Suvi G. Vanguard's Female Vocalist
Q.
Let's begin with a quick introduction of the band members.
A.
There are seven of us, the band's primus motor J.Grym (vocals), Mikko Seppänen (guitar), Aapo Romu (cello), Lari Kuitunen (piano), Tonmi Lillman (drums, ex-To/Die/For, Sinergy, Hateframe), our new bass player Mika Pusa and myself, Suvi G (female vocals).
Q.
How did you all come together to create Vanguard?
A.
J.Grym, Lari and Mikko founded the band in 1999. The chimaira we are today was still a sparkle in J.'s eye back then, and he had a very clear image in his mind of what he wanted the band to be, but it took some time to perfect the ensemble. I was the 13th female singer candidate the band had, and as the first one to stick to it I joined in 2001. Aapo, the cellist, we met and adopted as a bandmember a year after that in 2002. The following years we've had quite a few line-up changes concerning bass and drums, but our combo now is stronger than ever and I don't think we will let these guys leave so easily - that is Tonmi, our drummer since late 2005 and producer of the upcoming new record, and Mika Pusa, who we gratefully accepted to jump in to fill the suddenly and once again empty bassplayer's shoes only a few weeks ago.
Q.
The band has had some interesting setbacks and challenges over the years. Let's start with being hit by lighting. What was all that about?
A.
Back then we had our rehearsal space in this great attic of a 100-year old house in a foresty spot of southern Finland. One evening we were playing and a small thunderstorm broke loose - we wouldn't let that come in the way of our jamming, but quickly decided otherwise, when I saw this bright stab of light shoot through Aapo.Even though it was only a split second and clearly a minor shock, we all stopped everything and frantically yanked all electrical chords loose. Aapo sat there staring, clearly unharmed but his fingers tingling like hell. It's needless to say we left quite hastily and were a little more concerned about the weather after that in that particular house.
Q.
You also mention on your website 3 exploding mixing tables. How did that come about?
A.
Oh, we were recording our demo Cestrum Nocturnum, and those sessions were plagued with unbelievably bad luck. First the mixing table just broke, if not exploded, very near that. Then, after the studio managed to get another mixing table, the same thing occurred, of course with us in the studio again. Then, while working at another studio in the between, the bad luck followed and the mixing table mystically broke once more there as well. All of this happened in a couple of months' time, and I don't recall how we actually managed to get the demo finished...
Q.
And finally you were victim to a 3 city wide power blackout.
A.
Yes, and literally just as we were saving the perfect drumtracks, that of course had to be played, recorded and mixed again: the blackout wiped all of the demo's data from the hard drive, much to the annoyance of the current drummer Mika Nieminen... The blackout lasted for nearly two hours and I can honestly say a lot of curses were heard that night, and especially after the power returned with the painful knowledge of Mika's career's best drumming performances lost forever.
Q.
Did the band ever consider all these strange happenings to be a bad sign?
A.
Well yes we did, only the Finnish strength of will is pretty famous for not giving up, and I guess that ancestral spunk got us through even these times. As a rule, Finns are sort of stubborn when it comes to things like these. What doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger... I guess it's in the mother's milk, or then you just pick it up while learning to walk in an ice storm! So we believed and learned that Vanguard seems to only have incredibly bad or incredibly good luck. Like last weekend, we had the best gig we've ever played anywhere, everything was just perfect and the crowd was unspeakably excellent, but I performed with a broken foot, because of course I'd broken it by fooling around at the soundcheck just a few hours earlier. Now I have to strot around with sticks for a few weeks. Never a dull moment...
Q.
Obviously your luck has changed. Tell us about your thoughts going into the Wacken, Metal Hammer, Battle of the Bands. What did you expect?
A.
We were lucky enough to be invited, we didn't expect anything. We actually sort of forgot there was a competition and a chance of winning, we just felt so goddamn lucky and grateful just to be there and play. Of course the famous Vanguard luck followed us on the journey there, our car mysteriously broke down in very innovative ways a couple of times and such, but after finally getting to the festival area we felt like a million bucks for that entire weekend. That show was our first abroad, and it's needless to say that we were all quite surprised to hear the crowd yell "zugabe, zugabe (we want more)" after our gig. So we ecpected nothing and received an amazing experience, with people going ballistic over our music that probably none of them had ever heard before. That was better than anything.
Q.
How did it feel to win the competition, knowing you had a record deal?
A.
That was a funny thing, they forgot to tell us by e-mail we had won, and so we were watching the announcing of the winner at my tiny little apartment at 3 a.m. through an internet streaming of Hardy TV one Autumn night, and thought we would be lucky to receive a minor award. We had been to a couple of bars that night and thought we'd make it back just in time to hear if we got anything, but probably not - they would have told us, right? It was pretty surprising to find out by staring at the screen that we had won, and my neighbours probably didn't appreciate it as much as we did - a 7-headed metal band plus friends can make a "little" noise while getting news of that caliber! We couldn't believe it at first. We had to watch it again in the morning just to make sure it wasn't a collective dream.
Q.
Tell us about "Succumbra" your current album. What was the feeling among the band when recording it?
A.
Because we have been around for a while, we were mainly glad to get all of the old songs on a record and "out of the way" of the new stuff. On Succumbra there is a very wide range of songs timeline-wise - for example Bitheon and Excarnation are very old, dating back to 1999-2000, and Ephemeral was finished only a couple of weeks before the recordings. Every song had a complete facelift of course in the studio and before, but the basis of some were quite old. We're looking forward to making the next album this fall, the new stuff is great and we can't wait to get it recorded! But in general the feeling was excited and, well, baffled, because the whole thing was quite new to us. It was great to work with real professionals in Germany in the Hamburg Tornado studio, and especially interesting to live in Hamburg's St. Pauli next to the sinful Reeperbahn for a month. That is probably one of the best places for a metal band to live in while recording - if you don't know, it's a part of the town where all of the bordellos and such are, and in the same block with our apartment there were two metal bars and a couple of metal clubs a few blocks from those. Even though we were crammed into a tiny apartment there, we had no serious fights, except a couple between the guitarrist Mikko and me, and those were just minor nervous breakdowns due to the sibling-like relationship between us. Anyone who's ever had a little brother or a sister will know what I'm talking about... But we made it through, like we always do! We made friends with the staff of Tornado and Armageddon Music, whose head office was there too at that time, and created a strong liking to Germany and the people we were lucky enough to work with.
Q.
How did Alex Krull (Atrocity of Leaves Eyes) come to work on the record?
A.
That was a part of the other kind of Vanguard luck. Our mixing engineer Victor Bullok happened to know him and was nice enough to travel all the way to his studio just to work with him and to make sure our requests were fulfilled. Vic sort of became the 8th unofficial bandmember... And the whole Krull thing was great for us, because J.Grym and I have been fans of his wife Liv Kristine for years. We felt a little weird when Victor called Alex to ask if he'd do the mastering, Liv answered his phone to say "he's taking a shower, he'll call you back"...
Q.
Have you started work on your next album? If so how is it going?
A.
We have started the work, but not in the final studio yet. We still have some contract-related things to consider, we can't be 100% sure that Armageddon will release our next one. But we're making a demo of some new songs as we speak, and we'll be smarter after that's finished. We're hoping to get the record recorded this fall as early as possible, and we already have our eyes on some studios we want to work in. The work in it self is very different from Succumbra, because Tonmi acts as both the producer and a bandmember, that is wonderful for us, because we won't be needing that much effort from people from outside the band and can more easily keep it "in the family". Succumbra we produced ourselves, but Tonmi is a very talented and experienced producer as well as an incredible drummer, and his musical talent and professional work effort are and will be not only a great relief to us but also something we appreciate as hell.
Q.
So what's the next step for Vanguard?
A.
We'll finish up the demo, it will take a couple of weeks with the mixing, and then we'll see when we'll be able to get to work on the album. While working on the recordings we'll try to get as many gigs as possible, that gig last Friday left us very hungry for more. We just got some gig requests from Russia, let's hope everything works out. It would be great to play there. Hell, it would be, and is, great to play anywhere! This summer was slow for us festival-wise, but that was just the other kind of Vanguard luck - we were booked on a tour in Europe that was cancelled, so it was too late to book anything new. But every step we've taken this last year has taken us to a better place, and we as a band are more anxious about the future as never before. You'll definately hear from us again! Thank you for the interview, rock on!