Amorphis. Photo Credit: Ville Juurikkala

With many bands out in the world of metal today playing full albums on a live setting, it was only a matter of time for Tales from the Thousand Lakes (Relapse) to be played by death metal legends, Amorphis. We were lucky enough to speak to drummer, Jan Rechberger, at Maryland Deathfest this year to understand why is now the right time.

“Well we had the idea because of the anniversary, it was pretty clear to us to play the whole album because it is considered a classic in the scene. It seemed like a good idea to play it in between the process of writing a new album. We’ve been playing a few shows, 1 tour through Germany and Switzerland along with a lot of festivals this summer, like here in Maryland. It’s been going really nice, only a few shows yet, maybe 12 or so but so far it’s been real good. Meeting a lot of nice people and getting good feedback from the audience, it’s been a blast.”

Prior to the classic Tales record, Amorphis was known for a more traditional death metal sound but then they revolutionized death metal by evolving the sound to one of the pioneering folk metal sounds popular today. Jan reminded us that musical directions just kind of happen naturally.

“It’s a long process basically. We were basically metal heads at the time before Tales and just listening to metal really. After that we started listening to progressive music like progressive music in general and getting into bands like Pink Floyd, and Jethro Tull, and all those classic bands and we had a keyboard player so that probably changed the game a whole lot. It just started to happen when we jammed out playing our influences and coming up with a unique package. Like most things in music, these things happen accidentally at the end of the day. So it’s really a mix of our influences through the years and it’s a never ending journey really with more to come.”

Kalevala is a Finnish national epic poem of which Tales is heavily based upon. During the writing process of Tales, Kalevala strongly resonated within their creative minds. Over two decades later, is this story still as meaningful to them as it was back then?

“It does, but it’s something we learn in school as kids. It’s a huge thing in Finland, it’s like a national treasure in a way. And back then no metal band used it. Some Finish jazz bands did but it was mostly instrumental anyways and a lot of Finish composers used it as an influence. It’s been a major influence for artists in Finland. A lot of nice stories and unique stuff. I guess it was right after recording Karelian (Editor’s Note: The Karelin Isthmus- for Relapse Records) that I had the idea of maybe using Kalevala on maybe the next album and we did! We’ve been using it on new material too since Eclipse is basically based on Kalevala stories and characters. The new one and Circle are not straight from Kalevala but influenced strongly by it in some ways. I find it to be an original thing for us and feels natural for us to use as it’s something we already have. There were times where we didn’t use Kalevala in our music as we had other lyrical influences at the time on different subjects. I find it fits in our music well.”

Nowadays, folk and pagan metal as some call it is quite popular in the metal world and flourishing quite well. Many of these bands have cited Amorphis as a major influence to their sound and it is clearly heard in their own work. We were wondering if this comes off to Jan as a band “ripping off” the Amorphis sound and got a response after a few seconds of laughter that shows what kind of legacy they have created.

“Sometimes, but I do not see it as a rip off but more of a compliment. Like if I were to do hip hop or some other kind of music and some hip hop guy sampled my music I would be honored! Mainly because we were influenced by a lot of other bands. So if some younger bands take influences from us, I see that we actually created something that matters somehow. But yes, as you said, there’s been some bands like Ensiferum and bands like them that are friends with us in the first place and how we are a big influence on them. There’s lots of bands that remind me of our older stuff, but I find it to be cool. So I encourage the younger bands to keep doing what they like.”

TIM LEDIN