Celesty
Jere the drummer of
Celesty is the kind of musician that I really enjoy to interview. Modest,
sincere and with a good taste of humour is happy that plays the music he
likes and to tell you the truth in their new album CELESTY have done an
excellent job. An album that my personal believe is that will haunt every
friend of melodic power metaller. Read the interview, buy the album and
of course... Raise your sword up high and STAY METAL!!!
1.HELLO! "LEGACY OF HATE" IS YOUR SECOND ALBUM
AND I'D LIKE YOU TO TELL ME IN WHICH WAYS THESE 2 ALBUMS ARE SIMILAR AND
IN WHICH WAYS THEY DIFFER.
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Personally I think that "Legacy of hate" is much
aggressive, symphonier and darker album that "Roe" was. There is this normal
Celesty sound on the music and I think that you will notice that "Hey this
is Celesty" when you are listening the album if you have listened the "Roe".
Of course there is many differences like choir parts, keyboards are very
aggressive and there is also dark vocals added on the new album. The biggest
difference is the singer, like you already know we had to change the singer
from Kimmo to Antti Railio to this new album.
2."LEGACY OF HATE" IS A CONCEPT ALBUM LIKE "REIGN
OF
ELEMENTS" WAS AND I BELIEVE THAT ON YOUR NEW
ALBUM YOU CONTINUE IN SOMEWAY THE STORY YOU'VE STARTED ON YOUR DEBUT ALBUM.
AM I RIGHT? SO, I WANT YOU TO TELL ME WHERE THE FIRST PART OF YOUR EPIC
SAGA ENDS AND WHICH IS THE PLOT OF "LEGACY OF HATE".
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Like you know we have created the story by ourselves
and this means that the world (land of the Cryon), all the characters,
places, names and stuff like that is from our own head. I think that it
would be stupid to do just one story from that world. I think that fans
who read our stories like that we did continue the story from that point
where we end it last time.You can read our "Reign of elements" lyrics in
our website http://www.celesty.net
and this way you will know how our story begins. You can also read "Legacy
of hate" albums lyrics from our website but if you want to know every little
detail of our story you must buy our album because in the "LoH" booklet
there is the whole story told like it was a book.
3.ON YOUR NEW ALBUM I'VE NOTICED THAT YOU HAVE
REDUCED THE STRATOVARIUS ELEMENTS IN YOUR SOUND AND YOU'VE GOT NOW INFLUENCES
FROM BANDS LIKE RHAPSODY, BLIND GUARDIAN AND GAMMA RAY. DO YOU AGREE? WHY
DID YOU DO THAT?
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We have always liked those bands, but we haven't
ever decided that hey now we are doing music like Rhapsody, Gamma Ray and
Startovarius is. When I formed Celesty, I did it just because I wanted
my own Powermetal band and because I liked to play that kind of music.
When we started to compose the songs in our debut album we did not try
to sound like any of those bands, but of course when you play fast drums
and guitar/keyboard solos, the reviews always say that "this sounds like..."
some band... But in this new album we tried to make a whole new approach
to Power Metal and i think we managed to do something bit different that
the other bands.
4.IN MANY PARTS OF YOUR SONGS, YOU USE BRUTAL
DEATH
METAL VOCALS. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE
OR SUGGEST WITH THAT? IS IT PERHAPS THAT YOU WANT TO MAKE THE STORY SOUND
EVEN MORE DRAMATIC?
-
Yes, There is a evil characters in the story and
I think that they sound like that :) This brings the story more closer
to the listener when he can hear the "evil" speaking. And i think this
is also something new that hasn`t been done so many times in powermetal
albums. And doesn`t it sound dramatic? :D
5.IN THE BOOKLET OF YOUR ALBUM, YOU WRITE IN THE
LAST SONG "THE END?". DOESN'T THE STORY END HERE? DO YOU HAVE PLANS TO
CONTINUE IT IN YOUR NEXT RELEASE?
-
Like you know the story ends quite dramatic. I
promise that the story will continue again, it's just the end to the "Legacy
of hate" part of this story...and as you can see there is a Question mark
in the end...so is this the end? When you read the story you understand
what we mean with that "question mark"
6.WELL, SINCE YOU LIKE WRITING ABOUT SUCH KIND
OF
EPIC/FANTASY STORIES, IT MEANS THAT YOU ALSO
LIKE
READING SUCH KIND OF BOOKS. SO, TELL ME 5
OF YOUR MOST BELOVED FANTASY BOOKS AND AUTHORS.
-
I bet you guess but one of our favorite writer
is J.R.R Tolkien. But we don`t read SO much of fantasy stories. Maybe sometimes
a book or two, but we like to keep our own approach to the story and don`t
take any large influences from other writers. Like some bands they just
take the story from "Lord of the rings" and start to make a song. We like
to do everything ourselves. Maybe someday there will be a "The Story of
CRYON - The Movie" hahahaha...this would be great!
7.I READ IN YOUR BIO THAT YOU'VE RECORDED YOUR
FIRST
DEMO, JUST FOR YOURSELVES. WHAT MADE YOU CHANGE
YOUR OPINION AND TAKE THE BAND MORE SERIOUS AND NOT SEE IT AS A HOBBY?
-
That was on our early days when we were only doing
few own songs and then we recorded those songs in the studio. After that
demo we noticed that maybe if we had better singer we could be quite good
at this and we started to find new vocalist. After that we had to find
also new keyboardist and guitarist so sort of the band changed totally
and that's where we changed the name also from Celestial to Celesty.
8.WHY DID YOUR SINGER KIMMO LEAVE THE BAND? ARE
YOU
STILL FRIENDS WITH HIM? WHAT NEW ELEMENTS
HAS ANTTI
RAILIO TO OFFER TO THE BAND IN COMPARISON
TO KIMMO
-
We are still very good friends with Kimmo and
there isn't any personal reasons why he left. He just doesn't like to sing
this kind of music that we play and he didn't have the motivation anymore.
We noticed that Kimmo wasn't very inspired like we were when we played
the songs from the "Legacy of hate" to him before entering the studio to
record the album. Soon after that he told us that he is leaving the band.
Right away we started to find new singer and that's how we found Antti
Railio. Antti is very young singer and he is full of positive energy, has
great ideas and likes to sing in our band very much. Of course Antti had
some difficulties in studio because he had only two weeks time to practice
our songs. Anyway the result was good and we cannot wait next album because
then we can take all out of Antti :)
9.YOU HAVE MANY NOMINATIONS FROM THE MAGAZINES
FOR YOUR DEBUT ALBUM AS "BEST NEWCOMMER BAND" AND "BEST DEBUT ALBUM IN
2002". HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? DID YOU EXPECT SUCH A SUCCESS?
-
Well, I think that this is one of the greatest
moments after the long studio sessions, when you have finished the album
and just wait what everyone thinks about it. Of course there are many journalists
who don't like our music at all and think that we are just one of the many
typical Power metal bands. Review is always one person's opinion about
the album and someone else might think totally different. We never started
to do music because we want to be famous or anything like that, we just
want to make metal music and it's great if people like what we do.
10.HAS THIS RECOGNITION CREATED YOU ANY KIND OF
ANXIETY, WHICH WORKED NEGATIVELY FOR THE CREATIVITY
OF YOUR BAND?
-
No there aren't any problems with that. We are
not so famous band here in Finland that all the girls would scream when
they see us. Actually we are not sisturbed in our "free time". Of course
there are these situations when you are for example shopping and suddenly
someone asks that "Hey are you the drummer from Celesty?" and then they
ask autograph or just talk this and that for a while. There is also few
times when someone stares at you and point you at finger, but that could
be also because I have long hair and boys don't have long hair :) Anyway,
I think that this is mostly fun and none of Celesty members doesn't feel
that they are some kind of celebrities.
11.SINCE YOU'VE RELEASED AN ALBUM, I THINK IT'S
LOGICAL TO RECEIVE BOTH BAD AND GOOD REVIEWS.
WHICH IS YOUR REACTION TO A NEGATIVE AND YET HOSTILE REVIEW? WHAT DO YOU
WANT TO SAY TO THOSE THAT MIGHT SAY THAT YOU DON'T DO ANYTHING ELSE RATHER
THAN COPYING STRATOVARIUS AND RHAPSODY?
-
Well, like I said before that every review is
just one person opinion about the music and everything affects on that.
Most of the reviews depends if the journalist likes Powermetal. If he hates
the genre he has already some kind of a negative influence to our music.
But there is many peoples who I know and they hate Power metal but still
like our music because there is something different. If someone says that
this is just like Stratovarius and Rhapsody I'm sure that the journalist
had a bad day or something.
12.WHICH IS, ACCORDING TO YOU, THE ELEMENT THAT
MAKES YOU STAND OUT FROM THE REST OF THE BANDS AND WHICH ELEMENT WOULD
YOU LIKE TO REDUCE IN YOUR SOUND?
-
Well i`d say that we try to make a new approach
to power metal with this "Story and music walking hand in hand" thing.
And we try to find new sounds and new ways to make songs, so they are not
so similar to other bands, this is why we like to call our music "Fantasy
metal". Of course lots of bands have done that earlier but i`d say that
if someone compares us to "Stratovarius" or "Sonata Arctica" i would say
they are DEAD WRONG! because even if we have guitar / keyboard solos and
fast drums and high singing, that doesn`t mean we sound like Stratovarius....how
could anyone say that? I think that we have this Celesty-sound in our music
and we try to keep it that way. I think everyone should listen the album
and make their own decisions about the music, i think many people would
find the "difference" themselves.
13.WHICH WORDS DO YOU THINK COULD BEST DESCRIBE
YOUR MUSIC AND THE BAND IN GENERAL?
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Well as i said, we don`t try to sound like any
band and we try to create our own sound. But if i`d had to compare us to
some other band, i would say that our influences are Rhapsody, Gamma Ray,
Manowar and Helloween but mostly i would like to say that we are a "mix
of all power metal bands with own style" is that complicated enough :D
hahahahaa....
14.WHAT TITLE WOULD YOU LIKE THIS INTERVIEW TO
HAVE?
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Hmm...what about "Special interview with BRITNEY
SPEARS" hahahaha....Just kidding....well, let me think. "Raise your sword
up high with CELESTY" or "The new wawe of Power Metal : CELESTY " or "Fantasy
Metal from Finland : CELESTY". I don`t know, you decide, you are the "journalist"
i am just a Heavy Metal musician..hahahaha...
15.THANK YOU! LEAVE YOUR MESSAGE...
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For metal fans everywhere, listen the album and
choose your side in the "war of Cryon"...Raise your sword up high and STAY
METAL
Nikos "William_Kidd" Parastatidis
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