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Artist:Omnium Gatherum Date Questions Answered:16/01/06 Date Added:18/01/06 More Info: Omnium Gatherum's Official Website, Introduction. Interview by: Lou Recently I decided to add an 'interviews' feature to ARSE and when I heard that Omnium Gatherum were due to be playing Bloodstock this September, I knew exactly who my first victims... erm... I mean, candidates for the ARSE interview experience should be... So I sent a load of questions to Markus Vanhala, and (luckily - otherwise it would be a very short and one-sided interview) he and Janne Markkanen were kind enough to answer them... Lou: For any readers who have yet to experience Omnium Gatherum,how would you describe the music you play? Janne Markkanen: Hmmm, I'm very lousy to describe our music style, but it's some sort of a metal, with melodies and kick-ass riffs. Markus Vanhala:: Janne got the point there. Some boring people who lack some imagination call our stuff to “melodic death metal”… hehe! But more often it is said in good connection in reviews for example most common phrase is something like “OG got the creativity and freshness what 99% of the melodic death metal bands lack.” We call our music to Metal, it´s enough. Lou: Where did the name Omnium Gatherum come from? Janne: Our former keyboard dude came up with that in 1996 or something. I'm told it means something like Motley Crew... Markus: …Freak circus, peculiar mixture, a miscellaneous collection etc…. It´s taken from the medical latin dictionary.
Lou: Has there been any changes to the line-up since the band started? Markus: Oh yeah, I´m the only one member left from the “original” OG line-up 1996. Harri and Janne came 1997, Jarmo 1999, Filppu 2000 and Aapo, the newest dude & keyboard player came to OG-crew last year. Olli, our first vocalist/guitarist is also still “on the band” as he have done all our cover artwork to every OG release since the first demo. Lou: I know this is a bit of a 'run-of-the-mill' question, but it has to be done... Which bands have inspired you? Janne: I guess we all are inspired by different bands, there ain't many common sources of inspiration. I guess good music overally inspires us. Markus: At the beginning OG was formed because of the bands Death, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, At The Gates, Iron Maiden and Edge Of Sanity. Nowadays too many to mention, I guess.. I´m always been a big fan of Death, Iron Maiden, WASP, Kiss and Annihilator. Lou: What equipment do you guys use? Janne: Markus is a dedicated Jackson guitar user, and has a quite notable collection of those fine guitars. Harri's main instrument is a very nice red Gibson Flying-V and one of a kind Gibson Syphilis. I use Fender bass and Jarmo is using Pearl and Sabian mostly. Markus: Other “equipments” that we use are a secrecy… ;) Lou: What other musical projects outside of O.G are you all involved in? Markus: I´m playing also in Manitou and Malpractice, Harri is playing in Total Devastation and Kaihoro, Jarmo is playing also in Total Devastation, Filppu have project-band what does material every fifth year or something. So there´s a lot band action going on all the time and sometimes it´s quite busy. But it´s nice to do different kinds of things on music and other bands also help each other. My other band Manitou, traditional heavy metal, is releasing the second album this spring. Of course all this delays a little bit OG´s action, but there´s time for everything. Lou: What was the first gig you played as Omnium Gatherum? How long ago was it and where was it? Markus: It was on February 1997 on our hometown´s youth club called Nuokkari, it was infact quite good gig even it was our first. OG spirit were there from the beginning! I still have some pictures from that gig and even a quite good quality video tape. Hot bootleg material, hehe! Hopefully no-one can get that tape ever. Janne: I was in the audience on that gig. I remember a lyric sheet taped into microphone stand. My first gig was in Karhurock 11.7.1998 if I remember correctly, so was Harri's first one. We were all pretty drunk...
Lou: What's the biggest crowd you've played to so far? Were you nervous at all? Markus: Last summer´s Party.San Open Air in Germany, where we played with Cannibal Corpse, Entombed, Napalm Death among others. There was something like 8000 people on the crowd or something. It was infact the first gig since a long time when I was nervous before the gig. It was nice feeling indeed! Janne: I guess I was at most nervous on our gig, when we opened for Children of Bodom. Markus: But at least on that COB gig we had a Dallas serie-theme on opening intro… Lou: Are there any bands around at the moment that you'd really like to tour with? Markus: At the moment every tour would be welcomed for us as it would be nice to get our asses to some un-finnish tour. But maybe Strapping Yound Lad, Opeth, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Annihilator, Soilwork etc. would be nice tour company… Janne: ...and we shall not forget Avril Lavigne! Markus: Yeah, Avril Lavigne would travel on my PERSONAL tourbus, hehe! Destiny´s Child would be also great company, at least Beyoncee would get access to my hotelroom… Lou: I hear you're playing at Bloodstock this year - are you looking forward to it? (I am!) Do you know which stage you will be playing on? Janne: Yes, we are very excited about this gig, we finally get ourselves to UK. We haven't got any details of our gig, but we'll let you know when we get some. Markus: Hopefully there´ll be also short UK tour near the Bloodstock dates. At least the organizer of the festival is trying to organize that kind of thing, would be cool! Of course we´re looking forward to this gig, it´s always nice to be somewhere where you cannot survive speaking Finnish. And there´s been quite a lot demand from UK to see OG, so finally UK see OG and OG see UK! Lou: What sort of set list do you think you'll play? Will it mostly be stuff from "Years In Waste"? Can we expect any new tracks? Markus: Sure we will play also some new stuff as there´s quite lot of that ready for now. Maybe half “Years” stuff and half “Spirits” stuff, hard to say yet. We have even played “Lost & Found” from “Steal the Light” ep on some of last summer´s gigs… We´ll see the package. It might be that we will do the setlist on Bloodstock backstage just before going on stage, that´s quite usual for us also. Lou: What O.G song are you most proud of and why? Markus: It varies so much, depends on day, but maybe “It Shines” and “Black Sea´s Cry” are my faves today and at the moment, slow season going I guess... Those songs just have a huge spirit and emotion inside. And I´m damn proud of whole “Steal The Light” –ep, that´s cool piece of early work of ours! Janne: I like "Nolan's Fati" and "Gravesilence". Lou: Bit of a nasty one now... Which O.G song do you like the least? Janne: Paradox, I just hate that song. Luckily we haven't played it since.... when? Can't remember. Markus: Must be something from our first or second demo… can´t even remember the names, “Fairytales of Stump” and other ”anti-classics”! Lou: Are there any plans for another O.G album? If so, when are you planning to record it? Janne: Yes, we'll do another album. When we'll do it, not sure. We have several songs ready and more songs almost ready. We'll do a demo for Nuclear Blast in the end of this month (January), and they can decide if they are interested to release it. If not, we'll find something else. Markus: New material is again quite different than the previous material, but it kick ass better, that´s for sure! I have love/hate relationship with these new songs, but they´re fucking great stuff! Lou: What's the most embarrassing thing that's happened while you've been onstage? Janne: Not embarassing but painful: Markus hit me with the headstock of his guitar between my eyes. In the end of the gig, my face was dripping with blood. I still have a scar from that. Markus: That Janne hitting with guitar is one of the most embarrassing moments, hitting Antti is another… =) I´m too active on stage, I guess. Once I fell down over the keyboards on the first riff of the first song of the set when I started moshing too seriously, hehe! Nice moments… Lou: Since ARSE is mainly a reviews site... Did you guys buy any albums last year? Are there any that you can recommend? Markus: Best ones of last year that I remember were Opeth: Ghost Reveries, Judas Priest: Angel Of Retribution, Annihilator: Schizo Deluxe, Bruce Dickinson: Tyranny Of Souls, Nevermore: This Godless Endeavour, Exodus: Shovel Headed Kill Machine, Gorefest: La Muerte, Hypocrisy: Virus …quite nice year of metal records indeed! Janne: New Cathedral album definitely! High on Fire's "Blessed Black Wings" and The Cardigans' "Super Extra Gravity" Lou: Can you recommend any good underground metal bands that we may not have heard of? Janne: I haven't really kept eye on this metal scene -thing for a long time, but it seems that there's at least one promising band in every village. Markus: Kiuas, Amoral, Machine Men, Swallow The Sun, Diablo, Before The Dawn, Pain Confessor, Elenium to say few great Finnish bands. …and of course Total Devastation, Manitou, Malpractice and Kaihoro, the best ones, hehe!
Markus: Emperor & Megadeth, for example… Janne: Hmmmm, this one is hard... Lou: Which 'mainstream' act, in your opinion, should just give up? Janne: I'm not really sure, there's so much music I don't like. I don't take too much stress about bands which I don't like, I just simply ignore them. Markus: Stratovarius, they don´t have anything to offer since the “Visions” album from the 1997! …and Timo Tolkki is ugly! Lou: Did you see any bands last year? Who put on the best show and who put on the worst? Markus: I saw lots of gigs as I´m metal fanatic. Most biggest gig moment was to see Judas Priest with Rob Halford for the first time, it was a classic! Dio, Opeth, Testament, Hypocrisy, Iron Maiden were also quite memorably ones. Hard to say what was the worst, quite nr.1 on this was Finnish band called Roctum… errrh… Janne: The Bellrays at Tavastia Club were brilliant, one of the best bands I have ever seen. Also the Hawkwind was really great. The worst? Perhaps the Black Moses from UK. They were sloppy and too drunk. Lou: What was the first gig you ever went to? Janne: First gig where I went myself must been one of the first Metal Partys in my hometown early 90's. Mostly Death metal and even lousy bands sounded really good. Aww, I miss those days... Markus: It was 80´s biggest Finnish teenage idol rock band called “Dingo” and the year was 1986. I was there with my sister and parents… Don´t remember too much about that as I was 5 years old… Lou: What was the first album you ever bought? Markus: Must´ve been Final Countdown by Europe, Wasp´s first album or Kiss´ Animalize something like 1986. Next time my mom carried me to hairdresser after I had got Europe album, I said to barber that can you do me Joey Tempest hairstyle. Jon Bon Jovi was also another of my biggest (hair) idols. Janne: I got my first Twisted Sister albums in '86 if I remember correctly. First LP I got must've been "Whiplash Smile" by Billy Idol. First one I bought myself was Iron Maiden "7th son". Quite remarkable, both of those two albums are still totally killer stuff and in my favourites. Lou: And, most importantly, would you be willing to join the ARSE crew (Lou, Sam etc) for a drink at Bloodstock? Janne: It would be a pleasure, see you there! Thanks for your support! Markus: Yeah, for a “few” drinks! See ya on Bloodstock UK! Thanks to arse! |
