Impaled Nazarene

Impalement, after all, is something Mika and his crew are familiar with: crucified by accusations of nazism, the Finnish band have been under attack for many years and have practically been outlawed in their own country. But they are back with a vengeance: after being threatened, censored, robbed and losing a member, Impaled Nazarene spit in the face of the world again with one of their best albums, ‘Manifest’. Like the ‘300’ Spartans, they'd rather die on the battlefield than kneel down. Perfect scapegoats for some and great thinkers for others, they are first and foremost a bloody war machine, a great rock’n’roll band, regardless of the label you want to stick on them. Fuck off and die, as they say…

-The last time we met, the coming tour was in jeopardy: what happened?

- We did go on tour but it ended up as a total nightmare trip from the very depths of hell. Our shows got banned in Germany, France, Poland, Austria, Switzerland. Our touring agency went bankrupt and we were left with tons of debts in the end. This whole shit is pretty well documented on our bio so please, browse to www.campnazarene.com

-After that, your material was robbed, Tuomio lost his guitar in England and the tour company went bankrupt: don’t you think this band is doomed?

- Absolutely yes. But we will not give up. We will fight till the bitter end!!!

-Do you still get threats through the Internet?

- Here in Finland, as you probably saw in the news, there was this shooting incident. Of course this retarded asshole was a fan of our band. Now there are several "normal" people writing us emails every day, saying we are dangerous and should be banned and it was our fault that he shot 8 people + himself to death.

-After that, Tumio left Impaled: could you tell us about the new member?

- Tuomio left AFTER the recording of Manifest, he plays on the album plus composed songs for it as well. Our new lead guitarist is UG, we have known him for over seven years now. He has been our session guitarist/guitar technician for years. His first tour with us was in France when we did the Nihil tour there. This was a very easy line-up change, UG already knew all our songs so we did not have to teach him anything. Great guy, great lead-guitarist.

-And do you have ‘real plans’ for touring for the future?

- We cannot plan anything before we know for sure whether can we play in Germany or not. This is the sad reality. We just learned that our show (which was supposed to happen in the end of December, at the Devil´s Revenge festival) in Germany will NOT happen because we are banned again there. Future does not look very bright.

-So, now let’s talk about your new album, ‘Manifest’: it’s the most diverse record since Suomi Finland Perkele. How did it come about?

- It just happened that way. We never plan anything in advance. We never write as a "band", we write individually at home, then meet at the rehearsal place and see what songs we keep and what songs we don't. We have worked like this since 1996. We have done a more diverse and more dynamic record and I am glad about it. We never do the same kind of record twice.

-On two songs, you use a different singing style: why and is it a new path to explore for you?

- Those songs just needed something "extra" from my side so I decided I needed to rehearse some death metal and grindcore vocals and that is what I did. Just to spice the whole thing up. I am not a good vocalist, I cannot sing any clean stuff at all so I have to go with the range I have.

-You didn’t write that much for this record, so I suppose you have plenty of stuff for the next one?

- I seriously think that my songs do not fit Impaled Nazarene´s current sound at all so maybe I will do a solo album one day. I really wanna put them out.

-Anger is an energy, but today, do you feel more angry or disappointed by all those perpetual attacks against the band?

-I am still fucking pissed off. We have lost loads of money, lots of great gigs. Too bad for the fans. There is really nothing we can do against all this crap, we are a small band on a small label so we have no resources to fight against this in court. Unfortunately.

Interview done by e-mail in November 2007 by Jean Paul Coillard.

Thanks to Nicolas from Osmose and to Mika, of course.