Interview Interrogation: Ember Falls (Finland)

"Our influences vary from pop to progressive metal and musicals to death metal."

Right now the Modern Metal genre is massively hot with bands dabbling in pop, electronic music and other avant-garde genres that would otherwise make metal purists vomit in their mouth... guy's it's the 21st century, keep up... metal is evolving and so embrace it. Ember Falls have done exactly that and by bolting together the unmistakable sound of djent with pop and Groove Metal, the Finnish horde have crafted a sound that would be the ire of the elitists (who cares anyway, metal is about opening your mind and Ember Falls do exactly just that).

Now they are working on their new album which is destined to see daylight later this year or early next year, depending on the situation regarding COVID-19. GMA interrogated on their current plans, how COVID-19 has affected them, their past blessings in touring, future plans and what their sound consists of.

For those who have not heard of Ember Falls, could you give us a brief history of the band and what the band name means?

     "The band was originally formed under the name Mekanism in 2010. We started out as a kind of attempt at a Pantera / Muse hybrid as we can recall. Later it became much 'djentier' and heavier for a few years, and then more and more electronic influences started creeping in. After some line-up changes in 2015 (Thomas joined on vocals and Olli joined on bass; Mikko - who’s since left the band - switched from bass to synths), we changed the name to Ember Falls and released the first song with the new name and image. In a way the Ember Falls sound is sort of a mixture of the earlier “Pantera-influenced” poppy stuff and the later electronic-influenced sound. But a lot better and more compositionally mature, we feel, of course.

     Ember Falls is a name we came up with to stand for a fictitious city in an imaginary multiverse somewhere in the distant future. On the newer songs we are trying to paint this into the lyrics a lot more than on the debut, where the lyrics were a bit all over the place thematically."


You've had a good career so far through supporting bands like Amaranthe and W.A.S.P., surely this must have blown you back a bit?

     "We’ve had great moments and shows definitely. Sometimes it’s hard to believe what we have actually accomplished so far. But we have also worked hard not just as a band but individually too."


How would you describe your sound as you have an eclectic style of metal music going on? What are your influences?

     "Our influences are all over the place. We all share a passion for metal music sure, but our influences vary from pop to progressive metal and musicals to death metal. I think in some of our latest songs you can hear multiple different genres happening."


Were you in bands previously? If not how did you get into playing music, specifically the instruments you play?

Thomas:-

     "I was, and still am, the lead singer in a metal band called Everwave. I have a history as a drummer when I was younger but nowadays see myself clearly as a singer. I do dabble a bit with the acoustic guitar sometimes."


Jay V & Calu:

     "We are brothers and we both started playing guitar as teenagers.We also had a Melodic / Technical Death Metal band called Damaging Fallout back in the days. Jay V was one of the founders of Mekanism and soon Calu joined in as a rhythm guitarist / vocalist."


Ace:

     "I started playing drums when I was 17. Played in one “semi-serious” band in high school / college, but Ember Falls (then ‘Mekanism’) was my first real band so to speak, and here we still are 10 years later."


Oswald:

     "I've been a part of various projects ranging from pop to progressive metal but Ember Falls stands out as being the most serious one. I started playing the bass and the guitar at the age of 15 or so. I'm also writing and producing my own music."

Tampere, Finland / Source: Sponda

You dropped your latest single 'We Are Become Fire', what was the reception like and have you had any listens from outside of Finland?

     "The reception has been overly positive. We feel our music is now more “us” than it has ever been and people can probably hear that. Currently United States and Germany outrank Finland in streams but we do have have listeners all over the world at least according to Spotify."


What plans did you have before the lockdown set in and were any cancelled / postponed? What plans do you have for late 2020 / early 2021?

     "We did have some live shows planned for the spring, which either got cancelled or postponed to next year. We also were planning to finish our second album which is still on the works. Depending on how this situation develops the album will be released late this year or early next year."


For metalheads visiting your city of Tampere, what sights / attractions and bars / venues could you recommend?

     "Tampere is having a lot of construction done at the moment. Things don’t look very pretty down-town but we do like to sit in the parks and have a few beers when it’s warm out. The basic go-to bars for a metal head would be Jack The Rooster, Trasherie, Majava Bar and the legendary Klubi / Pakkahuone."


Do you have any greetings or thanks that you wish to send out to friends, family, fans etc?

     "Thank you for all the support! We hope you are staying safe and that this situation eases out soon so we can start touring again and say hello to as many of you as possible!"

https://www.facebook.com/EmberFallsOfficial/