Hanna Tsepesh: Moro Altti! Thanks so much for accepting this interview and Welcome to THE GATES OF METAL! For those who do not know ETOS could tell us a little how it all started?
Altti: Moro Hanna! Thank you for making this interview. It’s always nice to answer interesting questions regarding music.
Hanna Tsepesh: thank you Altti!
Altti: EToS started officially under this name in April/May 1994, but we had been playing music with the same guys already for couple of years under several different names. We released 2 promo tapes at the beginning and the first real album release took place in 1997. It was released by small Swedish independent label called X-Treme Records. This new album is our 6th full length album so far. So we could say that we’re celebrating our 15th anniversary with this new album!
Hanna Tsepesh: Congratulations! What are your biggest inspirations in life to create the lyrics for ETOS? The band writes the lyrics first or first the band creates the riffs and the melody to comply with the lyrics?
Altti: The order how we make songs really differs from time to time. Sometimes there are some conceptual ideas and part of the lyrics at first...but many times it goes also that we make the music at first and then making lyrics that match into the mood of the music.
I would say that biggest inspirations while writing lyrics are some movies, nature and life we’re living. Especially I’m big fan of Japanese horror movies, because they have such a unique atmosphere and very different ways of creating horror feeling compared to the western movies.
Hanna Tsepesh: What are your favorite bands? You have any singer that you admire the most?
Altti: I listen to the Katatonia, Kamelot, Satyricon and Opeth a lot for example. Of course there are lots of all time classic favorites like Helloween, Iron Maiden etc. but nowadays I’ve been listening to a lot those four first bands I mentioned.
One of the greatest singers I know is Roy Khan from Kamelot and Michael Kiske from Old Helloween. Then from the growling section I like Angela Gossow, Tomi Joutsen and Mikael Stanne a lot. Tomi Joutsen is ansolutely great singer with clean vocals as well.
Hanna Tsepesh: I take this opportunity to send you my congratulations for your amazing work in ETOS and I take this chance to ask you if you have or had any singing lessons or any other preparations?
Altti: Thank you very much! Hopefully you’re talking about my growling vocals now, because all the clean vocals are made by our second singer Jarmo Kylmänen.
Hanna Tsepesh: Yup, I am talking about you (laughs)!
Altti: I haven’t personally taken any singing technique lessons for growlng, so it’s been more like self studying and finding the best technique for myself. Of course I have got a lot of good advices from the colleagues how to take care of the voice and how to warm it up.
Hanna Tsepesh: When you start to play bass? There is any reason to pick this instrument?
Altii: (laughs). Actually I started by playing a guitar and the reason why I changed it to the bass was that there weren’t any bass player available for the band. So I had to b the one who sacrifices himself for the band… (Laughs)! But seriously speaking I’m very happy with the decision because a bass guitar is a very beautiful and interesting instrument too.
Hanna Tsepesh: You have another band besides ETOS? How are the things about FOR MY PAIN? You guys have a lot of fans in Portugal, they are always wondering if the band will release another album…
Altti: For My Pain… still exists and is doing fine. We just haven’t had too much time to concentrate on it for last couple of years. But I’m pretty confident that we’re still going to release something with FMP some day when we all have time for it. We already have lots of songs ready, but haven’t had time to record any new stuff lately.
Hanna Tsepesh: ETOS have a new album call “Children of the Dark Waters”. I stay very surprised with this new album Altti, I think it was beginning a new chapter, don’t you think? Your voice are very improved, liked a lot the melodies and riffs. The whole album is fantastic and very mature! For people who don’t listen yet can you talk about “Children of the Dark Waters” and what is the big different for you between this album and the previous one?
Altti: Thank you very much! It’s really great to hear if you can hear the difference between this new album and our past albums.
Yes, definitely there has been an evolution path again. I would say that this new album is much darker, more aggressive and more bigger sounding than any of our previous albums. It has also the best production and the songs are also one of the best we have ever made. I could call this something like new chapter for us because we have new record label too. So, we have made a fresh new start in many way. But anyway still about the music, it still contains very familiar EToS elements that you can immediately recognize as ours, so the core of the new album is still the very old EToS even there are lots of new things happened too.
Hanna Tsepesh: One of the songs that I really liked is "Tears of Autumn Rain", can you tell to us the name of the 2 vocalists and if they have a band? They have a great and beautiful voice in my opinion.
Altti: We have 2 guest female singers in that song, Miriam Renvåg, who’s known from her main band Ram-Zet and then Heidi Parviainen, known from her main band Amberian Dawn. They both are absolutely talented and professional singers and it was so great to work with them on this album. With Miriam we have much longer history because she’s been visiting already on For My Pain album and on the previous EToS album.
Hanna Tsepesh: the entire album was produced and all the arrangements by ETOS, right? It was an easy process? The band feels proud with the final result or you think that miss something?
Altti: Yes, the album is completely produced by ourselves. Of course it’s always a challenge to be a producer for your own music, but if you have very clear vision how the music should sound at the end, why we would use any external person to tell how we should play our music.
We’re absolutely satisfied with the album and how it turned out. We can honestly say that we think that we have the very best EToS album in our hands currently and we cannot think even any smallest detail that should have been done differently on this album.
Hanna Tsepesh: Yes, I have the same opinion about this new album! What is your favorite music in this album and why?
Altti: There are lots of favorite’s tracks on this album and it really depends on the day. Cannot name only one song because it’s better to listen to the whole album as a whole.
Hanna Tsepesh: The band is thinking about a European tour? You guys have plains to include Portugal in your tour or something? You guys have a lot of fans in here…
Altti: We haven’t done any plans yet about wider touring, but surely there will be some separate gigs at least. It would be really great to play in Portugal too, because it’ a country where we have never played yet.
Hanna Tsepesh: Do you want to send any message for your fans out there?
Altti: It’s really great to know that we have fans in Portugal too! Hopefully we’ll have a chance to play for you live one day. Hopefully you like the new album!
Hanna Tsepesh: Thanks o much for your answers and time. THE GATES OF METAL wishes the entire band a great success with “Children of the Dark Waters “album! We hope to see Eternal Tears Of Sorrow very soon in here…
Altti: Thank you very much for this great interview! Join the sorrowful parade of those children…
By: Hanna Tsepesh
To listen to some ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW song’s and for future information’s go at:
www.myspace.com/etos1
eternaltears.info/www/
