Intervista Wintersun (Jukka Koskiken)
You’ve been working for many years on “Time”; while your fans were hoping to get any news on “Time II” you announced a totally different album, “The Forest Season”.
How long have you been working on this other album? Some people might think you recorded a rushed album just to give something to the label and the fans…
Of course there are as many opinions as there are people but we would never ever rush anything just to release something half done. You might have noticed that it takes a quite long for Wintersun releases that means that we surely make sure that all of our albums are really worth releasing.
We have been working on “The Forest Seasons” album now for a few years and it has been very inspirational journey. Totally fresh new songs that sound new and proper for the resources we have at the moment to make an album. Time II was put on hold since in the current situation we cannot fulfil our true vision we have for this album, and actually many that are already waiting for recording and producing. If the vision is certain of course you will aim for it in a serious way. No one wants a bicycle with one wheel if you have the chance to aim for a normal bike you know J .. If the composer’s vision is that, there’s no idea to continue if you just disappoint yourself, like working in shitty job you hate.
Talking about “The Forest Season” we already know that there’s some kind of connection to the “Four Seasons” by Vivaldi. Is just the title of the album which is connected or there’s a musical concept that is inspired to that opus, some kind of classic sounds?
The inspiration from Vivaldi came of the actual different seasons a year has. Musically we ar far away from Vivaldi for sure J .. I think we tell the four seasons in a better way since the fours songs on the new album are completely different and unique from each other. They though merge nicely for a whole. The idea came from the forest obviously since Finland is a big forest as a country with very contrast happenings during different seasons of the year. Of course all this is related to life as well that can have a lot of contrast in various ways.
Have you ever thought to play some special events with the support of a complete orchestra like other bands did?
Of course we have thought about that since that would be quite amazing since our sound is very epic. We will think about this and if the pieces fit then definitely this will see the light of the day at some point. Maybe an exclusive show or two… a full tour, we can’t make since we’re not that big of a band..
You recently announced a crowdfunding for a studio for Wintersun and in the announcement you said “The FOREST PACKAGE is huge and otherwise it would be very expensive, but we are going to offer it with a very affordable price in our crowdfunding.”
If normally it would be very expansive, how could you offer it for a good price while you also have to fund a whole studio with those money?
We were able to create something very special for the fans and we wanted to do so to offer THE FOREST PACKAGE as a humble thank you for the patience with a very reasonable price. If we sell something ready and reasonable then people would be ok with this idea since it’s fair, right? Weare directly offering this package to our fans and hopefully we can have enough funding in our crowdfunding campaign. This is a win-win situation equally for the fans and for us.
Why did you choose a one-month crowdfunding? If you don’t get all the money that you need by that month, what will be of “Time II”? Have you got a “plan B” to build the studio anyway?
No we do not have a plan B. Our aim is to fund at least the minimum to really start building the studio. That’s why we have a fixed goal in our crowdfunding campaign. We could accept less money but that would leave us hanging in between and nothing would proceed, so we definitely want to take Wintersun to the next level to produce the future albums with our true vision and best production efficiently.
What kind of perks will be included in the “Forest Package”?
All this we will reveal on March 1st when our crowdfunding campaign starts. What I can say now is that it has multiple items inside so you definitely won’t be disappointed!
From the crowdfunding announcement it seems like taking part in the crowdfunding will be the only way to get “The Forest Season”, is that correct or will there be other ways to buy the album?
This is true. Like I answered earlier this is the only correct way to really proceed further and build the studio rather than accept less money and continue being in this unfortunate situation where our income is not enough to take the band to the next level.
What are the biggest issues causing delays with the production of “Time II”?
The production how it should really sound like. Time I had this problem, although it sounds alright but only 60% of what it should have. Wintersun albums are massive and movie soundtrack kind so this requires very high profile resources to complete in a good way. The album making is time consuming as well when you have hundreds of tracks… it’s like music meets mathematics where everything needs to match. It takes time J We definitely cannot contribute for 3rd party studios (insanely expensive per day) so our own studio would be the best solution, being money and time saving in the best possible way.
Have you ever considered to reduce your ambitions, so to say, for “Time” to manage to produce it with the means you already have in a shorter time? Wouldn’t it have been a fair compromise instead of having your fans (and your label) waiting for so many years?
Yeah it can be hard for some to understand that “hey, the album sounds just fine, what’s the matter?” The thing is that everyone has their ambitions and of course you need to make compromises sometimes, which is normal. What isn’t normal and only depressive that you need to underperform yourself al the time since you cannot afford the resources you’d need to make the album sound great enough. We have our visions and some people might satisfy for too less, some end not. What you do yourself has to make you mostly happy, otherwise there’s no sense and do something else then, right?
How long do you reckon it will take to produce “Time II” once you’ll have your own studio?
The hard thing with music is that you cannot compare it to a regular day job that if I work 40 hours a week, I can finish the album by X.. Cannot say when Time II will be done but we are talking about months and years in this case since the studio would help immensely speeding up the finishing touches (major ones) for Time II.
Some months ago Jari [Mäenpää the band’s vocalist and former-guitarist] announced that he won’t be playing the live guitar anymore.
How did he come to this decision now, considering that you haven’t played live in a while and there’s no new album out at the moment (so no new, maybe more complex, song to play live)?
Jari decided this on vey understandable reasons. We know that he is a guitar god J but his duty while singing and playing at the same time these monster kinds of Wintersun songs makes him focus 50% on the guitar and 50% on the vocals. He wants to give 100% on the vocals that we can deliver even better live shows and also to release him of double duty so to say to focus also more on the future new music of Wintersun to release albums more efficiently unlike it has been until today.
Have you already found a new guitarist?
Yes we are working on with someone at the moment. Of course nothing is official yet since we need to practice a lot together and see where everything goes. We are taking it slow, but of course the new guitarist will be with us from the first summer festival onwards! We will announce the news later in the spring..
Which are now the plans for Wintersun about touring in the next future?
Summer festivals are being announced and there’s still a colony more to come! We are also looking in for the possibilities to tour in the autumn! All this will come clear in the next closest months!
Davide Sciaky & Andrea Poletti