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By: Mark Martins
Mark Martins recently had a virtual chat with Callisto‘s bass player Juho Niemelä about the new and well acclaimed album Secret Youth, which could possibly be the band’s most mature and diverse album to date. We also had a chance to discuss Juho’s views on today’s music scene (in Finland, but not only) and also learned a bit about the band, their musical preferences and life on tour.
(((o))): Why did it take 6 years to release an album this time around?
Juho: We have always taken our time to write new material. Being thankful to our record label for not having any pressure to hurry up, this time we also found it difficult to gather up rehearsing, since all of us don´t live in the same city anymore. We were writing new stuff basically all the time during all these years, but we just made it very slowly. In a long scale we had some periods when we just needed a break from the band and many of us were also doing other bands and projects. In the end we were just very happy to finally get back fully active with Callisto and complete the new album.
(((o))): How different is the band since Providence?
Juho: It´s been five to six years, so we have grown as individuals, but I wouldn´t say the band is that much different. Secret Youth is higher tempo and a bit more straight forward music than Providence, and that was the direction we felt good with. The songs are from quite a long period of time and they have evolved during the process, but the result gives us a good feeling of the natural progression in our song writing and production. There´s no point recording the same album twice.
(((o))): Tell us about Secret Youth. Was there anything you did different this time around? How did the song writing process start and how long did it take?
Juho: I would answer the same things I answered in the previous question. In addition, the song writing process started already soon after releasing Providence in 2009, so some of the elements/parts on Secret Youth are from that time, while some are from the last few years. The process seemed very difficult and slow at times, but when we finally got into the studio in the summer of 2014, it all just seemed to fall perfectly in place and the completing of the process just felt very natural and almost easy. We were quite amazed of this, since we had already got used to finding the process slow and even difficult at times. It was good to finally put the big gear on.
(((o))): What influenced Callisto to start writing and playing music?
Juho: We listened to a lot of music when we started Callisto back in 2001, always eager to find new interesting sounds. We were influenced by bands of Solid State Records, such as Zao, Selfmindead, Extol and Living Sacrifice, as well as bands like Breach, Deftones, Neurosis, Botch and many Hydra Head Records bands. There were not that many people listening to that stuff in our home country back then, so we were highly inspired to create something we hadn´t heard any other band playing here in Finland. It was just natural for us to find that sound and add something own to it, finding our own mixture and start exploring our path.
(((o))): What albums have you been listening to lately?
Juho: These days we all listen to fairly different stuff. We still have many favourites in common, but we have stronger individual tastes now, almost 15 years later. Lately I´ve been listening to albums from Hark, Wovenhand, Marissa Nadler, Sufjan Stevens, The Fire Theft, Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers and Shai Hulud, along with some Finnish and American melancholic folk music (both new and old), so I would say we all have quite wide taste what comes to the musical styles we listen to.
(((o))): What are your all-time favourite bands?
Juho: There are so many in the top category of this question but for me, some of the all-time best bands/artists are Sufjan Stevens, Wovenhand, Nick Drake, Deftones, Breach, Zao, Mastodon, Botch, Living Sacrifice, Magyar Posse, Sunny Day Real Estate and Sigur Rós, along with classics like Joni Mitchell´s early albums etc.
(((o))): Do you listen to your own music?
Juho: I do enjoy our own music, but at the same time I find it quite difficult to listen to it, in the role of a listener. Actually Secret Youth is the first album of ours that I´ve been really listening to numerous times. This is the first time I can feel I wouldn´t change anything on the album. Maybe this is the reason I am able to listen to it more than the earlier albums. I enjoy all of our albums, they are “products” of the time we created them, but I have never listened to them that much afterwards. You play your songs so much during the tours, rehearsals and the entire writing process and studio that you kind of don´t want to lose your interest in them.
(((o))): What is it like to be a band in Finland? Do you feel the country supports people who like and want to play music?
Juho: There are tons of bands in Finland when compared to the fact that there´s only 5,5 million people living here. New albums are released all the time and we have a lot going on especially in the south, while there are also lots of bands in the north but not that many shows going on there. We feel our country could invest more in the alternative music culture, since all the big investments in the music industry always go to where the big money is (naturally). The music market is rather small here because it´s a small country, but there´s a lot going on. The facilities are good, but the government could support alternative music more. The culture branch in general seems to be under cuttings.
(((o))): How do you see the music scene nowadays?
Juho: It´s changed a lot. People listen to their music online, the record stores are dying and the culture is in the hands of few vinyl collectors, one could say. More and more new music is created, but the flow gets easily stuck – everything is online and you are drowning into good music. Thus it´s numbing your senses a bit, it´s difficult to get noticed for the new bands especially. But the times are changing, I don´t complain. There is a lot of good in this evolution, too. The royalty policy needs to get much better in streaming services – that is the crucial point at the moment for the artists.
(((o))): Can you let us know a fun/embarrassing fact about you or the band?
Juho: We write melancholic and haunting music, but in the tour van we are everything else than melancholic, just like most of the “heavy” bands I guess. We are quite hilarious and childish at times, even in the age of 33-34 that most of us are. I don´t know if that´s embarrassing, that´s just natural. We´ve had many fun (afterwards thought) and embarrassing moments on the road with van problems etc., but this is normal too. Every band has broken down their van in the middle of some heavy-traffic-intersection at some point of their career. We are quite normal guys with strong vision in music, and it´s the mixture of the visions of all the members in Callisto that sums up our music. That goes to the personalities of the members, too.
