We present to your attention Stam1na – one of the most emblematic metal bands from Finland, although still not so popular outside their homeland. In the following interview you can read about the reasons for it, their future plans and some other interesting details from the world of the five Finns. We had the opportunity to have a talk with the guitarist Pekka ”Pexi” Olkkonen and the bass player Kai-Pekka ”Kaikka” Kangasmäki right before they hit the main stage at Tuska Open Air. You can check out some pictures from their performance in our gallery.

MH18: Hello! Can we start with some introduction of you and the band?

Kai-Pekka ”Kaikka” Kangasmäki

Kaikka: Hi, I’m Kaikka from Stam1na.

Pexi: And I’m Pekka from Stam1na and we are at Tuska festival in Finland.

Kaikka: 2013.

Pexi: And it’s kind of sunny.

Kaikka: Yeah, and I have a terrible hangover.

Pexi: You fool.

MH18: Uh, sorry to hear about that. Can you introduce the band a bit cause maybe not everyone in Bulgaria has heard of you.

Pexi: Stam1na is Finnish metal band, we sing in Finnish and we are…

Kaikka: We fucking rule!

MH18: Yeah you do!

Pexi: Yeah, we fucking rule, definitely check us out. And there are few songs in English, but you don’t care. You only care about good music and that’s what we’re all about.

MH18: And why did you decide to make songs in English at all?

Pexi: When we started at 1996 we made I think two demo tapes in English and then we thought that this is boring, everybody is doing this so we decided to sing in Finnish. All of a sudden we had a record deal and we’ve made 5 albums by now and we’re making a 6th later this year. And I think this has become one of our main things and we couldn’t just change the lyrics in English or anything else. Stam1na is all about Finnish lyrics.

MH18: So why did you decide to put English lyrics in one of the songs from your last album?

Pexi: I don’t know. That was our crazy singers’ idea and he has crazy ideas all the time. He just wanted to do it and that’s cool and this kind of represents what we are. We can do anything if we want so if we decide to make a record with just banjos – that also would be cool.

Kaikka: Or a song in German or whatever.

MH18: So it has nothing to do with the concept of the album?

Kaikka: Actually it has a little bit.

Pekka ”Pexi” Olkkonen

Pexi: Probably it has.

MH18: Speaking of that – what is actually the concept of your last album?

Pexi: Well, Mr. Hyyrynen is sitting on the other table so we can’t get his comments on this subject. Do you have anything to say about it?

Kaikka: About „Nocebo“? It’s kind of based on the medical industry, but it’s not all about that, there are other meanings in these words and phrases. It’s hard to say because I didn’t write them.

Pexi: If we’re talking about the lyrics specifically, like I said it’s quite difficult to answer that question because none of us writes the lyrics, only Antti – our singer. But I think there are probably a few themes that are in the songs and I think that self-criticism is one of them. If you’ve seen „Valtiaan uudet vaateet“ music video – the singer gets punished.

MH18: Actually all of your music videos are really crazy and interesting.

Kaikka: Yep.

MH18: Are they based on your ideas or?

Kaikka: Yeah.

Pexi: Definitely, 100%. Because we have three media professionals in this band – Kaikka, Hyrde and Emil – they are all… I don’t know what’s the right word.

Kaikka: We all have a degree on media and communications. We are also doing music video stuff.

Pexi: And also Hyrde is involved in one of the media companies – it’s called Mediakolmio.

Kaikka: Medialouhos.

Pexi: Ah, sorry, that’s the right name. But it’s very easy because these guys can do it easily. And with this crazy singer we get all these crazy ideas.

MH18: But the video of „Puolikas ihminen“ is very minimalistic.

Kaikka: Yeah, because „Valtiaan uudet vaateet“ is a „band play“ video.

Pexi: And we tried to avoid that for many years.

Kaikka: Yes, but still there is a lot of stuff going on. So we wanted to make „Puolikas ihminen“ quite the opposite of that.

MH18: You definitely managed to do that.

Pexi: Yeah, I think the idea works.

MH18: What about your stage outfits? They’re also kind of crazy.

Pexi: Well, as you can see – this is all coming on the stage with us. (points at bunch of beach toys and accessories)

MH18: Whoa, that looks fun.

Pexi: Like I said – Stam1na is all about having fun. Of course we take music very seriously, it’s our passion, but besides that we can do pretty much what we want. So if we get the crazy idea that we should be farmers on stage or maybe something else like you’ll see today – it’s cool.

MH18: And apparently you have a lot of crazy ideas.

Pexi: Yeah, and it’s refreshing – who else does that? All metal bands are like „Argh, we hate everybody“ and wear all black and that’s just boring. If you hear our music – it’s full of details, it’s funny, it’s crazy, it’s over there. So that’s how we are.

MH18: Do you remember what was the gig that you played in front of the smallest audience?

Pexi: Ever? What would that be? I think it was 2001, 2002 or maybe 2003 when we were still a trio – me, the singer Hyrde and the drummer Teppo, we didn’t have a bass player. We played one gig in Vantaa, I remember that the place was called Vernissa and I think there was just one row of people. I’m not sure how many – maybe 10 or something. I think we were the first band, we didn’t have any albums out, only the demos that we released by ourselves so nobody knew about us. But we still tried to rock it. There were few good things being a trio – we got so many beers for ourselves.

MH18: That’s good thinking!

Pexi: Yeah, and our drummer at that time didn’t drink that much, he left right after the gig with his car. So there was a bucket of beer for each of us – for me and Hyrde.

Emil ”Hippi” Lähteenmäki

MH18: How did you decide to add keyboards to your music? It was after your second album, if I’m not mistaken.

Kaikka: Yeah, that’s right. We wanted to bring something new and something more.

Pexi: I think you’ll agree that from the first to the second album there is a huge leap that happened to our music. So as our music was changing we thought that this kind of music requires keys and that stuff. It was very natural and after a few songs we made with keyboards we saw that it was a good idea and of course we had to get a keyboard player. We got Emil who was friends with Hyrde and also media dude.

MH18: You had one European tour with Apocalyptica and you also played at Wacken. What are your impressions from the European audience?

Pexi: Great, it was amazing. That tour was unexpected. When we played at Germany or at the Baltic countries there were all so big places, large halls, thousands of people and on the posters of the gig there were no mentioning about Stam1na. Only the other warming up acts – the Finnish Sturm Und Drang.

MH18: Was it because you were added in the last moment to the line-up?

Pexi: I don’t know, but there were no mentioning about our band. Every night we were the first band and we had 30 minutes to play. And the audience was like „What the f*ck is this? What band is this?“ But after a few songs they were all hailing at our songs. We sold pretty much every item that we had with us – all the DVDs, shirts, everything. It was a success. And actually we released few albums after that in Germany but I guess it was with the wrong record label or something. But it was good.

MH18: You probably get this question a lot, but are you planning to tour Europe?

Pexi: We hope so.

Kaikka: That would be cool.

Pexi: But there are kind of money related issues.

Kaikka: It is so expensive.

Antti ”Hyrde” Hyyrynen

Pexi: Because we don’t have any records out there and it would be kind of pointless to make big gigs that would only cost us money. We would love to do it, but I don’t know when.

Kaikka: I think our record label manager is all the time trying to get our records released up roads, so if we can release our next album for example in Germany – of course we would go and play there. Because it is stupid and pointless if we just release a record and not go play there.

Pexi: That’s definitely the next step for us. But I don’t know when and I don’t know how we’re going to make it happen, because it’s so difficult and it requires so much money. And I don’t know where are we going to get them.

Kaikka: Tuomo Saikkonen, our manager, I think he’s owner of a Swiss bank. So maybe he’ll pay. How about that? Saikkonen will pay for everything?

MH18: But people actually know about you outside of Finland.

Pexi: That’s good to know because we don’t have any idea about that. But like I said – we would go everywhere if it was up to us.

Kaikka: Actually I think we are already booked for one or a few festival gigs in Europe for the next summer.

MH18: That’s a good start.

Pexi: Our goal for 2014 would probably be to get up roads and do foreign gigs.

MH18: Awesome. Thank you for your time, do you want to say anything else to the Bulgarian audience?

Kaikka: We are coming!

Pexi: We are coming to get you! No, no. Check out our band and if you like it send us an e-mail. I hope to see you everybody, cheers!

Kaikka: Cheers!