HATEFORM (Eng.)
– Hi, thanks for your time. What are you currently up to? How is everything doing right now with HATEFORM?
No prob. We have just finished first part of our release tour in Finland. We did six shows in March and now we rest a bit and hopefully continue touring in May. There has been some talk about foreign shows also but we’ll just have to cross our fingers and wait…
– First off, for all those who may don’t know about you yet; could you please share some history of the band?
We put up Hateform in 2004 because our other songwriter Tomy Laisto had huge pile of riffs, ideas and songs in his drawer and he was unwilling to present them to the guys of our previous band. Luckily we managed to gather other guys to play with us with really short notice, since first gig was scheduled just months away from forming the band. In next two years we made two demo releases and continued doing live shows as much as we could. In 2007 we signed our first record contract with small Finnish indie label 7:45 Records and our debut album Dominance came out in the beginning of 2008. Hateform was voted Newcomer of the Year in Finnish Metal Awards 2009 and we took also few other TOP-5 positions in Band of the Year and Best Cover Art-categories. Next year we started to make our second album and Origins of Plague hit the stores in the end of 2010. Year 2011 brought to us a new manager Ian Crepea and record deal with Spinefarm Records. 2012 we prepared third album and our newest comer to our discography, Sanctuary in Abyss was released in the beginning of March 2013. There has been few line-up changes over the years but now I think we have managed to create sort of dream team under the name of Hateform.
– The band is formed by members and ex-members of well-known bands into the Metal scene, but HATEFORM isn’t really known around here. Why do you think you are still a relatively unknown band despite your solid releases? What do you think would be the ultimate step to get more recognition?
I’m sure the main reason is that we haven’t got opportunity to do live shows outside of Finland. We did few gigs in Sweden 2009 with Nattas and we were really close to get on European tour with Scar Symmetry and Nightshade in the beginning of 2012 but the tour was cancelled just month before first gig. Of course internet is great tool for spreading your music around the globe but on the other hand, there is so much different bands from different styles that it’s crucial to get yourself physically where the people are seeing you live. Hopefully our new album, Spinefarm records and management could get those foreign live shows and festivals happen because we definitely have hunger to come and spread our hate!
– You have just released your new album, entitled «Sanctuary in Abyss». Has its feedback so far reached your expectations?
We knew that «Sanctuary in Abyss» will present again a bit different Hateform than our previous albums but mainly the feedback has been quite positive. For example, Metal Sucks webzine said that «Sanctuary In Abyss» is best album of 2013 so far and Finnish metal music media Imperiumi chose «Sanctuary in Abyss» for album of the week. Of course these kind of reviews are ear candy to us but I think it’s more important to be capable to realize that reviews are just some random 
person opinions. I would be more honored and glad if I knew that somebody who actually bought the album, could have the feeling that he’d got something in return for the money he spent on the album.
– In fact your two previous albums got great reviews so, does this make you feel more pressure when working on a new record?
I don’t think our songwriters and guitarists Tomy Laisto and Tom Gardiner are thinking such things when they are making new songs. Although we are not trying to please anyone else with our music than ourselves. Of course it’s exiting to see how listeners and media are reacting to our new material but in either way, they like it or not, we are definitely standing behind it.
– On your songs I can notice certain nuances from bands as LAMB OF GOD, MESHUGGAH, SOILWORK or MORS PRINCIPUM EST but, what have been the most influential bands for HATEFORM?
I think we all have our own personal favorite bands and we all have grown by listening different metal and other styles of music. That’s why it’s really hard to pick few specific bands that could somehow be heard from our music. If you put gun barrel to my mouth and force me to mention three bands, I’ll say Death, Carcass and early Megadeth but only because my life depends on it.
– I personally think this is your best album, simply really well-balanced and complete in all senses, and it also takes the best elements of earlier releases. What are your thoughts on this? As most bands use to think their newest album is the best one.
I’m pretty sure that our songwriters haven’t thought so much our earlier albums either when they have made material for «Sanctuary in Abyss». I’m glad about your description and it’s great to find out that you are actually comparing «Sanctuary in Abyss» to OUR earlier albums and not to some random bands that are sounding distantly like Hateform. First album was… well… our first album! No doubt that’s one of the most important milestones in any bands career. It doesn’t matter if we release hundred releases in the future, «Dominance» will always be our debut album and nothing is gonna change that. I honestly think «Origins of Plague» has good songs in it but it’s a shame that we couldn’t get more exposure to the album. If it would be up to me, I would definitely re-release «Origins of Plague» with more comprehensive distribution. «Sanctuary in Abyss» presents Hateform as we are in year 2013 and because it’s the most topical of our releases, it’s obvious it gets more attention than our older releases.
– As I said, is a really well-balanced album, specially between Thrash and Death Metal, between brutality and melody. Is this an important aspect of your music?
Yes it is. Or at least it has become one of the «trademarks» of Hateform. Personally I enjoy these «opposite» parts in our songs. There can be really emotional, heart shredding slow part in our song and all of a sudden, this brutal, guts ripping mosh part comes out of the blue and just makes you want to bang your head.
– The cover artwork for the album is quite outstanding but, what did you want to reflect on it?
We had long discussions with other guys from artwork and we had tons of different ideas and things what we should or shouldn’t use in it. Tomy had this idea of man lying in desert with vultures flying circle above of him and the idea was to somehow illustrate how the sight would look from his eyes. I think our drummer Tuomo Latvala wanted to add human brain scan in it and basically creator of artwork, Jon Barmby did the rest. He added cool things inside of the brain scan picture and we wanted to use that same idea inside of the booklet. There is no deeper meaning in the final version of the artwork but I think the colors and the feeling represents the music quite well.
– And what do lyrics on this effort deal with?
Vocalist Petri Nyström made all the lyrics to the songs and he actually created story that goes on through the album. So based on lyrics, this is a theme album. I 
don’t want to explain all the little details but Petri did hell of a job with lyrics and was able to describe birth, life and death of evil in a way that is definitely worth of checking out.
– This has been your first release with Spinefarm, a quite big label dedicated specially to Finnish bands so, how are you feeling about working with them? Maybe you have a bigger exposure but less exclusivity than being with a smaller company?
I don’t have any bad words from Spinefarm so far since everything they have said they’ll do, has happened. We did two albums with smaller company and we knew that we won’t be the biggest fish in Spinefarms pond. However, because of them we made world wide merchandise contract with Record store X and there has been major improvements for example in distribution so we are overall happy for our situation.
– All this about «Sanctuary in Abyss» being said; how could you describe it in just 3 words?
Try it yourself 😉
– You are hailing from Finland, a country that has always had a lot and great Metal bands but, is there any Finnish band you would specially suggest?
Oh man, this is going to be a huge list… Over the years, we have played with so many cool Finnish bands but if I try to keep this list a bit shorter and mention bands that are somehow related to us or some other way topical just now. Torture Killer released new killer album a while ago and so did Deathchain. Pain Confessor was signed to Spinefarm almost same time as we were and we have been buddies with those guys for years. I would also recommend all the readers to check out at least Axegressor, Insomnium, Mors Principium Est, Ominium Gatherum, Mors Subita and last but not least Vermivore who shared stage with us in our release tour.
– And finally; what are your near-future plans?
We are now doing everything we can so we could participate in summer festivals and hopefully get some foreign shows in fall/winter 2013.
– That’s all, thank you once more for answering our questions. If you want to add some final words; feel free to do it.
I hope that we’ll have opportunity to visit your beautiful country in the near future and spread our venom to you guys! Till then, take it sleazy and cheers!
