite sure that we’ll visit also Spain in some point.

– Finally, what are your near-future plans? I guess this years is starting with a lot of promotion…
Promotion, promotion, promotion, gigs, gigs, gigs….

– That’s all. Thank you once more for answering to our questions and congrats on your new album. If you now want to add any final thoughts, last words are yours.
Thanks for the nice intie and have a great metal year 2011!

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