Day 1 at Tuska Festival was filled with incredible bands, many of whom were performing at the KVLT stage. I had the pleasure to meet and chat with Shereign, who is an incredible local talented group.
Hello Sara, Joonas and Timo! How are you doing?
Fine, thank you.
A little bit nervous
You have a lot of singles released at the moment as a band, and I was wondering: what are your future projects with Shereign?
We are planning to release a full album at the end of this year. It already has the name published “Ghost Diaries”. Our guitarist Timo came up with the name. It’s a long story because the pandemic took a couple of years, so we have just released singles and took some time to get to this point so we can get some gigs and release a full album.
So I guess it was complicated to create art in the pandemic times?
It was so easy to create lots of songs but not do the releasing stuff. We have almost 3 albums of materials; Joonas and Timo have been creative lyrics and composing wise.
If you had to describe Shereign to someone who has never heard of it, how would you do it?
Melodic rock/metal.
Face punching metal from Finland!
Doesn’t describe much, but that’s what it is.
We want to create a big sound, and Joonas likes to create these epic melody lines with the guitar. He always tells us how he sees Lapland, the reindeer, and the northern lights.
Yeah, wandering with my mind, then the melody comes. But not all the time.
No, you have also done crappy songs.
But there’s a great balance.
You have to do some shit to create some masterpieces.
I love melancholy and big choruses as well.
Can you tell us a funny moment that happened during the recording?
This is funny because we recorded all the parts to this upcoming album like 2 years ago, so we don’t remember anymore. But we were in Kuopio; the guys come from there. The drummer and I are here from the Helsinki area. So we went to Kuopio to record vocals; I think you did the guitars and the drums as well.
I think everything was recorded there.
Did we have a fun moment? I remember crying.
That was fun. very intense.
We had such intense recording session that I was so emotional all over the place. But there was this funny side to it because Joonas is a funny guy. So when he came to the studio, and I was crying, he would start telling jokes, and I was laughing so we could continue. We have a strong team here!
I think everything was funny in the end.
Yeah, and we had some funny moments, like when we did “Against the Odds”, and I was just fooling around when we were listening to the tracks that I had recorded. I did the “Reckless Five”. There’s this, uh, part in the verse I was like [with a higher pitch] “Reckless five.” And Timo was like, “Oh my God, we have to keep that, do this really!” So you can hear in the final song, there is this high pitch.
Then there was that one song where you did some jazzy vocals.
Ah, I think it’s “Six Feet Deep”.
Maybe.
Yeah, but we haven’t released that yet.
Great! What music did you listen to when you were a teenager?
Children of Bodom all the time and Metallica, Mötley Crüe… stuff like that.
Sara: And it’s actually very nice that Korn is here because Korn was my teenage band, along with Evanescence. I also listened to a little of Children of Bodom, but I like hearing more about the singers. So that’s why I like Sonata Arctica and Evanescence; they’re more melodic, so I like to listen to them. Yeah. Okay. How about Timo?
Well, I thought Children of Bodom as well, Slayer and all the powerful stuff.
I’m ashamed to say that my teenage music was Avril Lavigne, so, okay. Moving on!
That’s good. Cause I love. “I’m With You.” That was my power song too.
It’s certainly not easy or easier for women to be in metal. And do you think that the problem of women being discriminated against will be solved, or maybe there will be a solution?
Well, I have been in the metal business for like 12 years or something. So, I think I always said that to make it in metal music, you have to, in a way, accept to be one of the guys. But you can still be a woman or a girl, but if you are insecure, you always get put down wherever you are. So I haven’t experienced myself that much, like being that much discriminated against. Because, of course, in Finland, like last year in Saari Helvetti, we were the only band where I was a female member. So I have experienced that I have had good access to these metal festivals. I don’t know why.
I wanted to play a little game with you guys. Could you tell me what fictional character from movies, TV shows, anime or manga, or whatever, which character you relate to the most?
That’s an easy one. Captain Jack Sparrow.
Rough. Johnny Knoxville from Jackass.
Maybe I’ll just go with Pocahontas. I’m really bad at this.
Thank you guys for taking the time to do this interview! Would you like to add anything to FemMetal readers?
I think the most important thing was that we wanted to bring out that we are releasing the album “Ghost Diaries”. So that is the main thing.
Hi! My name is Benedetta, I’m 29 and I live in Northern Italy. My passion has always been music: I started taking guitar lessons when I was 6. Now I work as a sales representative, but in my free time I interview talented people, I spread the word about my favorite band (MoonSun), and I go to concerts or travel around Europe.
I am a huge collector of anything Tolkien-related, autographs, merchandise, and CDs. I am quite an original person and don’t mind being the voice outside of the choir (even though I play in the church’s choir!).
