– Hello, thanks for taking your time. How are you holding up? Has the pandemic affected the band in any way?

Perttu: Thanks for asking. Were fine I suppose. The pandemic has effected our band in a way that all gigs are cancelled. That is the the biggest outcome I think. But maybe It has an affect on our latest release as well so that we wont have a chance to promote it on gigs.

-It’s been seven years since “Green Eyleen” came out. What have you been doing during this time? Have you been writing the new album during all these years?

Perttu: It is six years next summer. I wrote the song lyrics for this album and it also took a while to come up with these certain riffs to fit in with the albums atmosphere. It took quite a long time. I dont know why it took so long. But we were moving to another city, studying, band members were having big things in theyre lifes during these years. So we faced with all sorts of things that are part of human life. It had its affection on the band.

-Have the songs been through many changes until they got the form that we find them on the album?

Perttu: No. The songs formed quite straight away to be complete when the right ideas were at your hand. Like the title song: I wrote it in like 20 minutes. But the process was longer and took years. Writing a song is just one small part of the actual songwriting.

– Last year released your sophomore album, “Wilderness of Hearts”. What significance does having this second album out hold to you? Is a second full-length a step further into your own personality and learning from the experience of making a debut album?

Perttu: This album is more personal and about the experience of an individual person. Green Eyleen held the concept of enviromental disaster and this sort of a scifi vision but it was more about humans as a whole. This album is about ones own experience of transforming within the change in the world around you and connecting with the inner warrior spirit so that you are able to face the elements of nature and your own strenghts and weaknesses. To  grow up also, but connecting with your own will. You are an authentic part of the living sphere and your mind and body holds the battleground of all sorts of powers.

-What’s the meaning (literal and not) of the album’s title? What connotation does nature have in the context of the album (pagan, fantastical…)? Or is it some kind of metaphor?

Perttu: Well, I had this thought of all sorts of animals in the imaginal forest in my mind while I was sitting in a bus travelling to my hometown. I imagined different animals hearts and how similar they are in a way comparing to a human heart. They all feel pain, anxioty, love, fear, desire to hunt ext. This vision changed the feel for forest that is invisible, cut down years ago. And that it still exists in the imagination on animals, of humans. Our surroundings might fade away but stay in our memories. And they stay in our feelings also, they stay in our hearts. So althought we would live in a human made enviroment, some part of our understanding is the authentic self and physical body also in connection with the other hearts, of invisible trees that are cut down. It is the symbolic and invisible forest where you feel those feelings. Nature is the ultimate mirror without any mirror. It is not a metaphor, but a way to challenge listener to open him/herself to the real emotions behind the curtains of shadeness and self-deception.

-How does the title relate to some of the lyrics on the album? What do they deal with and what did inspire them?

Perttu: This time the lyrics were inspired by a sort of a story that formed around some happenings between some people and also what happened in dreams. So I started to form a story how those people who werent “saved” by Green Eyleen would survive on earth and how it would happen and why. So the story that was forming when making Green Eyleen started to happen in my personal life. I needed the answer how to be able to live on this earth and not to be saved by Eyleen. Its weird because I didnt came up with the concept of Eyleen when we were making this first full-lenght, but Niko did. But I knew it was real. 2012 I saw this Green light on a Winter night sky for many months on and on, so I think the whole thing started to be more real to me than I could have thought first. I started to think Green Eyleen is actually real. And is sort of reflection of our psyche. First morning: Collapse tells how this being crashes on a surface of an ancient planet that is earth but does not hold this same human chances in enviroment in nature exc. At the same time it exists in the past and in the future. So one day we (my friend and I) felt entering into to a realm of were we could really see ourselves in a totally new view as living on this planet we really are. And it really happened to us in 10 seconds or something. So this song tells about this morning we woke up by travelling through “space” and entered in these bodies we are in in real life. The ecstatic feeling of being alive for the first time. Like you would be on a bronze age but in todays world. Thats becouse we recognised ourselves from the previous lifes and this is were this story of surviving after Green Eyleen is gone starts. After we had recorded the album I understood that it held a complete story.

-Something that caught my attention were the promotional photos. I see some self-irony, am I wrong? Tell us a little bit this shooting.

Perttu: There is some self irony I think. But really we are deadly serious. Horse is a mythological animal and can be recognised in symbolic way in dreams exc. The sword in this picture is not real actually but a wooden sword I had when I was a kid. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Feeling was great.  We had all sorts of thoughts in our head about how this picture would end up being perfect but when the shooting day came, it didn´t happen that way we thought. For example, we didn´t have anyone to take this picture so one of our friends Jussi had to press the button. I sat on a horse with my the pvc-snake skin pants and the rest is history.

-You play a very traditional kind of Metal with NWOBHM elements, some epic… What bands inspired you to form a band of this style?

Iron Maiden, Running Wild, Cloven Hoof, Manilla Road, Crimson Glory, Candlemass, Black Sabbath, Jaguar, Swedish Death Metal and also Finnish extreme stuff. Niko is very much into Repulsion and death metal. He can play more technical stuff that I can. We have a bit different styles but they fit together quite beautifully. Eetus favorite band is Burzum. Well everyone listened to a lots of different music styles and subgenres of metal and rock. But In our music and beer sessions it happened to be more and more traditional metal we listened together. It felt right and eyes-opening when we came up with this song “Chains Of Steel” for the first time. The band was formed.  We had lots of fun in our rehersaling place and many times we invented the songs together. Sometimes on the spot. It was like a metaphysical battle for a song to be in a right way. So that it didn´t sound too boring or annoying anymore and was fun to play also. Those were ecstatic moments.

-As I said, everything in your music is very traditional. Where do you think is the line that separates tradition from mimic?

Perttu: You have to follow your own inner voice when making music. Not trying to be like someone else have done. I think the music comes in a right way when you live the songs in your head and dont just play gitar in a safe, “traditional” way but invent the riffs and songs that speak through your mind and have the potential to be played together as well. Tradition is way of living your real life and understanding where the culture is coming from. Mimicin is a way of acting like some other person that lives/has lived.

-In fact there’s now an obvious resurrection of pretty much anything old school. Is it easier to get out there due to the growing interest or the fact that there are a lot of bands doing this makes it harder?

Perttu: Maybe someone likes to play somewhat traditional metal but how long aged many of the bands will be is a different story. I am not sure of the fact that playing traditional metal is the main point in Lord Fist. Ok, we play traditional metal with traditional band instruments but many of our songs contain quite futuristic elements. Of course you hear the influences. It is easier to get attention in our homecountry because not too many bands play this sort of music in Finland.

– I think we all already know Metal tends to be a quite nostalgic «community». When Simon Reynolds researched on the cult of retro on «Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past» he wondered if: “Is nostalgia stopping our culture’s ability to surge forward, or are we nostalgic precisely because our culture has stopped moving forward and so we inevitably look back to more momentous and dynamic times?”. Applied to the Metal world, what’s your opinion? Do we use to look back because we feel there’s something missing on most of today’s music?

Perttu: There is something missing thats for sure. But instead of trying to do again something that is done in the past you could try finding the way to solve problems and face the “unknown”. Maybe it could breed something that catches the moment of todays world. But there is of course nothing wrong looking back. You can get ideas of how the spirit will live on today by learning and enjoying something that has happened in the past. It is fun to be interested in things. And it is also fun to jump to a deep water while listening to good music.

-You’ve had a steady line-up for several years now. How did this shine through on the final outcome of the album? How do you compare “Wilderness of Hearts” to your debut?

Perttu: The band chemistry can be heard on the album. And it was fun recording the album beacause of who we are. It is fun to watch Pekka recording bass tracks. Eetu also had weird inner metronome when recording the breaks in “Aurorae”. It was first time this song was played in the way that it ended up in the album, and every drum hit fell in its place on a first take somehow. This record is more personal, more intense and dreamy even.

-All this about “Wilderness of Hearts” being said; how would you describe it in just 3 words?

Perttu: Water, flame, love.

-And finally, what are now your near-future plans?

Perttu: We are making new songs for our third full-lenght atm. So rehearsing them and getting into the feeling of new songs is the main thing since there are no gigs for now. I hope this band is open to capture ways of our music can help us and also what this band would have to give to a listeners in a changing world. To open our eyes to the meanings and meaninglesness of this life but help us to feel again who we really are.

– That’s all from our side, thanks again for your time. If you’d like to add some final words, feel free to do it.

Perttu: Lets feel the metal magicck madness!!! Sweet potatoes are not what they seem. Greetings for water maidens.

Tania Giménez

tania@queensofsteel.com

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