""The Varangian Way" has much deeper meanings than just flying around with dragons and saving princesses..."

Vocalist Mathias "Warlord" Nygard presents the new DVD by Finland’s folk metal heroes Turisas, “A Finnish Summer with Turisas”…

Stefan Yordanov: The reason for having you with us now is because Turisas have a new DVD. My question is who came up with this idea? You, because it's a documentary DVD or your label?

Mathias "Warlord" Nygard: It came from us. We were talking to the label of course about may be making a DVD, but the idea came from that the previous year we didn't play much in Finland at all, our home country. The previous summer was about going to Germany every week and then going to England and playing all those festivals in Europe the whole summer and not being at home at all. And now all of a sudden we did this playing festivals back to back to our own country. So this summer was very special for ourselves and we decided that this will make a good DVD with the whole summer together with the festival appearances, but also will be a sort of small road movie and introduction to the band like a documentary about the summer with the band in Finland. The idea came from the band in that way.

S. Y.: Is this DVD a serious documentary or more fun? What type of content does it feature?

M. N.: Oh I think it's both. When you see documentaries or road movies from bands, in the worst case it's a footage that someone had shot with their cell phone or something and really sort of bad quality goofing around when drunk sort of stuff... We didn't want to do that kind of stuff, we wanted to make it a proper movie, so that's what we did, so the DVD consists of 2 major parts which are the documentary about the band and sort of the Finnish summer with Turisas, which is about 70 min. or so and then there are the live shows we played which are about hour and a half of live material and live footage and it's all very professionally made. Of course there's some funny stuff in it, but it also has interviews. It's actually the first time when the audience sees the band without all the make-up and getting ready for the shows and everything sort of behind the scenes and... So far all you know about the band is that the media is pushing everybody being made up and all these costumes every time, so I think it's a nice introduction to the band in many different levels.

S. Y.: It's a big relief, that it's not only drunken stuff, because I have the impression of this sort of thing, you know?

M. N.: Yeah...

S. Y.: Your name is kind of hyped in England, I mean, you coined the term Battle Metal and then Metal Hammer issued series of CDs entitled Battle Metal... Do you believe it has become a sub-style of metal now this Battle Metal thing?

M. N.: Well, not really, because I don't know how battle metal should be defined. I think it's a bit difficult, because it's basically all sort of melodic metal styles together I guess. In that way I don't really think it's a subgenre or a thing like that. But I think it's fun to see the whole circus around it go, because people ask if battle metal is real or is it not, but to be honest we don't really care and we don't classify ourselves as Viking metal or folk metal or heavy metal. I don't know... We try to do the music we like and try to keep all the boundaries away as much as we can. And I think it's up to the people, who listens that and the critics and the fans in the end to sort of judge what they want to categorize. But in general I don't really believe that you can really categorize music, it's just helping you understand may be what it is about, but it's really sort of nothing that we are paying much attention to.

S. Y.: Ok, for our listeners I want you to define where is the difference between fantasy metal about dragons, you know, and princesses and where exactly is your place. I mean where's the difference between Turisas and bands like Rhapsody for example?

M. N.: I think the big sort of split point is whereas Dragonforce write about, ohh, sorry, not Dragonforce, we are touring with Dragonforce... But when Rhapsody write about dragons and princesses there's really no sort of substance in it, it's just being come up with a text for dragons. Well, dragons are really important cultural, you know, phenomena in a way if you look at all the Scandinavian sagas or something... all this folklore elements like dragons and trolls... They have an important role and in that sense, like from a social study, from that perspective it has an important role, but I don't think bands like Rhapsody sort of research it from that angle, if you know what I mean... I think in our case we write and we have historical things like out last album has a strong historical concept pretty much like a historical novel. There's a lot of time and research and effort being put in understanding the time and the surroundings and the basis and everything. When you locate this fictional story it becomes something that could have actually happened in that time and in that place...

S. Y.: You mean "The Varangian Way", right?

M. N.: Yes. So I just feel that "The Varangian Way" has much deeper meanings than just flying around with dragons and saving princesses...

S. Y.: We all know about the series of misfortune events that have happened to the band like the car incident in 2005 that injured Georg and forced him to leave the band. Do you stay in touch with him and if yes, how is he feeling today?

M. N.: Well, actually not that much any more, because it's a bit sad to know how much our lives run around the things you do, like in our case it's the band and that form a group of people and when there's someone with whom you don't have this connection of writing and doing something together any more, you lose that sort of contact

S. Y.: I see.

M. N.: It actually dies out a bit... But actually I talked to him on the phone today, so we still occasionally talk and chat. Of course he lives a very different life right now, but I'm happy I can see him sticking up to different projects, he used to be very keen on recording, he used to run his own studio and now, after those 2 or 3 years he started doing that again with some special keyboard and, you know, mouse, and whatever working on computers. He can actually still work with music... I think the worst thing to do is falling into that feeling of being miserable, about your life and what happened and not getting anywhere. I think he's done really well in sort of accepting the situation as it is and moving forward and looking forward and trying to make your best out of the things you have.

S. Y.: And then in January 2008 your accordion player Lisko disappeared in Amsterdam...

M. N.: What happened was that when we didn't have any touch with him any more, we had to make a decision that we had to take someone to play the accordion on the upcoming tour, because we were setting up an European tour and we had an American tour coming up in spring as well, so we found this replacement, Netta Skog, who is still playing with us. And after that point it didn't really make sense to look back or anything, because everything is sort of tight now in the band as it is. Same way... That lost the need to be in touch with our former accordion player. Of course were pissed off... No, we haven't actually talked after this at all, but I heard from some people, who know him that he's back in Finland and he's doing some other stuff. He's always had like million of projects in the same time, so I don't know. He was quite, sort of.. You know, if someone else in the band disappears right now and never call me back, it would feel strange, but for him, you know, it didn't come totally unexpected...

S. Y.: It's a bit weird, but after all, we are all happy that he's a live at least.

M. N.: Yeah... yeah, he's alive and he's doing his own stuff, I don't know, but actually that was lucky for us, because now we have a girl in the band who is just as talented, of course very different on stage, but still brings something to the band in a different way. Right now we have a band in which all members in the band are, you know, on the same level that we want to go forward and where we want to go with the band and it's a happy situation to be in... that everybody wants to put in the same amount of effort just as hard.

S. Y.: What is next for Turisas after this DVD release?

M. N.: Next up there is a lot of touring. We did a lot of touring for the last album and we still have, I think, good 7 months on the road, so it's gonna be touring until next spring or summer basically and then we decided already that we are not going to do any festivals this year at all, because when this touring cycle ends, that's the end of touring on this album. And then we'll take a break and we will start working on new material and new songs and then we will record and release a new album, but of course that's sort of a long process. We are talking about starting in still 8 months to come from here. You know, release-wise the realistic schedule for the new release is 2010 I guess...

S. Y.: So, it's anotherВ two years until the next album of Turisas. That's news.

M. N.: Yeah, it might sound bad, but... I sort of believe in that you have to have time in between the albums... We want to progress on every album, we want to come out again and go like "wow, these guys have moved forward!" and not sort of re-do the previous album. If we wanted to do a very similar album to "The Varangian Way", you know, sound-wise, we could have done that, we could have released an album this year, but it's not really interesting copying yourself, it's not challenging. So we want to keep it challenging. I think that's our key to success we have, to keep it constantly involving and trying to find a new angle to the things we do. Of course when you look at it financially, record sales don't mean anything to bands anymore and the way to stay alive is basically touring. That's also shaken the balance a bit, but I would never want to find myself as an artist whose records are ways to get back on the road again, but it's still a very sort of important thing. Being on the road is fun and playing live is great, but it's not very creative...

S. Y.: Thank you very much and we wish you good luck.

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