Hello readers, Sam here with an interview with the artists responsible for one of my favourite albums this year – Antipope. Back in February they dropped the album Apostle of Infinite Joy, which I thought was absolutely phenomenal. Their unique take on melodic black metal was awe-inspiring to me. Two weeks ago I had the honor of reviewing them (you can read the review here). I was smitten with the record, so I reached out to the band for an interview – and so here we are! In this interview Joni and Mikko will tell us all about their creative process, the meaning of music and much more! Make sure to give the album a listen afterwards, and we’re off!
Personally I thought Apostle of Infinite Joy was an incredible achievement. How do you
feel it compares to your previous work? Where did it succeed? Where could it have been
better?
Joni: For us, Apostle of Infinite Joy is the Magnum Opus and it contains most innovative and true-to-heart pieces of music that Antipope has produced so far. On this album we threw our former songwriting methods and habits aside and focused on making a metal album that we would like to listen. And without taking anything from our previous albums, Apostle is a real turning point for us musically, and it’s going to determinate what Antipope is going to sound going forward.
Mikko, who writes most of our music, draws a lot of inspiration from older bands like Iron Maiden, Manowar and Led Zeppelin and that really shows on this one. Even though that’s not our main focus, to sound like those bands, but it gives us great joy if someone listens the album and can pick up parts that are influenced by those legendary bands.
What could have been better? I don’t really know yet. Maybe when time passes and once our next album starts to take form we know better, but for now Apostle is ‘the album’ for us.
Mikko: I agree with Joni, and it’s nice to hear that you liked it! Everything came together really nicely while working the Apostle. In a way, this album was a return to action for us, but also like Joni said, the first step to a new direction. Maybe fans won’t hear that big of a difference, or maybe they do, but mentally this one was something different. We’ve been doing all kinds of experiments from album to album in the past, sometimes veering quite far from our core, which is heavy metal meets progressive black metal. Sometimes these experiments worked, sometimes not so well, but that’s the only way to be creative, right? One major difference between Apostle and any of the previous albums was that while I was writing the songs, I was aware that not only I would be singing these songs live but I would also be playing guitar, too. In the past, I was ‘just the vocalist’ even though I wrote most of the songs, or I played bass for a short while, but now I would be performing with the instrument that originally got me into making music. So, knowing that definitely had an impact on the songwriting as I didn’t have to worry so much about how someone else would or could play some of the parts. Now it’s up to me, heh.
“Apostle of Infinite Joy” is quite an ominous title. I don’t have the lyric booklet (yet!), but judging from the cover with the dead men at the feet of the lady, it seems like the concept of “Infinite Joy” has some nasty repercussions, should one indulge too far. Was this meant as a warning or is there some other meaning?
Mikko: This one is a really good question, but I’m not sure how much I want to tell you about the whole meaning thing and, you know, spoil the fun. I guess I could say that it goes a bit deeper than what the cover might suggest on the first glance. But is it a warning? Definitely not. More like an invitation, I should say. But if anyone really wants to dig deeper with this album, be sure to check out a certain ‘Book of the Law’ by one Aleister Crowley, a name not too unfamiliar to many out there but, if you ask me, quite misunderstood in more than one way.
Is it a concept album, or are there any consistent running themes? How do you intend the listener to relate to the lyrics?
Joni: It’s really not a concept album per se, but there are some recurring themes between the songs. Mikko, who is also our lyricist, likes to describe Apostle as a story about an individual who goes through experiences that changes him completely, and the story – if you want to call it such – combines themes like alienation, spiritualism, supernatural, satanism, Christianity etc. And ultimately, we want the listener to come and enjoy that same journey with us when they listen to those songs and lyrics.
What is the idea behind the song title “0=2”? It seems rather disjoint from the other song titles. I assume you’re not talking about modular arithmetic with base 2 (in which case the statement would be correct mathematically)?
Mikko: This one also goes back to that ‘Crowley-thing’. As 0=2 is the last track of the album, it sums up things or the progression that has taken place in previous songs, but it also points at somewhere outside the arc of the album. I like to end albums with kind of a realization but in a sense that opens new possibilities or even might offer a contradictory take on what has transpired before. For sure, it’s not mathematics, even though, if I’m not totally incorrect, Crowley gives somewhere a kind of a mathematical analysis on the formula of 0=2 too, and how he perceived it as being connected to the Theory of Relativity. But in the context of our songs, it’s more of an esoteric metaphor or a key to what I see as an important mental exercise to become aware of things that divide us people.
Which bands were your main influences for this album?
Antti: We listened to many different artists while composing and recording the songs, and not all of them from the metal genre. Some material we listened to thinking that this is not what we wish to accomplish at all, so it’s a somewhat hard question to answer.
Mikko: yeah, like this one time when me and Antti were trying to come up with some ideas, we ended up listening to Stiches after browsing Spotify, and I think it was his song ‘Brick in yo face’ that somehow gave us an idea of a riff that spawn one of the central pieces of the album.
Antti: Exactly! We went through many newer albums from bands that we have liked to listen to and even some that we disliked at least musically.
I’d imagine many of the things we experienced by listening to other artists with a critical ear rippled on into the compositions, lyrics, way of playing our instrument and so forth. The more evident influences by looking from writing and production standpoint are perhaps Cradle of Filth, Behemoth, and Tool to name a few.
What are the things you find most important in music? Melody? Headbangability? Dynamics? Etc. And how does this reflect in your writing?
Antti: The most important aspect in music is what the music feels like. For me that feeling must come across as genuine. If music doesn’t feel like anything, why listen to it? There’s nothing more disappointing than when the feeling that music aims to convey is false or feels like it has been slapped on the end product like a sticker for street credibility. The music should come from the heart and be true, and when it does you should be able to feel it. The melody, dynamics, lyrics etc are just colors to the canvas that bring about the bigger picture.
Mikko: I totally agree with Antti here. Obviously, our music is quite melodic, and it has quiet parts and loud and fast parts, but I’ve found it that every time I try to force a song to be of certain ‘style’, I end up writing shit and what I’ve written ends up somewhere among never to be released songs. Lately, I’ve come to realize that the song needs to be given enough space to write itself and tell what it’s about, and the songwriter should try to get in the way as little as possible. The only way to achieve that is to let your emotions and feelings guide you. To do that, you have to discard all thoughts that might arise from what you heard from critics or even fans who like what you’ve previously done.
The production on Apostle has markedly changed compared to previous albums, with you adopting a more crisp and modern sound. Was this a goal from the outset, or did your approach to how the record would sound change during its creation?
Antti: We tried a few different things with the sound of the album while in pre-production. Due to us wanting to make an album full of songs that we’d love to play amongst us, the guitars ended up being quite important sound wise in the beginning.
How the guitar sounds will always affect how you play, hence we wanted to have the main sounds narrowed down as early as possible. Of course, we had some alterations while recording different things and we brought in new stuff while composing and even when recording.
So, the process was still organic and ultimately it was complete when the songs were done. Guitars ended up sounding a good mix of both modern and vintage to my ears with the emphasis on modern. This also continued in the mastering phase where we added in just a little of vintage softness to avoid excess crispness.
Mikko: Well, as we produce everything by ourselves, it is a learning process but also a matter of preference. I’ve always preferred dynamics in the music, and to enhance that aspect, we used almost exclusively guitars with passive pick-ups for Apostle, to have that more dynamic and sort of lively sound. As we use pretty high-gain amps, this kind of combination works better in my opinion and the end result is not so over-compressed and flat, which makes a lot of modern metal very uninteresting and dull or just pure ear fatigue. It was the same thing with bass, vocals and drums. We used many new techniques and the result was that the final mix before mastering sounded so good that the mastering itself was very light, you know, with only slight eqing and some compression here and there. The album production is also part of the fun for us, so we already have quite a lot of ideas and new techniques that we want to try out for the next album.
How has the Covid crisis impacted you? Both personally and musically.
Antti: Thanks to this crisis we have been able to financially recover from the excess spending that was going about before the crisis. I believe we haven’t acquired much new gear during this time, except for a few new effects that were brought to allow us to bring some of the new material to life when performing live. Musically, it has been a great time to put down extra hours of practice and learn things that we haven’t been able to find time for otherwise.
And since we’ve been able to continue our weekly rehearsals thanks to no one getting sick, we’ve still been able to enjoy the social side of life when playing together.
How does music impact your life? Both playing/creating and listening to music.
Joni: Playing this kind of music is a way to positively channel one’s inner frustration and anger. Playing together creates a zen-like moment and for all of us our rehearsal evenings are highlights of the week. Writing new songs for albums can be a painful process to get going but once you get momentum rolling it becomes easier and enjoyable. We enjoy doing ‘Antipope’ together and I think some of that enjoyment is clearly visible in everything we do.
For me personally, music has for the longest time been a driving force and passion in my life. And I think that’s common between all of us. We discuss a lot of different bands and give recommendations to each other.
Tuska E.: Music impacts everything in our life. It is something we live and breathe. It is not a hobby for us but it is a way of life. We play together many times in a week and we listen to our favourite bands like Manowar and Iron Maiden a lot of course. What else would you do?
Mikko: yeah, what else? At some point, maybe five years ago, I kind of thought that maybe I would ‘get over’ with this whole band thing, but it didn’t happen. For the past few years, I feel like I’ve been getting more and more out of anything that’s related to music, be it rehearsing, writing, listening, practicing some techniques by myself. At the same time, I’ve come to appreciate it more and not to take it as granted. To have a band with bandmates who really support and bring the best out of you week after week is real privilege.
Which artists would you like to tour with in the future?
Tuska E.: One band comes to my mind and it is Pharaoh Pirttikangas and Nubians from Kuhmalahti because they have the best band title ever and they have pretty good songs they play.
What are your plans for the 2020s decade musically?
Joni: At the moment we are making some plans to grow our merchandise catalog and at some point, start filming our second music video from Apostle. Next album is also in the early songwriting stage, where we plan to continue on the same path that Apostle guided us on. But we don’t intend to rush with that. We have really enjoyed playing and practicing new songs, so hopefully when this COVID-19 pandemic has calmed down we can play a couple of gigs and present our new stuff for a live audience. After that it’s hard to predict what the future holds. Hopefully when 2030s comes along Antipope is still alive and kicking, even when some of our members are nearing their 50s and midlife crises.
What’s the Finnish prog metal scene like? Are there any local bands you recommend? How involved are you in the scene?
Tuska E.: There are plenty of Finnish prog bands you should check out like Kingston Wall, Pharaoh Pirttikangas, Hidrian Spacefolk, Freud, Marx, Engels & Young, CMX, Juice Leskinen & Mikko Alatalo and Amorphis to name a few.
Any other bands you think deserve more exposure?
Tuska E.: The other band I play the drums in is a true heavy metal band called Strider. At least you should check that band out.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to us! Is there anything you’d like to add?
Mikko: Thanks for the great questions, it was a pleasure! And anyone reading this who still hasn’t checked out Apostle of Infinite Joy, do so now! You can find it anywhere, on Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes etc etc. And once this COVID-thing is over, there might be an Antipope show coming to town near you!
Antipope’s social links:
Website: http://www.antipope.info/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Antipope
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/antipopeband
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/antipope_band/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/antipope_band
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4d9JpfcHasCoPlXmjSD048
Bandcamp: https://antipope.bandcamp.com/
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