UPCOMING SHOWS: 22.10.2010 Tallinn, Estonia, Club Rockstars (w. Rapture, Thrashless) 29.10.2010 Vaasa, Hullu Pullo (w. Ghost Brigade) PAITAMYYNTI: Tilaa Throes Of Dawn-paidat täältä. SITE UPDATES: 08.09.2010 Live dates 02.08.2010 Live dates 09.07.2010 News Interviews 19.04.2000 Ablaze Magazine 1. Which area (rural, town, city?) of Finland you live in? What kind of nature you can find there? - We live in the west-coast of Finland in a place called Vaasa. We have quite much forests here, the soil is very rocky, and the land is very flat -we dont have hills or high places in here, since this is an old seabed. The whole place has been underwater once. 2. Describe the way of founding THROES OF DAWN! Who is involved in the band, and what are the single band-members' duties? What do you work, what are your hobbies? What experiences did you make with T.O.D.? How did you finally get in touch with WOUNDED LOVE REC.? - Me (H.Kaamos) and Jani H. our second guitarist found the band in -94. The other members soon joined us, Matti on the bass, Teemu on drums and Toni in lead guitar. Our line-up has been the same since that day. I write all of our lyrics, Jani and Toni compose all the music. Me and Jani handle all the band connections -I answer all the interviews, and Jani takes care of our homepages. The other members are unemployed, Jani and I are students. I contacted Avantgardemusic in the summer of -99 and got an offer from Valerio from Wounded Love records. We thought that the deal was good and we signed. We4re very satisfied to their effort for us. 3. Does / did anyone from you guys play in another band? What kind of music is / was it? - Toni and Teemu play together in a band that plays very weird progressive/psyco metal. They don4t have a name for the band, and they haven4t released anything with it. 4. Are you content with your label's work? What could be better? - We are very satisfied to Wounded Love/Avantgardemusic! Especially the promotion has been very good. We have no complaints about their work. 5. Do your songs have the spirit being played live - what do you think? What kind of shows are you playing? - At the time, we're not playing live, because we dont have a rehearsal place right now, and we are looking for a session synth player to play at our live shows. We really need the synts to get the same kind of atmosphere as on our album. 6. You have played with some well known acts such as SATYRICON. How did you get that deal, and how did it go? Would you like to go on tour? Which areas / countries would you like to tour? What bands would you really like to join? - I'm not that pleased with our part of that SATYRICON show, we could have played a lot better gig but we didn4t have enough time to rehearse the set. The show organizers wanted a band that had done an album to play the support. So they contacted us, and we were very honoured to play support for SATYRICON, I have always admired their work. We will play some live shows when we get everything ready for it, we have even had some plans about a mini-tour in Europe with Finntroll, but we will see about that. 7. Are you also into other parts" of the Metal - scene than playing music (e.g. writing for a magazine, etc.)? - I really dont have time for anything else, at the time I4m very busy with the band and my studies, but I do follow the events in the metal scene as much as I can. 8. How would you describe the musical style you are playing? - I would call our music simply as dark metal, I dont like to use a long row of adjectives in the description, because those words have totally lost their meaning in the metal scene. And I hate the categorizing of music! People should listen to the music itself, that4s the thing that matters the most. There was a good description of our music in Roberto4s advertise in Terrorizer mag. He described our music as: unique, atmospheric, epic, dark metal. We are NOT a black metal band, our lyrics are not satanic and we don4t support any certain philosophies or religions with our music. 9. What inspires you writing your music / lyrics? - As a lyric writer I get inspiration from various sources like; literature, music, nature, art, my personal feelings/emotions, and things that happen around me. I really don4t know what exactly inspires our music writers, but I would assume that they have some similarities with my inspiration sources. 10. Your lyrics are no typical" Dark / Black Metal lyrics. What do you think about those (e.g. lyrics by DARK FUNERAL...)? What makes you writing about different topics - rather melancholic feelings? - Well, our lyrics and also music differs very much from DARK FUNERAL. I don4t want to write lyrics like they do, and I don4t want to play that kind of music. We are trying to create different atmosphere with our music, not just aggression and hate. Lyrics can be written in many ways, you can say it just straight like DF, but that4s quite typical in todays black metal. There was a chorusline in a WAR album saying something so original as "..satan, satan, satan"!! In my opinion, it4s much more challenging and sophisticated to write about darkness and emptiness so that the reader can figure out something for himself. Not that I have anything against those above mentioned bands, they are very good bands in their own way, but they surely don4t offer anything new with their lyrics. 11. What do you think of the Black Metal scene in general? Do you feel as a part of it? - Yes, I feel we are a part of the black metal scene and we have always been, although we don4t call our music black metal. I don4t think that one can separate dark and black metal into two different scenes. 12. What does 'Dawn' mean to you? Does your music provoke the same feelings as the dawn? - Dawn has no special meaning to me. 13. Explain the figure of theLast Rainbow Warrior'! To me the words rainbow" and warrior" seem to be paradox, because rainbow" stands for hope and happiness while warrior" stands for destruction. What did you intend with that? - They are a paradox, but that4s not the issue here. There is an old belief among the indians, that just before the world comes to an end, twelve spiritual warriors, the Rainbow Warriors, would rise from a long sleep to prevent the destruction. In my lyrics however, nothing will prevent the destruction So, "the Last Rainbow Warrior is Dead" is basically about anti-hope. 14. Would you say that your lyrics - in general - critizise the society we live in? Is that your intention? - No, I don't want to critizise our society, at least not intentionally! We want to take our music as far away from any political stuff as possible! 15. Who did the coverartwork of Binding Of The Spirit"? What does it express / mean to you? - Our guitarist Jani made the coverartwork, and I think it4s very good! Originally, there was going to be a different cover image, but the dragonfly was so damn goodlooking. So, we had to use it! The dragonfly on the cover is connected to the lyrics of "the Warprophet Dreams", which is basically about an ancient prophet who has a vision in his dream about some sort of biological warfare. Diseases carried and spread by insects 16. What is your opinion on war? - War is very typical act of human behaviour. Man has killed each other through all the short history of their existence. We will never learn, we don4t even want to learn. This shows how one-dimentional and shallow our thinking is. Other species might take steps forward, but not mankind. Some might think that war is only positive, when considering the worlds overpopulation problem, but on the contrary, wars only increase the birth rate. There has been evidence, that after a war has finished, the birth rates have immediately risen into high numbers. So, for a war to have effect on population, there should be a war that would wipe everything away. 17. What do you think about misanthropy? - I believe that man could develop into something much more than just a "normal" human being is at the present time. We have all the keys on our hands, we just don4t use them. I think people don4t want to develop or think forward, they just want everything to be nice, safe and comfortable. It4s terribly wrong to think or to have own opinions these days. As I sayed earlier: "Other species might take steps forward, but not mankind." 18. What is your opinion on this world / life on this planet? - Mankind is a cancer, that has spread along this planets face into various tumors(cities). We act like a cancer, we use every source of the nature available until all of the sources are finished. Then we have to move on, spread a little wider, drain all of the sources found thereand so on. We live in this endless circle until it comes to an end, the end of this planet.. if we assume (this is very hypothetical!) that we manage to spread our race to other solar system before that, we will continue the same way as we started in earth. That way we4ll become a "Universal cancer"! That4s the idea behind the "Stardestroyer" track. 19. Is there any philosophy you believe in? - No, nothing special. I see myself as an individual with individual thoughts. 20. What do you think about religions in general? - All religions are stupid. They destroy individual thinking, limit freedom and drive people into herds. There is no afterlife.. just the vast emptiness, which they try to deny by these various religions. We are not a creation of anything but evolution. There is no heaven or hell, god or satan. Without a mind, there would not be a soul. 21. How do you feel when you see the destruction of environment by the humans? - It only strengthens my thoughts that mankind is the cancer of this planet. 22. Are you content with the result of Binding Of The Spirit"? Where did you record, and how did it go? - I am very pleased with the result, we recorded the album in the legendary Tico-tico studio in the northern Finland. We had two one week sessions, in August we recorded all of the music, and in December we recorded all vocals and finished the mixing. The sound engineer, Ahti Kortelainen, is a real wizard with the sounds! We are very satisfied to his work! We are going to use Tico-tico in the future as well! 23. What kinds of music do you listen to yourselves? Do you have any "idols" or bands you are very much into? - I like various kinds of music, not only, but mostly metal music. I prefer melancholic and good quality music, like UNHOLY, TIAMAT, KATATONIA etc. I don't have any certain "idols". 24. Which newer releases do you like? - I liked very much of the new ENOCHIAN CRESCENT "Omega Telocvovim" album, and I was very pleased to the debut album of the Finnish SHAPE OF DESPAIR. But one of the highlights is still the TIAMAT4s "Skeletrons skeleton" album which is absolutely brilliant! 25. What do you think of a) Gothic b) traditional Black Metal such as SETHERIAL, DARKTHRONE, MARDUK, IMPALED NAZERENE c) nowadays rather experimantal bands such as TIAMAT, SAMAEL d) folklore e) Heavy Metal f) Doom Metal g) chartbreaking" Metal, e.g. HIM, DIMMU BORGIR... a) Gothic is cool. b) I do listen to them, though the bands mentioned above have done their best albums long ago, except for SETHERIAL. c) TIAMAT and SAMAEL both rule!! They have developed like a band should develop! d) Hmm.. some folklore stuff is cool, but the most are not e) Not so much into it f) Ahhh! Some doom is great, I can only recommend the new SHAPE OF DESPAIR album g) blaaaahh!! 26. How is the Metal - scene at your place? Are there any events taking place in your area? - We have very good and original metal bands in Vaasa like; And Oceans, Enochian Crescent, Rotten Sound, Black Dawn. So, we have lots of bands, but we don4t have gigs or any special events there, we are all lacking a live audience. That4s why there4s so rarely metal live-shows (c) ABLAZE MAGAZINE 2000