As we bid farewell to 2023, come along with us for a series of interviews with a few artists. We’ll chat with them about their experiences, challenges, and successes throughout the year. These talks give you a close-up view of what happened in the metal music scene in 2023. We chatted with Petri Lindroos and Antti Wirman of WARMEN to see how the melodic death metal band have experienced 2023.
Hi there! Thanks so much for taking time to do this interview right before your show. Since this is an interview to wrap up 2023, how has the year been for WARMEN since you re-formed the band?
Petri: Quite a lot has happened.
Antti: Yeah, we’ve been rehearsing a lot. The album came out and we’re happy… probably? [laughs]
Petri: Probably… Most likely. [laughter] It’s been an interesting year so far.
Do you feel like this year started off with a bang since the album release and then your first show with the new lineup being at Summer Breeze Open Air?
Petri: At the beginning of the year, the album was still in the making, and it came all together, piece by piece, and I heard the final version when the album was mixed and mastered already. I was like, “Oooh, It sounds like this.” That was definitely a surprise. So far there have been really, really good reviews. People [have] been loving it. So let’s see what ’24 brings.
That sounds like a great year. I remember when we were talking last you were a little worried about playing at the ungodly hour of 11:30 at Summer Breeze and the turnout. How was the show in the end?
Antti: It was quite surprising because there were a lot of people watching the show.
Petri: People had to actually put on alarm clocks to not miss the show. We did too. It was it was a lot of fun. It was a strange thing to do. For example, we just had a one crew member a nd then he left to the Front Of House and left us on our own on stage…
Antti: With the Germans…
Petri: With Germans. We managed to get all the sounds out, which was great.
Were there any issues or something?
Antti: Yes, but let’s not talk about those. [laughter]
Petri: The Germans know.
Antti: Yeah, they know.
How do you feel the audience and the fans reacted to that show? Did you see anybody singing along to the lyrics?
Antti: Yeah, actually, yes, I saw [some]. It was weird because the album came out on the very same day.
Petri: At midnight.
Antti: At least some people learned some of the lyrics.
I remember we talked about that last time. There’s always somebody! Anyway, this weekend you are having your first venue shows in Finland. How have you guys been preparing for that?
Petri: We tried to rehearse as much as we could. And there was just this one minor incident… I was on tour for five weeks with ENSIFERUM right before these shows, so we were busy the whole fucking week. And then there was a little bit sickness going on. So on Wednesday, there were three out of five that managed to come to the rehearsal. On Thursday, we had a full house. It went better than expected. Then, came Friday, and then all this craziness started.
Do you feel like you were prepared enough going into this?
Petri: I don’t think you ever can, you can rehearse as much as you want. But the show situation is always so different. Anything and everything can fucking happen during a set or whatever. Luckily, so far, we haven’t broken anything.
Antti: But today, we will…
Petri: Most likely something [knocks on wood] will be destroyed.
Considering you’ve been playing in ENSIFERUM and KING COMPANY respectively, I suppose that the audience who came to see the WARMEN shows is a little different. How have fans in general experienced the Finnish shows so far?
Antti: Actually, yesterday was quite surprising because there were so many people from different countries. I was like, “What the fuck!” There were people from Poland, Italy, Mexico, Japan, and Czech Republic. Yeah, it was quite weird.
Petri: Very international. I guess that comes from the following of all these bands along the way.
Your new album has a running time of about 35 minutes, which is relatively short…
Antti: [confused] Really?
Petri: Yeah, it is!
Yeah, I got the information from Spotify, so it’s actually true! Keep it in mind for your next album!
Petri: We’ll do our best. [laughs] We have added some tracks to the setlist so that we can break an hour on stage.
Antti: If you add some jokes.
Petri: Yeah, we need to pull up some magic tricks tonight. [laughter]
You are playing some CHILDREN OF BODOM covers as well, how difficult was it to select songs or did you just go for the fan favorites?
Antti: We decided that we are going to play all the songs from the album, except one. But then we realized that it’s not going to be enough so we have to play all the original songs and then, yeah, a couple of BODOM cover and then we have this one old WARMEN song. So that’s everything we can do right now.
Petri: It’s still like 15 songs, but they’re all super short. They’re like three minutes, four minutes max, or something.
Antti: Yeah, but this is not RUSH. [laughter]
Petri: So it is what it is at the moment. We simply did not have even any time to rehearse anymore songs.
Apart from maybe not being able to practice enough for the shows, were there any challenges you went through as a band during this year?
Antti: Not really. We still can talk to each other, so…
Petri: Yeah, we can all be in the same room.
Antti: So everything is fine.
Petri: All good, all good.
You maybe didn’t, Petri, because you were touring quite a lot, but have you guys (re)discovered any other music during 2023?
Antti: Actually, yes. Hey, LUNA KILLS.
Good answer!
Antti: Yes, my favorite!
Petri: He was just mentioning that one. I haven’t taken a peek of that one.
Antti: Check it out!
Petri: I’ll check it out. I can’t even remember what albums came out this year.
Antti: I have no idea.
Petri: My playlists may look just like ’80s and ’90s. SLAYER’s “Seasons in the Abyss” is still a fucking good album.
Yeah well, you know, re-listening to old music can also be great!
Antti: Yeah and there is this this study that when you turn 30, you have already heard all that music you want to hear?
Really? That’s sorta depressing!
Petri: It’s also kind of difficult to find music that I would like from new bands. Because in a way it’s the same wheel that keeps on rolling. Somebody does something different on it, but relatively not too often. So it’s really difficult, you can hear great parts here and there, but a fully satisfying album. Hell no. It’s difficult.
What can people expact from WARMEN in 2024?
Antti: We are not saying this but more shows… probably. [laughter]
So you are saying it!
Antti: Don’t tell anyone. [laughter]
Petri: We’ve got some festivals.
Antti: Yeah, festivals.
Petri: Hopefully we can add something more to it as well, but we’ll see what we can come up with.
So I guess people will need to stay tuned to see what you’ve got cooking in 2024! Thanks so much for your time guys, do you have any last thoughts you want to share with your fans?
Antti: Thank you for listening and watching.
Petri: Keep our name in mind called…
Antti: MENTAL SCOLIOSIS… is our new band that we formed yesterday.
Petri: So it’s got to be some kind of weird shit. Just what the name says… [laughter]
Interview by Laureline Tilkin
