• Ok!This is an outstanding band from Finland that has positively surprised me and I bet they will surpirse many of you as well. This is a band able to offer you many great moments!

• Well, we have been together for about four years. We started off initially by playing covers from King Diamond (among others) and really wanting to get to know each other musically. We are all from the same little town in a rural part of Finland and we all kind of had the same views about our musical ambitions. Our guitarist Arttu and I were basically the ones who "put Blueberryhill together". I should probably mention that we made our first two demos under the name "Isengard" but eventually changed to Blueberryhill. We have been recording basically one demo per year - not intentionally but that's just how everything bundled together. So, Clandestine is our fourth demo.

2.HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE YOUR MUSICAL STYLE?  THINK THAT YOU HAVE MANY EPIC AND FOLK ELEMENTS. DO YOU AGREE?

• Yes, you are right about those two. There have certainly been folk-elements to our songs all the way from our second demo "Full Moon Legends". On the other hand the epic stuff kinda comes from influences such as Virgin Steele and Blind Guardian and aside from our musical influences of course from the strong keyboard material we use on our songs. I think that these "styles", though, are written into the songs so that they don't distract you from the pure emotional power of the song. I'd just like to call our music "heavy metal" ;-)

3.YOU HAVE A STRANGE MONICKER FOR A HEAVY METAL BAND.  HOW DID YOU CHOOSE IT? DON'T YOU BELIEVE THAT THE BAND NAME SHOULD GIVE AN IDEA TO THE FANS REGARDING THE MUSICAL DIRECTION OR SHOULD IT JUST ATTRACT THEIR INTEREST?

• The band name is kind of a contradictive issue. It'd be nice to see peoples' faces when they grab our CD and look at the name - then put the CD in their player and crank up the volume: what the hell!?! The band name actually derives from my family name and was chosen by everybody else but me (hey, I'm not _that_ egocentric ;-)).

4.THOUGH YOU ARE FROM FINLAND, IN SOME OF YOUR LYRICS YOU HURT THEMES OF THE VIKING MYTHOLOGY. WHY IS THAT? WHY DON'T YOU WRITE ABOUT YOUR COUNTRY'S MYTHOLOGY-HISTORY?

• I think after Amorphis took the Finnish folklore for their lyrical interest, the idea of someone else using the same texts in Finland would be vague. Sure there are some really good hero's tales and description of the olden days, but I think our lyrics always have that great seduction of self-interpretation. You can always find sub-meaning from the lyrics and reflect you own thoughts through them. I always enjoy doing that myself through song lyrics. On the other hand I _am_ drawn towards the whole viking-era history and it's very nice to embed those images to my own lyrics. "Odin's Thunder" on the Clandestine CD is a kind of a sequel to "House of Sleep" on our last CD "Blueberryhill".

5.FINLAND HAS DISAPPONTED ME THESE PAST FEW YEARS, CAUSE ALL OF THE BANDS FROM THERE TEND TO BECOME STRATOVARIUS CLONES. YOUR MSUIC DIFFERS FROM THIS TREND. WHY DO YOU THINK THIS HAPPENS AND HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO DIFFER?

• I guess we have so many great personalities in the band that everybody brings their wisdom to the art of song making. We are not "metal only" guys in our free time. I think the diversity to our music comes from the fact that we want to honour the roots of rock and heavy music, not just copycat the latest trends. Of course we like to develop the scene too by writing music that could appeal to diverse listeners.

6.THE SOUND OF THE DEMO IS VERY PROFESSIONAL. WHY DIDN'T YOU DECIDE TO RELEASE IT AS A SELF FINANCED CD? IF SOMEONE IS INTERESTED IN BUYING IT, HOW CAN HE GET IN TOUCH WITH YOU AND HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

• We are seriously promoting the band and our music - of course our talents. We decided to stay on the CD-R format just because everything is much quicker to handle. And you can always taste the craftsmanship on the CD's you "made yourself" ;-) We are looking for a demo distribution partner if the international demand grows bigger with this demo. So far we have been actively selling our CD's only in Finland. Of course if people want to buy the CD or our previous CD's they are encouraged to contact me at [email protected]

7.WHICH ARE YOUR AIMS YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE WITH THIS DEMO AND IN GENERAL AS MUSICIANS?

• We are seriously looking for a record deal with a serious company. Musically we are constantly trying to develop and keep the quality of our music high.

8.WHEN YOU LISTEN TO THE WORDS "HEAVY METAL", WHAT THINGS COME TO YOUR MIND?

• For me those words always take me back to the time when my mom handled me my first LP - "Paranoid" from Black Sabbath. She said "this is heavy metal" ;-) Of course heavy metal also means brotherhood and staying true to what you believe in.

9.WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO HATE IN THE METAL SCENE?

• People who are trapped within genres. Copycats.

10.WHICH WERE THE REACTIONS OF THE FANS ON YOUR DEMO? WHICH WAS THE BEST AND WHICH WAS THE WORST REVIEW?

• In general people have liked our music very much. Almost all of the  feedback we have got is positive. I really cannot categorise the good feedback (your was great ;-)) but I think the worst for myself has been something like "the singer sounds like ill-gone Sentenced vocalist" ;-)

11.ARE YOU STILL SATISFIED WITH YOUR WORK OR IS THERE ANYTHING YOU'D LIKE TO CHANGE? IN WHICH FIELDS WILL YOU BE MORE CAREFUL NEXT TIME?

• We are very satisfied with the Clandestine CD. There is always space for improvement, but I think if we can keep the pace musically the only thing to speed up is the overall production. You always want to tweak it "one more time" and there's always some glitch you'd like to fix. If you don't stop and look at yourself you never get finished.

12.WHICH DO YOU THINK IS THE BEST AND WHICH IS THE WORST PART IN YOUR MUSIC? WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU NEED IMPROVEMENT?

• The previous answer goes pretty much also for this one. Discipline is  always a good feature in a musician but so is creative madness. I think just to keep our eyes and ears open for the world we can aim still higher.

13.IF YOU WEREN'T ABLE TO COMPOSE MUSIC, WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO?

• I'll just answer on my own behalf: I'd enjoy other great areas of life such as good food and good drinks ;-)

14.IF SOMEDAY YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO MEET THE CREATURE THAT CREATED THE UNIVERSE, WHICH WOULD YOUR BIGGEST QUESTION BE?

• I'm a bit of an agnostic myself but if I were to meet such a creature  my question would probably be: "what's the meaning for life ... universe  ... and EVERYTHING"? And I would not settle for "42" as an answer ;-)

15.IF TIME TRAVEL WAS POSSIBLE, WHICH HISTORICAL PERIOD WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT AND WHY? WHAT WOULD YOU MISS THE MOST FROM OUR TIME?

• I'd probably go to ancient Greece and meet all the famous philosophers  and try to convince Socrates not to pour the cup. I guess the ways of  today's communication would be the things to miss the most.

16.WHAT PROLOGUE AND TITLE WOULD YOU LIKE THIS INTERVIEW TO HAVE?

• The title could be: "Beatles was wrong: it was _Blueberry hills_  forever". No ... I think you should be the judge for those.

17.THANK YOU!HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO ASK YOU ANYTHING AND YOU'D LIKE TO MENTION?

• Thank YOU! Hope to see and hear from you again!
• Cheers,
• Mika from Blueberryhill
Nick  "William_Kidd"  Parastatidis