Finnish melodic death metal outfit WARMEN are releasing their new album, “Band of Brothers,” via Reaper Entertainment on August 15th, 2025. We had the opportunity to chat with the Wirman brothers, Antti and Janne, about the new album. Watch the complete interview here or read the full transcript below…
Hi, thank you so much for doing this interview. How are you guys doing?
Janne: Good, good. We just previously today did some interview work, but we’re still good. Yeah. Still going. Strong. Yes.
Yeah, your new album, “Band of Brothers,” is being released in one month. So, are you excited?
Janne: Yeah, we are excited because we are happy about the album. We are happy how the album turned out. We are happy about the initial reactions to the first new released song. Singles. Singles, yes. So, yeah, everything is going good.
Since this is the second album with the new lineup, you mentioned in other interviews, it was written more towards Petri’s voice. So, for fans, what does that mean? What kind of things did you do that you didn’t do last time?
Janne: No, it’s more what we did last time and that we… I mean, more things we couldn’t do last time. It’s very difficult. But last time we wrote the album, the music, initially with the idea of melodic singing in the choruses, right? And then we kind of backpedaled. We realized that, man, this is way too heavy. We don’t want melodic singing anymore. Then we kind of adjusted the music a little bit on the previous album to fit that. And then we found Petri and it was perfect. And everything worked well with Petri and it was just perfect. So, this time, when we started the songwriting process, we knew exactly who’s going to sing on it, how he sounds like, what he’s like, you know, how to make that singer shine. Because these can be really difficult situations when you bring someone in that stuff wasn’t really written for you. But we got really lucky last time because it turned out perfectly with Petri. We modified some choruses a little bit. But this time we wrote the whole thing for his voice, knowing who’s going to sing on it, who’s going to scream on it, and it was good.
When you say that you originally intended to have some melodic vocals, you mean that they were supposed to be cleans?
Janne: Yes. In the very first phase of writing music for the previous album, we were still thinking about clean vocals for the choruses.
Antti: I’m glad.
Janne: I don’t know what we were smoking because, you know, I’m going through this phase of… My friend Jussi from The Riff and THE 69 EYES described it to me perfectly that some people just go through this phase in their life when they just don’t like the melodies anymore. All you like is SLAYER. And that’s what I’m going through. I’m in my SLAYER phase even though I’ve toured with SLAYER like 15 years ago. But it’s somehow that for me it has to do something with how everything is changing in the music business, and everything is just going to hell. So I’m just way more radicalized. I’m only listening to metal music nowadays with no clean vocals. Live, I can’t really enjoy any band that has way too many background tapes. I like bands that are actually playing live. But this is my phase that I’m going through right now.
Yeah, and you never exited the SLAYER phase, Antti. [laughter]
Antti: No, I’m still there.
Janne: Oh man, so you were always there. No, but you can’t. Dude, you also had your SOILWORK phase.
Antti: Yeah, I did.
Janne: We all loved that stuff at some point. And of course I still do. I still love SOILWORK if you listen to it on the album. But you know what I mean. For me SOILWOR was some of the best metal with aggressive vocals and then clean singing. But you have to be a really good singer to kind of pull that off. Because if you’re not it’s going to sound like shit.
Yeah, I guess maybe that’s the difference between Swedish melodic death metal and Finnish melodic death metal. Especially the older bands. There aren’t that many clean vocals.
Janne: Yeah, no. Because it takes real talent. [laughter]
There’s no talent in Finland? [laughter]
Antti: No, no. How long have you been here? [laughter]
Yeah, I’ve only been here for ten years. [laughter]
Antti: Yeah, okay, then you will realize at some point. [laughter]
“Here for None” was also received very well. How does it feel to make a successor to that album? Did it give you some pressure?
Janne: You know what? I don’t think so. There was no pressure because I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve seen what’s going on. And to be really honest, brutally honest, we just needed more songs for our live set. So there was no pressure. We were like, fuck, we just need more songs. And that’s what we did. We wrote some new songs and now we’re going to release them as an album. Yeah, they came out pretty heavy and we are happy about it. Yeah, so it’s not… It’s even more heavy than before. It is, and it’s even less pressure, I think, than on the previous album. On the previous album, I was nervous a little bit because it was a big change, new lineup, everything. Yeah, and for WARMEN, it was this kind of… Yeah, but right now I’m very confident that we know what we’re doing, which is probably a lie. But, you know, some of us know what we’re doing. [laughter]
Who? [laughter]
Janne: Mostly Petri.
Jyri. [laughter]
Janne: Yeah, Jyri.
Jyri looks like he’s got it figured out. You mentioned that it was important for you to have more songs to play live. Obviously, I have to ask this…
Janne: You can. I allow you. [laughter]
Yeah, thanks. [laughter] I remember… Did you play at Tuska, I think it was? Lots of fans were super excited about you guys playing the CHILDREN OF BODOM stuff as well. But how, especially for you, how did that feel after so many years to have people there so excited, so much energy, even in Finland?
Janne: It feels great, obviously. I love the BODOM music, we all do, I hope. But at the same time, we don’t want to… I mean, for me personally, I think it’s fine to have a couple of songs in setlist just to, you know… But we really needed more WARMEN songs, because if we had in our setlist a headline show of 75 minutes, there was just not enough material for us. Yeah. So we borrowed some stuff from BODOM, which we can do, and I’m glad that fans liked it. I mean, people liked it, crowds liked it, and we liked it too. But the reality is we want to play more of the WARMEN stuff. I’m not going to say that… I mean, because we can do it, maybe there’s always going to be a little bit of covering BODOM, or maybe not. But we really just needed some more original material.
Antti: And one thing that many people don’t seem to realize is that we cannot play those old WARMEN songs, because they had clean vocals, and those instrumental songs, it’s not going to fit into this new style and new lineup. We can’t do it, so that’s why…
Janne: We even played around with the idea and thought about some arrangements and stuff, and we just realized we can’t really do it. It’s not working. So we had to borrow from somewhere, and the closest point for us was just to pull some Bodum songs, because they’re great songs.
This album also feels a lot, well, not maybe a lot longer, but a bit longer than the last one.
Antti: So you get bored? [laughter]
No, no, no, not at all. [laughter]
Janne: I think what you’re describing there is that it’s a little bit more diverse. So the last album was maybe a bit more just the same punch in the head, but this one is a little bit more diverse in the end. So I hope that the feeling that you’re describing is…
Well, for sure, it’s not boredom. [laughter]
Janne: No, no, no.
Definitely not.
Janne: No, but I think I know what you mean. I think in minutes it might be like two minutes longer, or whatever, the whole album. But still, the previous album was kind of short and was kind of in your face, really. So, yeah.
Yeah. Well, you mentioned one of the songs—I don’t remember which one it was—that there was also that previous WARMEN vibe and some progressive element.
Antti: It’s the French song. [“Coup de Grâce”]
Janne: The French song? Yes.
Is that progressive element also present in the other songs?
Janne: No. I mean, there are a couple of melodies that some people might think are progressive, but we don’t think they’re progressive. We don’t want to… I don’t know how to say this in terms of music, but we definitely did not want to be progressive. Like, not too progressive, because we’ve gone progressive back in the day. And now we’re very, I think, concentrated on our heavier sound. So I think there are a couple of melodies that you wrote, fucker, that some people might feel as progressive due to the modulations and going back and forth.
Antti: I’m a progressive guy.
Who listens to SLAYER. [laughter]
Janne: And these are the things that we mentioned in previous interviews, that I had no idea that this is the feeling that people are going to get when they listen to the album. Because from some very initial feedback, I also got, well, there are some progressive elements. I was like, fuck no, there was not supposed to be any. But, you know, I get it now. I get it where it comes from. But we were not trying to be progressive. Some of that stuff that comes out as progressive on our recent album, on our latest album, is very similar to some of the melody work on the very later BODOM albums, where it kind of repeats and modulates. And I never felt that progressive over there. So, you know, it’s a, I don’t know.
Yeah, I think people nowadays label things that they cannot really label very well as progressive.
Janne: Yeah, it could be, yeah.
I also read, well, you also mentioned that a lot of the lyrics are drawn from the shitty world right now. But I also read that some of the lyrics were drafted from true crime. So is that something that you like watching?
Janne: Yes, for sure. I mean, true crime and all that kind of television. Nowadays, I think it’s some of the most fun content to watch on television. But also these, like, even goofy ones, but they have the crime in there, like Ginny & Georgia. You know, the kind of things I watch with my wife. And what are some of the good ones? What was this one? I can’t, the name escapes me, of course, right now. But, you know, there’s even some of these kinds of labeled as comedy, but it’s based on a crime story. And some of those are quite inspiring, because there’s, like, a really dark thing that has happened, but it’s all wrapped in an entertainment kind of thing. So there’s something really interesting about that whole thing, I think. And that’s why I think it’s very easy to draw inspiration for lyrics in that kind of realm.
Do you feel like the darkness of “Band of Brothers”—because you also mentioned this album is a lot heavier, and one thing that came up is that it’s because of Petri—but the other thing is, is it because the world is, like, such a shit hole right now?
Janne: Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yes, of course.
I thought “March or Die” was a pretty fun song, so is there anything you can tell fans about that song?
Janne: Well, you know, it’s a triplet song. We have to have a triplet song, and we would have to credit Jyri a lot for this song. He worked his ass off.
Antti: Yeah.
Janne: Both of us were already kind of giving up on the song, like, no, this is not gonna work. But Jyri really made it happen. He was arranging a lot of stuff that we were not…
Antti: We were already too tired.
Janne: At that point, yes. But he’s young and ample.
Antti: He’s really young and… He has that hair and…
Janne: I think the song, being a triplet song, has a different feel, and it kind of, because of that, stands out from the rest of the stuff. Also, a bit of a different tempo, triplet feel.
I remember last time there was a song that was obviously inspired by SLAYER. Is there a song like this right now?
Janne: I mean, currently, all of our songs are inspired by SLAYER. I know. But, I mean, every good hard riff is inspired by SLAYER.
Antti: Yeah. For example, “Nine Lives,” the C part, it is kind of SLAYER-ish. And then “One More Year” is inspired by SLAYER. Yeah.
Janne: And then so many times we kind of have to back off a little bit, like, oh… This is too SLAYER. Yeah, we can’t put that outro on there, because it’s way too SLAYER, so… But yeah. Because when things go to shit, you got to listen to SLAYER. Yes. And like you just mentioned, the world is kind of shit right now. So SLAYER is on our minds.
Is that something, as brothers, that you do your bond over music?
Janne: Yeah, I mean, so many different kinds and styles of music over the years and all that, but yeah, for sure. Yeah.
What are your plans for after this release? You have some festival shows coming up at least.
Janne: We have some festivals coming up.
Antti: There’s going to be a tour in Finland?
Janne: There’s going to be a tour in Finland, and especially in the interviews for Central Europe, we would obviously love to expand our operation and go on tour in Europe more for a band of our size right now. Touring is very expensive since COVID and whatever. So even though we would love to go, it’s not that easy that let’s go on a European tour. It needs a lot of planning and stuff.
Antti: Or Brazil.
Janne: Or that.
So you’re NOT coming to Brazil. Not yet.
Antti: Well, we don’t believe that.
Janne: Yeah.
Antti: I mean, it’s so… It’s not close.
Janne: It is so… You mentioned how the world has changed because in the previous album cycle, everyone was still asking us, like, please come to the U.S. for a tour. And now even the journalists mentioned that, well, in the current climate, you’re probably not coming to the U.S. Yeah. So imagine that. That’s weird because I used to tour the U.S. a lot and I had a great time. So things are very different nowadays. And we would love to expand our operations to Central Europe.
Antti: Yeah, sure.
Janne: That’s something that seems rational and doable. And, you know, so we kind of started this slow on purpose. We toured Finland first. And, you know, if in any way possible, we would expand to Europe little by little.
Well, I think that’s pretty much it for my questions. Do you have any last thoughts or shared thoughts?
Janne: Thank you for watching this interview. Please check out our new album, “Band of Brothers.”
Antti: Out. Yes. August.
Janne: 15th. Yes. We are happy about it. We made progress, we wanted to make to achieve some new songs for our live set. Yes. I hope you agree that the album fills that purpose.
Antti: We will see you at the show.
Janne: We would love to see you at the show. Yeah.
Antti: Metal.
Interview by Laureline Tilkin
