Ancestors and their Stories – An Interview with WOLFHEART

Zur deutschen Version geht es hier. 

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It’s autumn of 2015, I had just started exploring harder Metal genres when one album in particular was released: Winterborn by WOLFHEART. Right from the start this album managed to give me an insight into musical spheres I had previously only encountered with one or two other albums, namely INSOMNIUM’s One for Sorrow and BEFORE THE DAWN’s Deathstar Rising. Given the fact that the latter of these two was written by the same person who wrote Winterborn, it’s not that surprising. Back then, it just felt monumental to me. Taking all that into account, it was an insane honor to me to be able to interview Tuomas Saukkonen who quite literally shaped my musical tastes! He has made massive contributions to Metal and now you can read how Jesse Leach made his way onto the song Ancestor and what the latest WOLFHEART album, King of the North, is all about. 

Huge thanks to lightinmirror.de for these incomparable pictures!

Shieldmaiden’s Voice: What makes WOLFHEART unique?

Tuomas Saukkonen: The fact that we’re from Finland and that the music and lyrics are mainly based on winter. That gives us a certain characteristic and, in music especially, I try to write as winter-y as possible! It’s cold, beautiful, harsh and majestic. 

SV: Are there any songs, album or artists that you feel have significantly influenced your style?

Tuomas: I’m old enough that I nowadays go back to the very old stuff like Storm of the Light’s Bane by DISSECTION. That was the first time I realized that you can actually make this level of aggressive music with that amount of melody. It doesn’t rule itself out. I thought that if you played Black Metal that you could only use certain evil chords and that’s the whole music. Having this amount of beauty and melody while remaining this cold and raw, was just an epiphany. Aside from that, I really like the super early IN FLAMES, early PARADISE LOST and Tales from the Thousand Lakes by AMORPHIS. That was the first time where I think a lot of Finnish songwriters realized how you can infuse Finland into the music. There was no need to sound Swedish or American because that was what Finnish music was and you could actually write about Finland. It was the first time anyone in the Metal scene brought Finland to the table in such a big way.

SV: It really brought you back to your identity!

Tuomas: Yes, in a creative way! I don’t think the AMORPHIS guys realize how big the album is for the identity of Finnish Metal musicians.

SV: We kinda broached the topic, but what are themes or topics that are important to your music?

Tuomas: A lot of it is Finnish-related. Finnish nature is a huge part and the last two albums were more themed. The previous one, Wolves of Karelia, was about the Winter War so the whole album focusses on these three months during the second World War. It was mainly based on interviews with the veterans and not so much the actual events of that historic episode, but what it felt like to be in certain situations. 

The lastest album, King of the North, is all about Finnish mythology. It’s important to WOLFHEART to not sing about generic things. Of course, winter can be that too, but we would never write about dragons and stuff. That is probably the whole point about WOLFHEART to focus on the Finnish things. 

SV: You just mentioned King of the North. How is that album different from your previous releases?

Tuomas: Musically, I don’t think there was a huge difference. With every album we try to come up with something new and we push a little bit more with the orchestral stuff. So I think the theme was the biggest one being Finnish mythology. For the fans this theme is a lot more complicated complex because Finnish mythology is not in the books. It’s not like SABATON. You can take any book about any war and come up with the lyrics, but Finnish mythology was never really documented. It was told from village to village, scattering information or building up stories and making songs about it. The songs have more detail in them than you can find in any story or book. That might also be what makes it complicated for fans.

SV: What made you pursue that specific kind of topic then?

Tuomas: Because I was so interested in it! When you look at the album just as a product, there would have been much easier topics to explain, write about and sell. As a Finnish person, I’m super interested in my heritage and my roots. And there are so many cool stories that are also weird and don’t really make any sense. You can really tell that someone from that one village told it to another person from the other village, but they were drunk while telling it. Some stories don’t add up, but still, those are the stories that are building the whole Finnish identity.

SV: You’re kind of continuing the tradition of transporting these stories, which is really cool! The album also features a song with Jesse Leach of KILLSWITCH ENGAGE. How did that happen?

Tuomas: Completely accidental! Actually, we did have a discussion with management that we don’t want anybody doing guest vocals which they tried to push. We said that it was a Finnish album about Finnish mythology and we have enough vocals within the band and that it would feel weird to have anybody do guest vocals. Then I got a message from a Russian fan who send me an Instagram story of Jesse Leach which was about his girlfriend and a song of ours was playing in the background and Jesse called his girlfriend his „Valkyrie“. It was very weird for me because Jesse was one of my vocal idols when the Alive or just Breathing album came out, so it was a very unreal moment for me. I thought about how to comment on that and I decided to just say „Nice song!“ and I fully expected to not get a reply, but I had to react somehow! And lo and behold, five minutes later I get a long reply that basically said „Hi, nice to meet you, I’ve been wanting to get in some kind of contact because I’ve been a fan of your albums and we listen to WOLFHEART when we have a fire. Really cool stuff! How is it going with the band? Any future things“ and stuff like that and I was just star-struck! We started talking and he asked about the album and when it would come out and I told him that we were at the studio at that moment. I explained that it would be a theme album about Finnish mythology and he asked if he could hear some of it. After I sent it to him, he said that if we ever needed guest vocals, we could just ask. At that point, I had the album written, we were already recording the final versions and he gave us an offer like that! It was obvious that we had to have a song, so we wrote Ancestor at the last minute in the studio, because I wanted to have Jesse Leach on the album so bad! That is how it happened. There was no Ancestor on the album before that conversation. Obviously I didn’t tell him that, but said „Oh there is one song that might be a good fit for your vocals. I’m gonna send it to you tomorrow!“ The same evening, I went into the studio and said that we needed to do a demo NOW! I sent it to him, he liked it and the rest was history.

SV: Pressure makes diamonds after all! You have been a musician for a long time, both with WOLFHEART and with other projects as well. What would you say has changed the most since you started releasing music?

Tuomas:  The promotion in general. Nowadays, I do most of the interviews with Youtube channels via Zoom. I’m super old and I just got the Metal Hammer feature with my other band BEFORE THE DAWN and I appreciate that so much that a magazine that I used to read now features my band. It’s a bit weird but I get that everything changes. The biggest change I see is that with every album it becomes more and more digital, like Vlogs, Youtube, etc. As for the mindset, the pandemic changed that a lot. A lot of bands now think differently and they’re more focussed on being able to play because you can’t take it for granted anymore. Those are the biggest changes I’ve noticed. 

SV: Do you feel like the pandemic has had a lasting effect on your work then?

Tuomas: Nothing is lasting, it’s art. It did have an effect, but everything has an effect. Good and bad things always happen. I don’t want to analyze it too much because everybody is in the same boat, we just have a different outlook on things. Each artist deals with it differently.

SV: You’re going on a tour with both WOLFHEART and BEFORE THE DAWN. What are you most excited about?

Tuomas: The survival! [We laugh] I’m excited to see the last show to see that I actually made it! I’m playing 50 gigs in 25 days after all! Also, I’m eagerly excited for the first show we get on the road because for me it’s special to have both bands on the same tour. If I survive, I’m going to enjoy getting to play with both bands and to get to play the songs. Both bands include my best friends, basically, and it’s like a dream team for me. If I don’t die, that is!

SV: Where do you see WOLFHEART in five to ten years?

Tuomas: I don’t see that far at the moment. That’s what the pandemic and the war in Ukraine taught me. I only want to see one year ahead! I used to have these two year plans executing various things, but when two years are taken off your life and your profession then you start to think differently. Naturally, I want to see the band bigger and further ahead. The main thing is that I want to go 12 months into the future and still be able to enjoy what we do and to get to do cool stuff. The current situation is the best anybody can hope for. 

SV: What is something you always wanted to talk about in an interview, but never had the chance to?

Tuomas: I get so many question on weird stuff that I don’t even know what I don’t want to talk about anymore. After the pandemic, there were certain mental health themes that I would want to talk about, especially for the songwriting, but that would fill its own entire interview. Bringing up the darker stuff behind the songs would also be worthwhile because there is a reason why it’s so dark. People are feeling worse now than they did four years ago so I think opening up that side would help a lot of people! Unfortunately, we don’t have the time to cover it in this interview because it’s a very wide subject to talk about. 

SV: I’m writing this down, just in case. Maybe we’ll do that particular interview in the future!

Tuomas: Oh yes, definitely! But for this conversation, I’d need like half an hour more which we don’t have because have the signing session coming up. 

SV: Good point! That is why we have to come to an end too… If you could give your fans one message, what would it be?

Tuomas: Enjoy today more than you used to. Find something you enjoy about today, be it music or anything else and just get it done. Don’t push things to tomorrow. We have seen that there is no tomorrow to wait for. Nobody is promised a tomorrow! I think that applies now a bit more strongly than it did a couple of years ago. Don’t wait to do things you want to do!

I can honestly say that this was one of my favorite interviews from this year’s Rockharz. Speaking of which, we’re now officially done with the content we got there. Kinda sad, but that means we’re off to new shores. Stay tuned and follow us on social media to get exclusive sneak-peaks! And who knows? Maybe you’ll get another WOLFHEART (or BEFORE THE DAWN) interview sooner rather than later? Until then, take care!