Interview: Mathias Lillmåns “Vreth“ (FINNTROLL)

Hello from Bulgaria and thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview.           

Yes, No problem!

I guess you guys are quite busy now, preparing everything for the start of the tour in less than a month. Tell me what do you remember from your last visit in Bulgaria? As I remember it was 8 years ago?

Oh, that’s a long time ago. Time is flying fast! But yes, that could be exactly eight years ago.

It was an indoor festival – Sofia Metal Fest!

Ah yes, I remember with WOLFHEART from Finland. It was cool, but yes that was long, long time ago. We haven’t played that much in Bulgaria, but the time we had been there – the audience was really crazy.

 Bulgarians really like Folk Metal so you can expect that from us!

Yes I know.

Ok so let’s talk about folk metal a bit. Last time you were here, as I said, you played at a festival. Now you are returning for a headline club show. What do you prefer, festival or club shows? I had an argument with a friend of mine that thinks Folk metal is more suitable for festivals than club shows.

Ha-ha hmmm. You know for me. I haven’t been fan of the of the big festival stages, because I like to be close to the audience, to interact with them, and when you are playing on a festival stage - you are really far away. Sometimes you cannot even see the first row. That is why I prefer the club shows and that is the reason why I also play with smaller bands. I really love those “PUNK” shows, as I usually call them.

Your show in Sofia will again be a club show, and I can assure you will feel quite comfortable!

Yes, that’s good.

Your last album “Vredesvävd” was released 4 years ago, and before that you had a 7 year gap between the albums. Why did it take you so long?

Well, when we did the “Blodsvept” album in 2013, and we toured a lot. We played everywhere, all over the world for many years. Finntrol is not the type of bands that writes new music while we are on tour. We need to be home and calm down in order to write something. And after the “Blodsvept” album we started writing new songs and weren’t quite happy with the results, so we decided to play live a little more and we did the “Nattfödd 10 years anniversary tour”. That tour lasted for two more years and again we played everywhere in the world. And when the tour was over, we realized how much time has passed. All of a sudden 5 years passed and we had to start writing and recording.

You released “Vredesvävd” in 2020 and the world literally stopped because of the COVID pandemic. How did that affect you? Clearly there were no concerts and no touring, but a lot of bands handled it differently. Some even split up because of the lack of live shows and income. Other spent that time to write new material or new projects.

Well for us it was OK because we had toured a lot before that. For me personally it was good to enjoy a small break from traveling and touring. The whole pandemic time made me realize how much I actually miss traveling, touring and playing live.

You guys are from Finland but your lyrics are in Swedish. Most of the folk metal bands are singing in their native language.

Yes…

With you this is not the case, but how important for folk metal is to sing in your native language?

Well, if you read the history of Finland, you will notice that Swedish is a native language. Because in Finland we have two official languages... well we actually have three. Finnish, Suomi and Swedish. I’m born in the Swedish speaking community of Finland. So, I’m born and raised in Finland but I still speak Swedish with my parents, sisters and my friends. I have studied in Swedish .. all my schools and schoolbooks were in Swedish, so it is a native language.

Ohh... I See!

Yes ... Here is a small history lesson. Ha-ha

Yes, thank you! So that’s why you actually decided to write and sing in Swedish?

Yes, Katla the first singer of Finntrol was as me - Fenno-Swedish. Which means Swedish speaking person – born and living in Finland. So, he wanted to tell stories in the same way, he was told stories as a kid.

This reminds me… when can we expect new album from Frinntroll? Are you guys working on something already?

Well, you never know. It could be sooner or later. I’ve heard some of the new song ideas, and we are about to write some more. I guess everything will be much clearer after this tour, because we will have the time to sit down and decide what, where and when. We have some festivals scheduled for the summer after this tour, so I guess after that it will be time for us to sit down and decide what the next step is going to be.

Is there any formula that you follow, in order to write good songs and make a good album? Something that you have tried and works for you, or you are just having fun?

He-he. Hmm I don’t know maybe….

You know what I mean?.. You obviously are following some lines and are restricted in your own style. You cannot make a thrash metal album for example.

That is true! But I don’t think we are quite restricted to some genre, as long as we have our folk element. If you check the “Blodsvept” album, it was a record that it didn’t had that much folk in it at all! So, I don’t think we are that restricted, but also in Finntroll, our album tend to change a lot. Every time we enter the studio, we have the basic structure of the songs and the basic idea. But at some point, something strange happens and we find this red thread and we start following it and it can totally change the album. That happened on the “Nifelvind” record and also on the “Blodsvept” album for example . If you listen to the demo, they sound totally different than the final product. So, anything can happen and I’m really happy that we can mold the album in the process. It’s like in cartoons, at some point a lightbulb in your head turns on and you know how this album should sound.

You mentioned cartoons. Let me tell you a funny story from this morning. I was preparing for this interview and my 7-year-old nephew asked what I was doing. So I explained that I’m having an interview with a “band of trolls” He said “Oh they are my favorite!”... It appears that he was mistaking you for the animation “The Trolls” So I showed him a picture of Finntroll and he said…. “Oh, those look real!”

Ha-ha-ha Amazing!

So, have you ever got tired of this imagery with the prosthetics and etc. or have you thought to dig in even deeper like LORDI or GWAR for example?

Well of course we change a little bit our costumes, but I don’t think that we want to skip the whole concept that we have going on. It has been so strong and gives you a lot of freedom to do whatever you want. If we were strict black metal band, then we would have been restricted to leather pants, corpse-paint, spiked bracelets etc. But with Finntroll let say ...We go to a festival and all our gear with all our stage clothes gets lost at the airport or hasn’t arrived yet. We can go to any store and buy whatever clothes we want because we don’t have this fixed image. As long as we can paint our faces and have the ear prosthetics, we can do whatever we want with our characters.

Aside from losing your gear and luggage, what are the best and worst things about being on tour?

The best thing is when you are on these long tours is when you really start to get along with your band mates. Even if we don’t have the chance to play a lot, when you are on tous, after a week you already start to get really tight with the band and the show improves with every date. So that is what is really good during the tour. And of course the traveling and waiting is one of the bad things. Sometimes you just feel that you are just sitting somewhere at some airport or backstage just waiting.

I understand, the show or the fun is just a small part of the whole thing.

Yes, exactly! It’s 10% fun and 90% other stuff!

Ok lets go a bit off topic now… “AI” or “Artificial Intelligence” has become big part of our lives already. It is also making its way in the music industry in the form of art and artworks. Even Videos and some song lyrics are already done with AI. What is your opinion on all that? Are we becoming more and more lazy or we are losing creativity?

Well, AI definitely saves time and helps for example with writing lyrics. If you don’t know how to end a sentence it can help you out or at least give you inspiration. But also makes it look easy and a lot of people can lose their jobs. Like Cover Artist… as you said I saw a lot of AI generated album covers lately. They all look “OK” but they are not unique.

I saw that you are participating in a lot of online vocal coaching seminars.

Yes, I do. I also travel a lot and teach singing!

Mathias Lillmåns “Vreth“ (FINNTROLL) Source: Facebook

That is nice because I think a lot of young musicians need guidance especially in Harsh singing and why not in recording and touring also. Do you think that there is a future for this type of seminars, where popular musicians are sharing their knowledge for everything regarding the music business. Because as we said it takes a lot to be full-time musician.

Well, it is important for me. Let’s face it ... I’m getting older and probably in the future I will start to tour a little less and I want to pass on what I have learned over the years. So, it is a good way for me to make young people avoid some mistakes. It started with the Pandemic actually. I was asked to do some online courses and seminars about extreme vocals and that was before the pandemic. But during lockdown, when we were at home and couldn’t travel and play, I didn’t have any job anymore. So, it was natural to start focusing on those online seminars.

So, I don’t want to waste your time anymore… on 12 of April we will see Finntroll live in Sofia. What should the fans expect from your show? And if they still haven’t decided to come, can you leave a message for them.

It will be the second part of our tour in support of the “Vredesvävd” album, so obviously we will focus on that record but we have a lot of songs from the older albums as well. Almost all of them. It will be a great time so come to the show!

Thank you, Mathias for this interview and see you in Sofia in few weeks.

Definitely! See you there.

Author: Nikola Petras

Useful links for you:

Finntroll

https://www.trollhorde.com

https://www.facebook.com/officialfinntroll

https://www.instagram.com/trollballs/

Mathias

https://rockcamp.fi

https://www.facebook.com/MathiasVrethLillmans/

https://www.instagram.com/lillmans

https://t.me/vreth_official