Darcanian Existence

DARCANE

YES YOU READ IT RIGHT. THIS DARCANE ARE DIFFERENT FROM THE SWEDISW ONES. THE FIRST DIFFERENCE IS THE SPELLING AND THE SECOND ONE THAT THEY PLAY MELODIC HEAVY/THRASH METAL. AFTER THEY CHANGED THEIR NAME FROM HOLOCHAUST TO DARKANE AND MANY TIME PASSED, WE FINALLY ARRANGE TO MAKE THE INTERVIEW WITH THEM. I THINK THAT AFTER ALL WORTHS THE TROUBLE...

1.FIRST OF ALL, GIVE US A SHORT BAND BIO AND INTRODUCE THE BAND TO THE FANS.

Hi all !! Darcane is a rising melodic metal band from Finland. Our material is very diverse covering the styles from ballads to thrash metal so there's sure something for everyone. Most of all the focus is in catchy melodies and riffs. Metallica is probably the closest band to us if you want to make a comparison.

2.WHY DID YOU CHANGE YOUR NAME FROM HOLOCHAUST INTO DARCANE? DON'T YOU KNWO THAT THERE IS A QUITE FAMOUS BAND FROM SWEDEN UNDER THIS NAME (DARKANE)? AREN'T YOU AFRAID THAT THERE WILL BE CREATED SOME SORT OF MISUNDERSTANDING OR TROUBLE?

Actually it's DARCANE with the C in the middle, not K. The thing is, we came up with the name, we chose it, made cd graphics and all the works, and finally when we were ready to publish the new promo, we heard about the Swedish band called Darkane. So basicly the situation sucks, the names are so close.. Well, that's a good question why we hadn't heard about Darkane earlier, that not really our kind of music anyway. Anyway, it was too late to change the name and it looks like we are going to stick with it, at least for now. Maybe in the future IF we are offered a record deal and the label wants us to change the name, we'll do it - once again. Darkane also contacted us about the situation but they were very understanding towards us, so thanks to them. We never definitely had any intentions to rip off their name.

3.GIVE US A DESCRIPTION OF YOUR MUSIC. WHICH BANDS CAN WE FIND AMONG YOUR INFLUENCES? NAME SOME OF THE ALBUMS THAT HELPED YOU CREATE YOUR SOUND.

Oh, I seemed to already answer to some of these questions in the first one, but anyway: Metallica has definitely been the most influencial band for me in every way. But there are bands like Slayer, Sepultura and Stone that have had quite an effect on me as well.. And Justice for All was the LP that turned me into metal so that's definitely one of the most important albums that has affected the way I think and feel about metal music. More important albums include South of Heaven, Seasons in the Abyss, Reign in Blood, Arise, No Antesthesia (by Stone).

4.HOW MANY RELEASES DO YOU HAVE? TELL US A FEW THINGS ABOUT THEM AND POINT OUT THE DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITES AMONG THEM.

I'd love to. Our very first release is the promo called "Valley of Misery" (released in march 2001) which was recorded in two days in a cheap analog studio. It included the songs: Beyond the Violence, I Wanna Lie and of course our all-time hit song Valley of Misery. I was very disappointed on how that promo sounded thou.. We just had too little time to play everything properly, to mix it with time and care and all that. So I decided to use a bit different method on producing our next promo. And the next promo was called Pandemonium and it was released in 2002. It includes the songs: Holocaust (our thrash hit that ended up on spot #27 in garageband.com's metal lists among 15000+ other metal songs), Guilty of Greed and Sad Life Philosophy which I wrote to my friend who committed suicide back in 1995. So we recorded the drums in a digital studio, then we transferred the drum tracks with CD's into my PC and then we recorded the rest of the material directly into my PC with a special multitrack editing program. I also mixed the whole thing with the same software so we had plenty of time doing the recording and mixing, and the result was a much better, more professional sounding Promo. Because I was especially disappointed with the song Valley of Misery with the earlier promo, we recorded the drums to that song also during the Pandemonium sessions and we remade the whole song and indeed it does sound a whole lot better than the "cheap studio" version. And as of now, we have just released our third promo called "Survivors of the Holochaust" under our new name Darcane, so that's what the promo name is supposed to imply. Also this time we recorded the drums in the same digital studio and the rest of the material with my PC except for the bass that we recorded on our friend's studio. Also this time we used a condenser microphone for vocals which gives much cleaner sound. More attention was also paid to rhythm guitar sounds, so the overall quality is once again improved. Yeah, and this promo includes 4 songs: Sin Worth to Die (a balladish metal song), Nemesis, No Longer Exist and Calm Before Thunder. In addition I personally have made a full-length LP (Ultimate Metal Trademark) back in 1998 which included all the songs from the promos mentioned above plus 2 other songs which will be included on the next promo. And just to confuse you all a little bit more, the song Sin Worth to Die is the only song that was NOT on my personal LP, so that's the first completely new song within many years. The old versions of the songs (from U.M.T.) are no longer distributed anywhere, but maybe you'll find some files from the web if you search. Sorry for a long answer. Hell, I try to make it a bit shorter with the next one.

5.GIVE US SOME MORE INFO FOR YOUR LATEST RELEASE, WHERE WAS IT RECORDED, HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU, WHO WAS THE PRODUCER, ETC. ARE YOU STILL SATISIFIED WITH IT OR IS THERE ANYTHING YOU'D LIKE TO CHANGE?

OK, I once again seem to be in advance with the questions. So I was a producer myself. A mixed it myself so no-one else really had a say in that. Well, I of course asked other guys' opinion about the mix and we kind of did that together in same way. I'm quite satisfied with it. Drums just seem to be very difficult to mix because of so called gate-leak and compression issues with my mixing software, but still that's the best a can offer. Hopefully with next promo I'll have even more expertise and will be able to provide even better production.

6.WHAT KIND OF SUBJECTS DO YOU LIKE TO HAVE IN YOUR LYRICS? WHICH THINGS INSPIRE YOU AND WHICH THINGS TAKE AWAY THE INSPIRATION FROM YOU?

I kind of fancy a bit darker style of lyrics like almost all the metal musicians do. I like to elaborate the issues that I find negative or wrong in the society. Or I might tell some kind of a short story like in I Wanna Lie or No Longer Exist. Subjects or usually a bit sinister, but on the other hand I also wrote a song Lovely Babe, which is a quite happy rock'n'roll style metal song with very positive lyrics. Maybe we'll record it some day.. Anyway, I guess it just depends on a situation. What is the song itself like, the mood etc.. I guess that too smootchy love lyrics would turn me off, but if even that is done with style, there's nothing wrong about it.

7.WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE? WHICH WILL YOUR NEXT STEPS BE?

To get married, have a few children. Hell no, I'm just kidding? Well, first we have to send our newest CD's to about 100 record companies, a few magazines and radio stations + about 30 festival organizers and some clubs/bars. Then we'll just have to hope and wait some positive feedback especially from record companies. We won't be just sitting around waiting, but we'll start planning our next promo right away. Two songs are already chosen, Town of Silence and Old Enough to Die which appeared as old versions on my personal LP mentioned above. Only this time we are going to make killer versions out of those. Other plans include doing gigs as much as possible. Just a regular band life, you know.

8.HAVE YOU DONE ANY LIVE SHOWS? DO YOU REMEMBER HOW YOU FELT THE FIRST TIME YOU GOT ON STAGE? DO YOU REMEMBER ANY FUNNY OR WEIRD INCIDENTS OCCURING WHILST YOU WERE PLAYING LIVE?

Yes, we've thrown about 20 gigs to date so I'm not so nervous anymore before the gig. But I used to be! Our first gig was at Nummirock metal festival and I was nervous as hell! You should have seen the stage manager's face when my girl happened to say that to him (that it was our first gig). He must have been thinking maybe not letting us to play at all.. Well, the gig was a success and I new we will rock anywhere we play. Funny incidents? You yeah! We got those. One funny thing was once when I was moshing along some of our faster songs and Hofu, our bassist, happened to storm somewhere behind me, and at the same time I threw my head back with the cosequence that my hair got stuck in his bass guitar's neck. He didn't even notice that right away but pulled me around the stage from my hair and I was screaming while trying to keep up the playing, but it was hard all right. Funny anyway. Toni, our drummer, also has a habit of spitting beer upon us while we are doing some speaking with audience, so we have had a few hilarious beer-fights for amusement of the crowd. I can honestly say that we are a kick-ass live band 'cause we all are kind of show-type guys.

9.WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WEREN'T ABLE TO COMPOSE MUSIC?

I guess I could be doing what I'm doing right now. I work at an IT firm as an account engineer. I'm also an excellent drawer so I could be doing tattoos or drawings or something like that.

10.WHICH SONG OF YOURS WOULD YOU DEDICATE TO GOD AND WHICH TO THE DEVIL AND WHY?

Maybe Sad Life Philosophy would be the one for God. Well, it talks about depression and suicide but there's still something devine about the song I think. Maybe because it's so fundamental about life and existing itself.
The Devil gets our song Holocaust. It's about the devil incarnate itself; Hitler and about his politics and the whole insanity about it. I'm really happy with the lyrics of both songs so pay attention to them.

11.IF YOU COULD BE A HISTORICAL PERSON FOR A DAY WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE AND WHICH PERIOD OF HIS/HER LIFE WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE?

Hmmm.. a VERY difficult question. Well, I'm quite interested in psychology in general so it would be very interesting to be someone lunatic or psychopathic person just to understand better the state of mind of these types of personalities. It definitely would give so much to write lyrics on. I'm just not crazy enough to write credible lyrics, HAHA! Maybe Hitler, Marilyn Manson and Toni Toivila would be great examples of these persons.

12.IF SUDDENLY ELECTRICITY CEASED TO EXIST WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN TO HEAVY METAL MUSIC? WOULD IT BE FORGOTTEN OR TRANSFORMED?

Would be very interesting to know that! I think heavy music would prevail anyway, it just would take another form with another kinds of instruments, but some music would still be considered heavy, some music rap, dance, reggae etc. We could think it like this: imagine how heavy metal will sound after 1000 years. Well, you can't, nobody can! So the people living thousand years from now would look our heavy metal like some kind of weird primitive crap. Who knows even what their instruments will be like. So heavy metal, or any type of music, is not just certain kind of music. Well, it's at a certain time of course, but the definition will change as music adapts itself to different eras. Ozzy was heavy metal back in 80's, now it's more like hard rock or something. What I'm trying to say is that metal will live on, no matter what happens, you just don't know who it will sound "next time".

13.IS THERE A WEIRD OR A WILD EXPERIENCE YOU'D LIKE TO LIVE?

I have always dreamed of being able to travel through universe in a spaceship, you know, anywhere I'd like to go. Unfortunately that's not possible yet.. Well, 1000 years ago people didn't go for 100 miles just for fun. Today it's possible easily, just take your motorcycle or car from the garage and leave for a long hangover ride to neighbour city or something. Or go to airport and travel to New York in just few hours! Maybe after 1000 years youngsters can say: "hell, I'll stop by at the Mars to see how my friends ae doing there", HEHE. At this time I'd maybe like to do a benji-jump, to play in front of 50,000 kids. Things like that. But playing with Toni is an extreme experience no less, heh.

14.IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO MEET THE CREATURE THAT CREATED THE UNIVERSE WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ASK HIM?

Will human race make it alive or will we destroy ourselves.

15.WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO A METALLER TO BUY YOUR RELEASE INSTEAD OF SOMETHING ELSE?

People have been telling me that the only other band that made them feel like Metallica once did, is Darcane. I certainly know what Metallica did for me, so if that's true, then I can say I've accomplished something big already. I think that we make good songs that really make people deeply feel different things and emotions.

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

Darcanian Existence

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

You had great questions so no hard feelings about that. Greetings to all the readers and fans! I hope you'll remember our name. We'll try to live up to it. Take care!

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Tommi Tiihonen

CHRISTINE PARASTATIDOY

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