interview with Cumbeast
Have any of you played in other bands? Yeah, our vocalist Oliver plays in a doom metal band and does something with the computers, drummer Mikko plays in brutal death metal band Cumbeast and black metal in Angelscourge, guitarist Sami plays in a pop group called Lemmen Kätyrit, bass player Aki plays in a prog. rock lineup and I Tape (guitar) play in a melodic rock band called Sinful Society
How is it that you started playing music? When I was young my dad listened a lot of rockabilly stuff and I was pretty blown out when I heard a Finnish rock band called Hurriganes. That was the moment when I knew I would be a guitar player! I played in a various lineups from age 15-16 and in the year 2008 I decided I wanna fucking finally form a band that plays only good music! I knew Mikko, Oliver and Aki before that and I just asked them if they wanna join and they did, ha! We never really decided what kind of metal music we will play, it all came naturally. That’s the way it was and that’s the way it will always be.
What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you? Oliver –vocals, Tape –guitar, Sami –guitar, Aki –bass, Mikko -drums
Have you had other previous members? Sure! We’ve had some problems to find a proper guitar player. You know there’s tons of dudes that can shred the shit out in their mom’s basement but when it comes to playing with a band…
We’re 20-25 years old.
Did you make music even when you were young? We’re still young!
Where are you from? Turku, Southwestern Finland.
What year did the band form? 2008.
What's your style of genre? Some kind of death metal.
What inspires you? Everything that’s happening in our lives.
How often and where do you reherse? 1-2 times a week, gotta keep em’ chops tight man!
Do you have other interests of work outside the band? Well…I’m kind of a no-life when it comes to that. Almost all of my freetime goes to the bands I play in, I kind of can’t take it easy. When I’m not playing, I hang out with my girl or get hammered with my friends! And occasionally I read some good ol’ books…anything from Kafka to comics!
Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? Sure, we’re working on it.
Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? We released our second ep Misery Doctrine this year independently. We are happy with the songs and it got some positive feedback in the media and brought us some gigs. Now we are working on new material and playing gigs. When we have more new material, then it’s time to do the pre-recordings and contact the labels.
What made you decide to make this music? Passion. And maybe retardness…? It’s funny when you think of metal..one dude screams his/her lungs out and the others play as fast as they can and with full distortion. And if you don’t’ like it, it may sound just really fucking horrible and annoying. Maybe it’s just some primal instinct that our species have? Or is it related to rough sex? There’s a research which shows that listening to extreme music helps you to deal with your negative feelings. Personally I think it goes for music in general. It’s all about emotions.
What are your songs about? Life but mostly about the darker side of life.
Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? Mostly I do the music and our vocalist does all of our lyrics. Everybody contribute on the arrangements.
Do you start with the music or the lyrics? Music first, the the lyrics. But I’m not sure if Oliver has some ready lyrics in his drawer just waiting for the right riffs!
What language do you sing in? English, Oliver is a native speaker.
What are the least and most people to attend one of your gigs? Least may be something like 10 and most is something like 70-80.
What ages are most of your concert attendants? I’ve seen all ages but mostly 18+ because you can’t legally go to bar before that.
Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? We have dropped the oldest songs from the setlist a long time ago. At the moment our setlist is based on the Misery Doctine ep songs and then we add a couple of new ones to that. Depends on the mood and the playing time.
Do you have a regular place you play live often? This year we have played twice in Rokbar, Turku. Other regular place is Klubi, Turku. The other Rokbar-gig was fucking killer, it was propably our best gig ever! The audience was hammered, crazy and full of energy. Gotta love that!
What was your first gig like? Propably sounded really bad, looked fucking boring and we we were freaked out of our minds. But on the other hand I remember it gave us energy to move on and get better!
What was your latest gig? It was a gig with Fasthammer and Hessian at Rokbar, Turku. Beginning of June.
