"We make music that we enjoy ourselves and try to sound original"
Again some northern blood from Oulu, Finland. Cryptid's trade is technical death metal with some twists, that should leave no tech-death fan cold. AM contacted the band via e-mail and all three, being Ville Lind (vocals), Mikael Kujala (guitars) and Mika Luosujärvi (bass) provided the answers.
AM: Good day guys. How's hanging?
Mikael: Awesome, I'm spending some time in Bali right now, a nice getaway from Finland's autumn/winter.
Mika: Not bad, watching new Family Guy episodes and laughing my ass off. And it's dark and cold outside 24/7. Man, I just love Finland. And I'm not jealous to Mikael at all, Bali sounds bad.
Ville: Good thanks. Life is kinda busy at the moment because of studies, work and different kind of projects.
AM: I have to congratulate you for your amazing debut demo 'Illusion of Balance'. How has the feedback been so far? Any contacts from record labels?
Mikael: Thanks! Feedback has been great. We are all happy with the result, and we're glad people have enjoyed it as much as we do. No contacts from record labels yet, although we did not send any demos to companies yet. First we must concentrate in making new songs and getting our line-up and live performance complete.
Mika: Three of my hippie friends have said demo sounds "ok". I am so grateful.
AM: 'Illusion of Balance' sounds, well, professional. The song writing, the production...
How you feel about it yourselves, music- and soundwise? Cryptid's technical death metal is pretty original in my opinion. Where does it gush from?
Mikael: Glad you think so, we had only these three songs ready when we started recording the demo, but they all sounded good to us so we thought they were enough to put up a good record. Our mixer did also very good job, we were looking for sound that is heavy, but also clear enough, and he managed to do just that.
I don't actually know where Cryptid's music gushes from, I've always liked heavy, Pantera-style riffs but I also like to keep it technical. It's all about the riffs, though.
Mika: So you should blame Mikael for those riffs. They keep your hands pretty busy!
AM: How did it all start for Cryptid?
Mikael: It started actually in the army, when me and Joel (our former drummer) started playing together for fun. We had same kind of interests with music and I had already made some riffs. After the army we had couple of songs ready and soon enough also our friends Mika and Ville joined the band.
AM: And you guys, how did it all start for you, what are your histories? Who are your dearest influencing musicians and bands?
Mikael: I think I was 10 years old when Santa Claus brought me my first electric guitar, since then I've had a few bands but nothing too serious, really. With Cryptid, I've been writing the music by myself and I consider it my first "real" band.
I admire many musicians in many genres, but I think some of the most influencing guys to Cryptid's music are Dimebag Darrell, Chuck Schuldiner, Devin Townsend, Mikael Åkerfeldt... Brilliant musicians, all of them. Also some polish bands have influenced our music.
Mika: I have been playing for six years now and I haven't played a single Metallica song yet. I like to listen and play Dream Theater, Meshuggah, Evergrey, and The Dillinger Escape Plan songs instead. Catchy tunes I must say!
Ville: I've been playing guitar for about 12 years and practicing vocals for 4 years. Recently I started playing piano and got myself couple of cool synthesizers.
I've had different kinds of musical projects during my life. Worth mentioning are Seith, Dawn Of Relic and of course Cryptid. I've also worked as a session member in a band called Serenity's End.
AM: Dawn Of Relic are one of my favourite bands from Finland. How are they doing? And what about Seith?
Ville: Alive and doing great. We are recording second Seith album at the moment and I'm really excited about it. We just finished recording Dawn Of Relic demo and hopefully get to do a full length album as well soon.
AM: I have a certain picture about Oulu's metal "scene", and it is dark/goth style stuff for a big part. Cryptid are different, as you perform technical-tinged death metal, or how do you see it? At least you stick to non-trendy stuff, which is a respectable thing in itself.
Mikael: Yeah, I think the northern climate has something to do with it. It's dark almost all the time so people tend to make gloomy music, too. Well, maybe I'm just a happy death metal hippie whose thoughts are not so dark.
We make music that we enjoy ourselves and try to sound original, of course, which is not too easy nowadays.
Mika: Well Oulu's metal scene contains a bit more than the dark/goth stuff. I think that genre is a minority. Different prog/death/thrash bands are performing every week in Oulu and there is like a million more waiting to hit the stage. The competition is so brutal there is like fights between the bands, riots, anarchy, chaos... You name it.
Ville: Actually I've heard that those fights were reality back in the days within Oulu's legendary black metal scene. (All hail Aetherius!) I haven't got my ass kicked yet due to musical disagreements. Although one time during Seith rehearsal I almost got hit by axe. Those were the days.
I'm not thinking Oulu specifically as a goth metal town. There are lots of different kind of bands bubbling under and not only in metal scene. This city has a lot to offer when it comes to music. Let's see if Miku's migration to northern Finland affects to our material somehow.
AM: Can you shed some light on the lyrics?
Ville: I don't have any specific muse in which I draw my lyrics. It's basically deliberation around everyday phenomena. I write usually when I feel sad or frustrated. That doesn't mean that lyrics can't be provocative and fun. For example our first song 'Thirst's handles globalization with a touch of famous beverage commercial line. It's all written in the booklet. Feel free to do your own interpretation.
AM: What are Cryptid's aims in near and not-so-near future?
Mikael: We hope to find a new drummer soon and our aim is to get some new songs ready and hop on stage this year. The journey continues.
Mika: And when Mikael comes back to Finland I expect him to drink a lot.
AM: Do you have anything else in your mind now, that should be spoken out?
Mikael: Go download our demo from our myspace-page if you haven't yet and spread the word!
Mika: If it rains, use umbrella!
Ville: Marklar.
02/09/2010 11:50