We recently had the chance to interview Leeni-Maria Hovila, the singer of Kivimetsän Druidi, for the second time, actually (the previous was in autumn of 2008, you can search it in the interviews section), but this time it was done by phone. She turned out to be really talkative, the questions were many, the conversation was pleasant and thirty minutes weren’t enough, but the most interesting aspects were extensively discussed, and even some Finnish words appeared, which made us ‘break our backs’ to write them correctly. Read on…

-HoM. Hello and nice to talk to you again! How’s things in Kivimetsän Druidi?

Well, looking good, actually. The second album is ready, it’s going to be released in April, we are really excited about it; maybe we will get to make some shows, and it’s looking good. And we will be making another video as well in the near future.

-HoM. When I heard your new album (which I find much better than the first, so congratulations for this), the first thing I noticed was that the overall pace is quite slower than in Shadowheart, even though there are also some faster parts, but in general it’s slower and more melodic. What made you slow down?

Ehm… we didn’t actually realize that we had slowed down at all! [laughs] It’s probably the usual evolution of the music because, as I have been saying now quite many times actually, Shadowheart was like a collection of songs that had been made over several years, from 2002 way to 2008, while all the songs of the new album are really new, they have been made in the las year, and they are more the kind of music that we want to make these days. We hadn’t realized that the tempos had gone slower… ehm… [hesitates for a moment] oh my God, you are actually right! [Laughs] Now that I think of it, the biggest reason probably is that there are two songs in there that have been mainly composed by entirely other members of the group than before. Before this, most of the songs were made by the Koskinen brothers, you know, Joni and Antti, and now there are two songs which have been made: one by Atte, our drummer, entirely, and another one by Rinksa, the lead guitarist, and both songs are actually quite slow mid-tempos. The rest of the songs are pretty much the vein of Kivimetsän Druidi, with some slow-paced intros and stuff as we had made before – you remember how “Mustan valtikan aika” starts, that’s the slowest of all – but the answer to your question is actually that what made us slow down is introducing some new composers which have not been making songs before.

-HoM. The next question was something about that, that the Koskinen brothers didn’t write all of the music, and also that you wrote all of the lyrics, is this right?

Yes, it is right. We didn’t actually intentionally do it, I ended up writing actually most of them, we didn’t plan that in a way. Joni had asked me if I could make some lyrics, because, you know, it would be easier for him as well, and he wanted me to try if I could make them, and so I did, and we ended up like this, that I did most of them [laughs]. It wasn’t actually a plan, just happened.

-HoM. Until now, the lyrics were based in a book being written by one of the brothers. But now, if you wrote them this time, I guess they’re not based in the book any more?

No, no, it’s not all in the book that Joni has been writing, it’s more like a story that he has been making for over a long time, and he hasn’t actually written that in a book – yet. We don’t know if he ever will. There’s not that much of a difference because the stories that I made into lyrics are from some kind of histories that I have been making in my head for a long time now, and we knew that this would fit the picture just fine. So it’s not all about Joni’s stories any more, it’s now his and mine. But they fit together and we think that they do happen in the same world – we mean that they happen in the same world, as it had happened before, the Land of the Crystal Mountain, you know that?

-HoM. So you created kind of a universe, like Tolkien did?

Yeah, we created – well, he created and then I co-created now – a universe of our own. Which is actually quite fun because we get to make the rules as we go along and no one can complain about them. [laughs]

-HoM. How’s usually the writing process in Kivimetsän Druidi, the music and the lyrics?

It varies. Let me take a couple of examples. “Desolation”, from the new album: I had a story, and I had written lyrics without any song in my mind about it. So I sent those lyrics to Joni, and Joni showed them to Antti, and then they made a song fitting those lyrics, based on those lyrics. They also introduced some parts of some older songs, really old songs that we hadn’t used before in any recordings. Anyway, basicly the point was that in this case the song was made on the lyrics that existed.

And then let’s take “Seawitch and the sorcerer”. Happened the way that Joni and Antti and the guys had been making the song pretty much ready, and then I had this story, a piece of a story, and we thought that, ‘yeah, this story would probably fit this song quite nice!’, you know, they had some elements that could go together. Then it’s like a shotgun marriage: we have to make them fit; I had to take my story and then pick up the words that I would take for the lyrics and then fit them violently into the song. [laughs] It was frustrating!

So the process varies, and then after those there’s “Manalan vartija” on the new album, [by] Atte, our drummer, who also makes some big orchestrations for the songs. What happened was: Atte brought the song, and it was a whole, he had composed everything – it had solos, synthesizers… he had done everything except the vocals. So the others just had to memorize it and there were some changes, but basicly Atte had done the whole thing. And when [lead guitrist] Rinksa brought his song, the “Chant of the winged one”, which is the other one with slightly slower tempo, Rinksa had made most of the guitars and lead guitars and stuff like that, but then everything else was done: Antti did the synthesizers and Atte pretty much re-made the drums… So it varies.

-HoM. I had one question about that one you mentioned, “Manalan vartija”. Is it a traditional melody or something?, it rings a bell, for some reason…

Well… I don’t know why it rings a bell because I don’t think it is traditional, no. I think that if you think it rings a bell it probably is because of the rhythm, because the rhythm in “Manalan vartija” is very strange, it’s 10/8, you know; the verses are 10/8, and the choruses are 8/8… [hesitates] no no, the verses are thirteen!, 13/8, and the choruses are 8/8, and… [hesitates again] aw… [laughs] I don’t remember myself! I think actually that the choruses are 10/8, then the rest was 8/8. Anyway, it’s strange in a way that the rhythm is very unusual and that may have you thinking that it’s an old song. But the melody – I don’t think so… If it is traditional, it’s not of the ones that I know. Maybe it resembles, yeah.

-HoM. This time you chose a studio in your hometown, Kouvola. You didn’t feel like traveling too much?

Nnnno, no we didn’t feel like traveling to Turku, on the other side of Finland, which is the place where we made Shadowheart and some of the demos before. We wanted to remain in Kouvola this time, and the studio that we used was a pretty new one, called MadMix. I think that the guys knew the owners beforehand, and that the owners of the studio really dealed the place quite recently, and so we wanted to go and check it out and, yeah. And it was nice that it was in Kouvola!

-HoM. You can go home every day!

Yeah, well, they can, I live in Helsinki…

-HoM. Oh, okay, sorry! Well, what can you tell us about the recording sessions? Any anecdotes or stuff you’d like to tell?

Sadly, since I do live in Helsinki, I wasn’t present that much when the guys did the recording, but they were there when I did. Well, it was fun, I wish I had been there to see the recording of the so-called “drunken choirs”, or “äijä kuorot”, you know, the guy choirs, like for example in “Tuoppein’nostelulaulu”. That is not an actual choir at the end of it, it’s just the guys making drunken noises and saying things like [in drunken-like voice] “woooheehee I drank too much!” [laughs].

-HoM. Haha, yeah, it’s a very party-like song…

Yeah, it’s a party song, definitely! I have heard that when the guys made the male choirs, they always come in big bunches, all the guys of the band are there, and take anyone they know who wants to come and can sing – or cannot sing – and then they all take a little bit of beer and go there like [sings drunkenly] “laaaaaaa! etsaaaahaaaa meeeeitä milloinkaaaaaaaan!” …it’s one on Shadowheart [laughs] [ed- if I guessed right I think it’s “Verivala”] Awwwwwww, and I haven’t been there to see it! goddamnit. There is a video of the making of  Betrayal Justice Revenge, I don’t know if it has been released, and if it has then it should be on Youtube, and maybe on our Myspace and stuff. Well, if it isn’t there, it’s going to be there, and it’s going to be a compilation of the guys filming what happens in the studio, and they’re awesome, so funny.

-HoM. The limited edition has got two bonus tracks. How did you choose them?

Well, one of them is “Veljet”, of course. This is one of our oldest, really oldest songs, it’s really old, and we had recorded that at the same time as the Shadowheart session but it was never used. What happened was that, since we were not happy with the Shadowheart sound, we didn’t quite like them, we decided that we would like to remake “Veljet” now in this studio and then use it maybe on some other occasion since it hadn’t been used yet. That is why we did “Veljet”.

The other is the Summoning cover, “Where hope and daylight die”. We thought about the cover for quite a long time, what should we do; we had several suggestions: one of them was Metallica, one of them was Blackmore’s Night (which I would have loved), and we then ended up with Summoning; I’m not even exactly sure how, I suppose it was Antti’s idea maybe – anyway, one of the guys said ‘okay, let’s make this’, and the rest of the guys agreed, ‘yeah, fine, let’s make this’, and then I decided that ‘yeah, well, I’ll make it as well’ [laughs]. I didn’t know Summoning before this – of course I had heard the name but I didn’t know what kind of music it is, but I liked the stuff. There’s no particular reason for that song, except that we like it. And we wanted to make some cover – we had to make one cover [laughs] – so… Yeah. And we liked it.

-HoM. You mentioned before that you would be making a videoclip out of this album. What’s the track?

Erm… [hesitates] if I dare to tell you what we’ll probably do, since we have decided it already but, you know, it’s quite unofficial until we have actually made it… But, yeah, we are planning to make a video out of “Desolation”. “Tuoppein’nostelulaulu”, the party song, was another possibility, but then “Desolation” was a stronger idea, somehow. So we decided that would be it.

-HoM. This album has only two songs – actually one and a half songs in Finnish, as “Tuoppein’nostelulaulu” is partially in English. Does this mean there will be no Finnish in the next album?

No, I hope not! No, no, I hope it does not mean that, because I would definitely like it if we did more Finnish lyrics. Both of the Finnish ones on this album are made by myself, so I am personally going to try to make more of the Finnish lyrics on the next possible album, because we would like that there was more – but, you know, Joni considers that writing in English is much easier for him, which is actually one of the reasons why he asked if I could make some lyrics. No, we are not giving up Finnish, definitely, I hope there will be more Finnish on the next one.

-HoM. I like that! I think Finnish is a very melodic language – maybe because I’m a fanatic of Moonsorrow and all their lyrics are in Finnish, but yeah…

[Laughs] Yeah, Finnish is quite easy to sing, English is actually more difficult, I think, for some reason.

-HoM. It’s kind of stronger… Well, changing the subject, some bands complained about Century Media, saying that they didn’t have artistical freedom. How do you feel about this matter in Kivimetsän Druidi? Are you happy with the label?

Artistical freedom??? [sounds surprised] That’s… well, I don’t know who has been saying, or why… It’s difficult to comment on that because I have no idea of the situation, but if I just say for our own part, how we feel, or let’s just say how things have been with us in Century Media, they have never – not even once – told us what to do or what not to do. We have never been limited by them in any way – at least not so far. I don’t know why, but this is the case with us, there has been no limitations from their part like ‘you should do this’ or ‘you shouldn’t do that’. They have actually taken no part at all in our music, you know, not even wishes of ‘could you guys do this or could you guys do that’… Although they do want the covers, we wouldn’t probably have made any covers at all if they hadn’t asked us [laughs] but we don’t mind, so… this is how it seems to us, and there’s no complaining really.

-HoM. This is a difficult question for a musician, but let’s try: what do you think is the best and the worst of Betrayal Justice Revenge?

The best and the worst? Ehm… well, it’s not that difficult, I suppose, but I should be so awfully diplomatic that I would answer something that you can’t make anything out of! [laughs] But let’s say it like this: I think personally, and I think probably the guys agree, that the song or songs that represent best what we are about and what kind of music we want to do right now is “Seawitch and the sorcerer”, and maybe “Aesis lilim” and “Desolation”, but if we had to choose… well, let’s just say those three, and maybe of those three, “Seawitch and the sorcerer” is probably maybe even the best. [some seconds of silence] And… [hesitates]

-HoM. Notice that I’m not asking for – well, you can say, but – I’m not asking for the best and worse track, but for the best and worst track, or aspect, or… anything, you know?

The best… [hesitates] Well, if I can’t really say about the tracks then I don’t know what to say! Maybe the fact that the music has become even larger, so it’s going to be difficult for us during the live shows, because it’s not going to be entirely the same live – of course it doesn’t have to be entirely the same live, because a live show wouldn’t be a live show if it sounded exactly like the record; but the music has gone so big, and there’s these huge orchestrations and stuff, and it sounds sometimes like… film music, you know?, soundtrack music, which we like, haha!

The worst, personally, maybe would be that this is the first album that I made lyrics for, and I feel a little bit insecure and self-conscious about them, some of them at least. That would be –  personally I think that would be my worst part.

Really, the slight disappointment [could be] that we originally thought of a concept album but it didn’t happen, it’s more like a collection of little things happening, you know, little separate things happening in separate places. Which is nice, actually! But if we want to make a concept album it would… have to wait. [laughs]

-HoM. Is the song “Viimeinen peikkokuningas”, the bonus track in Shadowheart – is that also an old one?

That is the oldest one that we have, I think. Yes, “Viimeinen peikkokuningas”, that’s the oldest one.

-HoM. I have a little complaint. The booklet says that the lyrics in Finnish would be translated in kivimetsandruidi.com, and they aren’t!

Ehh… they are not there?

-HoM. No…

…Oh my God! Well, thanks for the complaint, we will have to make that happen, because I remember that we talked about it, and we were going to do it, and then it must have been simply forgotten! Oh my God, it was in the booklet and we didn’t do it! Oh my fucking… oh, sorry… Okay, we’re gonna fix that.

-HoM. What are your future touring plans? Any chance of coming to Spain?

Maybe, because there are some plans – none confirmed yet – of course, as usual, that something is going to happen in Europe in next October. And if it’s any consolation, I was in Spain about a week ago myself!, seeing my parents, who live there for the winter. [laughs] But we are possibly going to come there next Autumn, we’ll have to see. We’d love to. You guys have good coffee and it doesn’t cost much! [laughs]

-HoM. You have to come to Galicia and try the “liquored-coffee” we have here…

Ooooooohhhh yeah! [laughs]

-HoM. For the last one, I just want to ask you a quick question personally. You collaborated in Swallow The Sun’s “Plague of butterflies”. What did you do exactly?, because I never found you! I tried and I tried and I never found your voice there!

Well, I haven’t actually even heard it myself because the guys haven’t sent me a copy, goddamnit! But the reason probably is that they probably made a choir out of me, and you probably wouldn’t recognize it, because my voice is going to be – if it is there, if they haven’t decided to cut it off – it’s going to be very much in the background, very subtle, and made into a choir, so you probably wouldn’t recognize it anyway. I probably wouldn’t recognize myself there.

-HoM. Okay, this is all, thank you very much from Hall Of Metal! Do you want to say any last words for our readers?

Thank you! Come to see us live if we get there! Check out the new album. Rock and Troll! Take care!