Even though Ecuadorian act Black Sun has been around for over two decades at this point, the group has recently gotten a facelift recently with Finnish duo Netta and Nino Laurenne joining the ranks full time for their recently released self-titled effort. A bit of a restart that travels through a friendship forged over a number of years between the members, it tells an interestingly human story of how they became entangled in each other’s musical lives. We caught up with vocalist Netta Laurenne to discuss how this friendship was established and how she and Nino entered the band, the challenges and rewards of recording the album in the way they did, and some talk about what else Netta has been up to, even outside of music.
Dead Rhetoric: Given the length of time that Black Sun has been around for, does this new album feel like a bit of a restart for you?
Netta Laurenne: Definitely, and that’s why we decided to do a self-titled album, because the band hasn’t had that yet. This kind of differentiates and gives it a fresh start. Usually a debut is a self-titled album. So that’s what we are feeling. Of course the band has a long history, from 2003, but for all of us, it feels in a way, so fresh of a start. It almost feels like a new band, because it has affected the music so much.
Dead Rhetoric: I saw you had done some stuff with Black Sun in the past, in more of a guest context. How do you see that sound as being changed with yourself and Nino [Laurenne] coming in?
Laurenne: I think that the songwriting in general has changed a lot. From the style that it was, to much more of maybe closer to how we feel as songwriters. We play around, we are free, and with Nino, we both have been writing songs for so long that it’s very easy for us to kill our darlings, as they say. We can say, “I love this song, but it’s shit in this spot. It doesn’t work in this song, so let’s take it away.” So in a way, we can be more brutal and objective with our own songwriting. It affected the process a lot because we encouraged the other guys, to kill their darlings too. To let go of something that you love, but maybe you always do it the same way. We were trying to find a new way for the music and the sound to represent all of us, yet still be solid metal music in a solid songform. For me, I’m not a fan of intros that are too long. It’s kind of a thing of the past, because people don’t listen to it as long, so if it doesn’t start…so we had a discussion about the intros and we cut a lot of them shorter, and some we didn’t because they were really important to the guys.
How we have composed the album is between Ecuador and Finland and going back and forth. Some parts of the process, I wasn’t there. Nino went there to produce the initial ideas and listen to the demos that the guys had. They had a few song ideas, and we started to work with those but then come up with new ones. I was here doing my parts also, writing songs and sending things to them to listen to so they could record at that instant when Nino was there. Nino told me there was a ballad on the album and I was just finishing the Smackbound album Hostage, and Nino sent a message that they needed a ballad in 30 minutes. I was panicking, but they needed it, so I went to my piano and in 35 minutes, I sent him a rough demo of the melody and he liked it but it would be better with a chorus. So I gave it another 10 minutes and sent it back, and he was like, “yeah, now it’s good!” The guys recorded all the basic things like the drums and guitars in Ecuador and then Nino came back.
We really wanted everyone to record their own instruments, even though we were doing it in a very modern way. They had a chance to record and play everything there before Nino left to come back to Finland. They were basically doing the backgrounds and structures and we worked with the melodies and eventually we had an album. It was a very different perception of the songwriting. We had different views on things, because our two societies are different. The way we communicate and react to things is different. So it’s been great to get everything together for it to represent a Finnish/Ecuadorian spirit.
Dead Rhetoric: That brings up what I would think would be some challenges of recording this way. Did you happen to find anything in the process that was more of an unexpected positive?
Laurenne: Nowadays it’s easy to play with ideas and send them to your neighbors house. You can do it on a computer. There was something very unexpected when their point of view and our vision for the music collided, from the metal land of Finland, getting this different point of view of metal…or Latino heat [laughs]. It ended up with something being born that hadn’t happened before. There was an element of surprise when I was writing the melody lines. Like, “what the F am I going to write here? How am I going to treat this?” It was something I wasn’t used to. We worked with Nino, and when I was really in trouble with these non-melodic parts, as I am a very melodic writer. There were many times that Nino said, “Forget the melody, because it doesn’t have it. It doesn’t suit the background.” Then we were more into rhythm and finding new styles. I’m so happy I got to do the “Mercenary” song. I have always wanted to just kind of talk in a low voice like Leonard Cohen [laughs], I have always wanted to talk in a low key and I love the song because of that. It would not have happened if there wasn’t that element of surprise and find new ways to think when writing music.
Dead Rhetoric: I saw in the press bio that the band formation was due to friendship. Could you go further into that?
Laurenne: We met in I think around 2016? But we met in Helsinki. The guys had traveled to Finland and Sonic Pump Studios to record their Puppeteer album. We met because as one of the owners of the studio, we hang around there a lot. We both have work rooms there. So we got to know the guys, even though we weren’t working with them. They were working with other people and trying to get the album together. There were some issues with the producer and they couldn’t get the material out. They were kind of left halfway to this situation and they don’t know what do do because the album was done but it wouldn’t get released. Nino jumped in to help. We had met with them a lot when they were here in Finland, since they were here for a month. We hung around a lot and became friends, so Nino stepped in to help make the album happen. So they finalized it.
Then they asked on their last album, Silent Planet, for Nino to produce it. That’s when, in a way, Nino jumped in to do more. In the middle of that album, they parted ways with their previous singer. Again they had a situation where they didn’t have a singer. That’s when I stepped in to collaborate and do a few songs with them. Nino also helped a lot, so he got in a number of artists from Finland to be the singers on that album. So from that point, they had the album ready, and they had tours but didn’t have a vocalist. They are friends with him still, but they parted ways because they had different visions of what to do. I kind of stepped in to help do a few gigs with them in Ecuador. I learned the songs and did the tour.
The last day, we were going back, and they had already talked with Nino with him to produce the next album, which is this one. They had hoped that I could join but they didn’t want to ask me to be the permanent singer of the band. We were sitting there after the tour at dinner, and Nino had told me that they wanted to ask me but they were too polite to ask because it was too much to ask with my other bands. So I surprised them and said it would be my pleasure to keep this good thing going on and I would love to be in the band with you.
So it’s always been based on friendship and we want this band to be fun and allow us to be together. That’s the nice part of it.
Dead Rhetoric: You do have Smackbound and the collaboration with Noora [Louhimo] too. How do you integrate everything you have going on, because I know there’s also stuff outside of music you are involved in too?
Laurenne: It’s a constant [laughs] I don’t know. It’s in my nature to put pressure on myself. I have a lot of ideas and visions. But I don’t want to meet them halfway. So I press myself to do them. Sometimes it’s chaotic. I think I have to become wiser to leave stuff on the plate, but it’s hard because you like what you do. You have to tell yourself you are doing too much. It’s very hard. Everything you do is from passion. It’s chaotic, but somehow I have managed to do everything and still be here standing. At times it has felt like I am never going to do music again, because it’s been so [busy]. There hasn’t been any pauses in the songwriting/album writing/production. It can be very hard, with long hours and bad diet, no sleep, and no exercise…no life [laughs]. It’s very consuming at times.
Even this year, now that I see it, it’s been very stressed – we did the Laurenne/Louhimo second album, and I have returned it to the record album. Then in May I had one week off, then we started to finalize this. To write lyrics, sing, and so the production was very long. We did 16 hour days, all the time, because we had so little time. Somehow I managed to do two albums this year, and I have to promise myself publicly [laughs] that I will not do another one this year! I will not! It’s too much. I have to stay out of everything.
Dead Rhetoric: I can see how it would be hard, when everything comes from a place of passion and wanting to do things, but knowing you also need to set aside some time for yourself to be a person.
Laurenne: To have some balance in life, that’s the tricky thing. To have a life outside of music is a tricky thing. It’s very easy to go into the studio and stay in one room for 16-20 hours and be like, “What? What’s going on with the world?” But in a way, when the world is going crazy, it’s nice to be able to just close the door and do music. It’s kind of a bubble or shelter from all of the bad of the world. So in a way it’s good.
Dead Rhetoric: What drives your passion for music and continually thrust yourself into it? What is the piece that you are getting out of it that you keep coming back for more?
Laurenne: It’s just that from very early on, I started writing songs. I was four when I said to my mom that I wanted to be a singer. I had my first song writing book, and I still have it, from when I was eight years old. It’s full of very political songs [laughs]! We have been laughing about it, that I was really feeling the pain of the world. It was an escape! It was that everything came into the music. It gets really funny, but I can sing all those songs still because I have the lyrics and notes there. I’ve progressed in songwriting, but I had this urge to write music.
My aunt said to me last summer that I was funny because I went to piano classes like many people do, but I hated them. It was like having to have this form. You were in prison with the music and have to follow someone else’s lead in a way. She said that I never managed to end the song the way I was supposed to. About halfway through I would start to play my own music [laughs]. I was a good student for a while, but then I was like, “I can’t do this!” and made my own melody lines [laughs]. So it’s something of a fire or urge to get out the music that is within me. It always grounds and balances me, because in a way, I am in connection with my pure self. Making music calms and purifies me and makes me feel better. If I had a bad day, I have to tell myself to sing something, because every time I sing, even if I don’t feel like it, I feel less depressed. It kind of lifts me up and gets the bad energy out.
Dead Rhetoric: You have done acting and voice work, in addition to singing. How do you approach the medium you are involved with, in terms of your voice?
Laurenne: In acting, I don’t think about my voice that much. I only think about the feeling of being very honest of whomever the character is. Like the way I feel in songs with honesty, I have to portray the feelings. In acting, it’s more of really giving room to the character and whatever flows it has. It’s kind of loving the character and staying present and being honest to that character’s point of view.
In voice acting, that and commercials, it’s easy but you have to speak really out. You have to, even if it’s a little mouse, you still have to speak it out. The technique of classical singing does not work, to be back in the throat. You have to bring it out more in commercials. In voice acting, you have to find the voice that the character portrays. It’s really fun because I have had a lot of great characters and I just laugh because they are hilarious. It’s so fun because I’m like, “Really? He said that?” [laughs] So I get to be many different characters and it’s great to let loose and forget yourself. That’s the best part. You don’t have to be yourself, you can be whoever you feel like the character is. But in a way, it’s very honest to human feelings because that it what connects us all. We all, even if I’m a mouse, it’s human feelings.
We can be honest to what we feel, like fear of not being loved or neglect, or wanting to be loved. Everyone has these human needs that we work from. If there is trauma we work differently than if it is healed or we don’t have that specific trauma. We have to understand, and that makes it more interesting. Every time, I am trying to understand human life in different stories.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s next for Black Sun, and yourself, for the rest of this year?
Laurenne: Black Sun’s album is out on September 6, and then we are going to tour a little bit in Latin America in November/December, and then hopefully next year in Europe. The Laurenne/Louhimo album will come out early next year. It depends on when we get the music videos done and we are trying to find a time schedule someday that Noora and I and the crew can be in the same place [laughs]. That’s something to deal with. That’s a lot already, because I’m trying to think about what the videos will be like, since we have limited time.
Then I have my business, and it’s the season of fares and things like that, so I’m going to be at fare-stands and asking if people have tried a certain wine [laughs]. So all kinds of things, and I am always doing a lot of voice acting and commercials. I promise to sleep also [laughs]!