Ghost Brigade – This Place Has No Meaning

Friday, 29th March 2013

Blistering.com: One thing that stands out with the album is that it feels like an actual album, not a collection of songs. Is the album intended to be listened to all at once?

Naukkarinen: True. I think that if you want to experience Isolation Songsproperly, you really need to listen to it from the first note to the very last, alone and without distractions. And that’s exactly why we didn’t post any separate MP3’s off the album prior to the release on the internet either. We tried to pick one song, but couldn’t. There just wasn’t any one particular song on this album that would tell people how the album sounds in general. Luckily, our label was kind enough to give their permission to stream the whole record on MySpace for two weeks. It’s great people got to hear the whole thing at once instead of one MP3 or some crappy snippets.

Blistering.com: The band will no doubt draw comparisons to Neurosis, Isis, etc. How do you feel about being lumped in with those bands?

Naukkarinen: In a way I am flattered if we get compared to such a pioneer band as Neurosis, for example. I am a fan myself and I have a lot of respect for them and for their long career. But on the other hand, my opinion is that Ghost Brigade is Ghost Brigade and Neurosis is Neurosis so comparing us to them or any other band for that matter is pretty unnecessary and in the end doesn’t even tell that much of how we sound. There are so many different sides to Ghost Brigade that I don’t think you can ever put an easy tag on us. This band stands on its own feet.

Blistering.com: You have an upcoming tour with the mighty Paradise Lost. What are your hopes/expectations for it?

Naukkarinen: Well, I haven’t really had time to think about it all that much as it just got confirmed. But it’s really really cool that they asked us to tour with them, things like this don’t happen every day. Needless to say we’re all super excited about it. I think it will be a good tour for us, I believe that there are many PL fans who might appreciate GB as well. But we’ll see. Fingers crossed.

Blistering.com: Was Paradise Lost one of the bands you originally cut your teeth on? I know they’re an influence on a lot of European metal bands…

Naukkarinen: Well yeah I used to listen to them a lot during Gothic-Shades Of God-Icon era but that’s like 15 years ago or something ha-ha. But yeah, they definitely were an influence back then. They were probably the first heavy metal band that I heard that had a lot of melancholic melodies in their songs so of course that leaves a mark on you. But I don’t know, I don’t think they’ve been a direct influence on Ghost Brigade though.

Blistering.com: With six guys in the band, how do things play out in terms of songwriting/working arrangements?

Naukkarinen: It works just fine. I usually write the backbones by myself athome and send instrumental demos to everyone by email. Manne then adds his vocal stuff to the songs and Aleksi writes keyboard parts, if needed. Then we just throw ideas back and forth and play the songs over and over at rehearsals until they feel complete. I haven’t noticed any difficulties, I don’t think it makes any significant difference whether there is four or six members in the band.

Blistering.com: Most Finnish metal bands either fall into the power metal or melodic death metal category, so it is it all difficult playing music that doesn’t fit the style of your countrymates?

Naukkarinen: Nah, it’s not difficult at all but to be honest, we do feel like outsiders sometimes. This is one of the reasons why our album is calledIsolation Songs.

Blistering.com: Finally, what’s on tap for the rest of 2009 and going into 2010?

Naukkarinen: Touring, writing new songs and lots and lots of good times!

www.myspace.com/ghostbrigade

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