Feastem: "If you really love to do something, fuck the obstacles and do it!"

It's fine to make interview with good-natured persons, just like boys from Finnish band Feastem. As a result we have long informative conversation about music and not only about it... Read this interview just now and, of course, contact Obscene production or your local distributors to get Feastem "World Delirium". I consider it is "must-have" CD!

(Click photos in text to enlarge them)

Feastem are:
Patrick - drums
Antti - bass
Olli - guitar
Pete - vocal

Hi! Thank you for doing this interview! I hope, I don’t occupy your time much?

Patrik: Not at all, this is actually our first REAL interview for Feastem.
Antti: Not the first actually, we did one for a local newspaper in 2007...
Olli: Aaw c'mon guys! We've had interviews! Its been mostly "Sir, don't you think you've had enough to drink?"

What’s your attitude to interviews in general? Do you like to read interviews with other bands in zines, webzines? And what kind of interviews is interesting personally for you?

Patrik: I actually don't follow the magazines or webzines at all, I just randomly check if some good band is having a gig nearby. I don't follow the news about music, I just love to play & listen.
Antti: We're not tired of answering questions yet, so all you zine-writers out there: feel free to contact us!
Pete: Interviews are great, I love talking about myself, makes me feel important, haha! A good interview is full of surprises!

First of all, please, introduce yourself in several words. Occupation, hobbies, interests… And a couple of words about band name – why Feastem?

Patrik: I'm just a normal bastard living in a redneck-filled city. I love beer, music, cars and bad humour. I graduated as a media assistant a couple of years ago and now I study to be a truck driver. I also work in my cousin's sound & video production company as a technician and we do a lot of gigs all over Finland.
Antti: Hello, I'm Antti and I'm an alcoholic. Other than that, I study music and play in several different bands, none of which (besides Feastem) are grindcore or even any kind of heavy/extreme music. I like diversity! There's not much in life for me besides music, it consumes all my time and sucks out my soul... The name Feastem was our ex-singer Kari's idea, I don't think it means anything. We just wanted a name that wasn't taken by any other band.
Olli: I'm an almost thirties hitting dreadhead from a town a couple hundred miles from the Russian border. I'm trying to survive in the needs and standards that modern society is testing us with. I love messing with guitars.
Pete: I'm the newest member in the band. Music is my life, I have a couple of other bands, I DJ a lot, do radio shows, tour merchandising for bands, work at venues & festivals... That's pretty much everything. I like to smoke, grind & sleep. I'm also a relatively good cook and read audio books for the library for the blind.

Olli, you also play in Afgrund. As Feastem that band has many concerts. How do you divide your time for both such bands? Did you have any problems with concerts?

Olli: Well.. The pace of concerts is not so hardcore for either of the bands if you think about it. Though I'm not sure how it is in Ukraine? :) Dividing the time ain't rocket science really, you just got to keep track of not getting double booked. But yeah, things are quite busy. I'm doing 3 different jobs, studying my last year at the Design Academy of Kuopio and have a bunch of other stuff to focus on too. I think everyone in Feastem has their own projects, as Pete has Famine Year, Patrik is working at his cousin's label doing random gigs and Antti is studying music in Tornio and naturally has a bunch of sideprojects. I think its healthy in a way that we give each other space and do things without too much pressure. As for Afgrund's side: Armin is the lead singer of Distaste and has sideprojects too, Panu plays in GAF, not sure about Enrico's side projects. Anyway, to conclude: If you really love to do something, fuck the obstacles and do it!
Pete: Olli can multiply.

Let’s talk about new Feastem album “World Delirium”. Tell about it: labels, number of copies, length (number of songs, minutes) and so on. And what is your personal attitude to this work? Is record session on Finnvox – expensive pleasure?

Patrik: The label is Obscene Productions from Czech Republic, the same guy who is behind Obscene Extreme Fest. I'm really happy for our cooperation, everything has gone as we planned, I think. The album includes 18 tracks and the lengths are all around 1 min. I like this album 1000 times more than the previous. Sound, playing and production is better and tighter, songs are faster and longer (damn tough to play live). I think everything is better in this album and i'm glad that we were able to get a new singer Petri in our group too.
Antti: The album is 27 minutes long, so that makes the average song length 1:30. I'm also very pleased with this one, it's way angrier than the previous one (Fear in Concrete) that had songs ranging back from our first rehearsals. The next one's gonna be even more fast & furious! ;) We actually didn't record this one at Finnvox, but Tuupa & Posti studios, which are way smaller. But I think the sound is much better.
Pete: I am very proud to be a part of this record. It fucking kills.

Have new songs some fresh influences comparing with previous works or you continued traditional furious way?

Olli: Personally for me this turned out to be a "transformation album" since we actually recorded vocals with Kari too. The lyrics were quite shit, and after his departure, we got Pete to take the rudder. And it's been great. Remembering the first takes in the studio still gives me chills. There's actually a tape of me videotaping Pete's first vocal takes and you can see my hand shaking! :D AND NOT FROM TOUCHING MYSELF!... much... As what comes to the influences, for me its my car Saab 900. The motor is almost dead and it beats to the rhytm of 260bpm while idle and its a good backing track for humming riffs!
Antti: Since the first album we did our first two European tours and saw lots of other bands, so that obviously influenced us a LOT. Also I think the new songs are more punk and less metal compared to the oldies. As for yet unreleased songs, I think the direction is the same: faster & more punk!

In album title and cover art work we can see deep social sense: anti globalism, world crisis etc. And according to this art the root of all evil lays in USA, am I right? And what is your attitude to another globalist – Russia? I saw in TV news that there are lessons of Russian language in Finnish schools.

Antti: I think the album art is like that mostly to stick out and make the impression "yeah!" You can tell it's not a new age/easy listening album. The statue of liberty is a strong symbol so it fits this purpose well! Lots of things in the USA are fucked up, but then again lots of things all over the world are fucked up. As for Russia, I feel kinda bad for the people, they've been oppressed by their leaders for a long time and have lots of poverty. Russian language isn't mandatory in Finnish schools, it's just available in some, if you want to study it.
Pete: I wouldn't say USA is the root of all evil, to me the artwork speaks more about the decline of western civilization and the values and morals we're being fed. It's about the "world delirium", you know? We're so drunk on the idea that we are the peak of evolution on this planet, we think we're free while in reality we are not. As a species, we are holding a gun to our head. Resources are depleting, our morals are just double standards, people care less and less about the world we live in... Like Antti said, the statue of liberty is a strong symbol everyone recognizes and the way I see it, the statue symbolizes all the things the western world WANTS to be but ultimately can't because of people's greed. The western world wants to be the American dream, the seemingly successful story of man's triumph over circumstances. That, unfortunately, is impossible because of the system we've built and they way us people are "wired". All governments are evil, some more, some less.

Are you really interested in politics or it is just traditional part of musical style? Do you ever take part in protest demonstrations or participate in some political clans? And what is attitude to revolution in Egypt?

Antti: I'm quite interested in politics and social issues, but I don't try to write too "political" lyrics, more of it is just anything that pisses me off. I think we are relatively neutral politically, vaguely somewhere in the left/green/anarcho-side. The Egyptian revolution shows that the people can do something when they're screwed by their leaders, so thumbs up for them! I'm just a bit worried how things are gonna evolve there.
Pete: I'm fairly interested in politics as I think everybody should be. I try to keep informed of what happens around me and especially "behind the curtains", if you will but I'm not really involved in it. My lyrics deal with my general distaste for humanity and the way things work in this world. I agree with Antti, I think we all have the same values that lean towards the left/green/anarcho-side but we're quite moderate, we don't wear balaclavas and throw Molotov cocktails on a daily basis. Maybe we should? The far East is doing that now, there's a real change going on. I only hope it doesn't lead to religious dictatorship because the only thing worse than a dictator is a religious dictator.

I think, that’s enough about politics, because it is really dirty thing. Let’s continue talk about music. In your songs you combine grindcore and thrash/black oldies. Why it so? Black metal is popular in Finland, so it influenced your music? But as I know, black metal fans don’t like grindcore. Do you saw them on your concerts?

Antti: In my teens I used to listen to ONLY black metal, so it definitely has an influence on the songs. Nowadays I find the scene a bit funny... There hasn't been many black metal people on our shows, I think? But then again, there's not many people at all on our shows...
Patrik: Well I have to admit that I personally like black metal much more than grindcore. Grindcore is just much more fun to play, it's more aggressive but in a good way, with a twinkle in the eye. The only good thing in grindcore are the drummers, they are always getting faster and faster like an AK-47...That works for me! In black metal I listen more the guitars and the melody, like old Dark Funeral for example.
Pete: I can't really speak for the other guys and I don't write any music for Feastem but I would say that to me it all sounds very natural, I doubt there's been much deliberation like "this song needs a black metal part..." To me it sounds like everything has come naturally, just fallen into place. Genres are for frustrated music journalists.

In general what do think about experiments in music, unusual combinations of styles? Can musicians make radical changes in their music just because their own wish? Or they must be honest with fans? For example, imagine such situation: your favorite grindcore band decided to play old school thrash. What will be your reaction as a fan?

Patrik: It depends, for example one of my favourite finnish black metal band, Thyrane played good old black metal and a couple albums later they made a slower industrial album. No blast beat or black metal riffs. But still, after the first shock I realized that the music was still damn good.
Antti: Yeah, it's just a matter of whether the music is good, fuck genre boundaries! But don't worry, we're not gonna change our style in a while...
Pete: Agreed, fuck genres! I love to listen to music that mixes unlikely bedfellows like jazz & grindcore. It's all about pushing boundaries and creating something truly new and inspiring.

Remember the first release of Feastem. What emotions filled you when you took the disk in hands?

Patrik: I would throw it in the trashcan! Shitty sound and shitty playing.
Olli: It's banned from distribution! If I ever see one, I will destroy it!
Antti: When we did it, we had only been playing together for a few months, sure it was nice to have a demo in our hands but listening now it's not so great...
Pete: I have no emotional attachments to it whatsoever...

How much time it takes you to create new song – from the idea through rehearsal till record? And the same question to the whole album – how long did you create “World Delirium”?

Patrik: Antti and Olli write the songs and send them to us. We listen those demos and practice them to the next reheasals. We all live very far from each other so we practice very seldom, usually one week before the next gig. We practiced most of the WD songs before the last European tour, we actually had a chance to try how those songs will work live before going to the studio. Immediately after the tour we went to Tuupa Records Ltd studio to record the drums and the bass, it took us one weekend. One funny thing is that I actually recorded two songs that we had never played before. I learned them in the studio and recorded those songs in little pieces. A couple of weeks later Olli played the guitars. The next thing was the vocals but that was when the problems started. The album was delayed because of the line-up change. Finally when the master track was ready, we had to find a good label and design the album layout. All this took nearly half a year so the final product was in stores in January 2011. It was a long process, like the first one. It's very difficult to plan everything because of our other projects and the fact that we live so far from each other.
Antti: When I write a song I usually make a pretty finished demo version of it by myself. That process can last from minutes to years, depending on how well the riffs gel together. There might be a brand new riff with another that's five years old in the same song! But just yesterday I wrote and recorded a new song in about half an hour. I usually try to write lyrics to the songs (if I have an idea) around the same time I write the music to be in the same state of mind... But it's not always like that either.
Olli: Depends on how much/what kind of drugs you got.
Pete: I like drugs.

Do you have such songs, which you don’t play in Feastem, because don’t like them or they are not in style. Or each song is important for you?

Antti: There's a few old songs we don't do anymore, but mostly we only make awesome songs! ;) In other words, if we're not satisfied with a song or a riff, we abandon it right away. All songs fit the style somewhat, we have other bands for other kind of stuff.

Among topics of Feastem lyrics I saw word “alcohol”? Vodka “Finlandia” is well-known in the world. Is it expensive in Finland too? What is your attitude to alcohol? Is it right that in Finland people can drink a lot without being drunk? Can you remember you first time been drunk in shit?)) Did you taste Ukrainian vodka, we call it “gorilka”?

Antti: Yeah, Finlandia is expensive, it's for snobs (good though!). I prefer Jaloviina (a mix of brandy and spirit). I think I'm the worst drunk in the band, so I'll answer this! I have a kind of a love-hate relationship with alcohol, it's fun to drink with friends but of course it takes it's toll, especially when you do it 3-4 times a week. We drink a lot and we do get drunk, you should see a Finnish town centre 3:30 AM on a Saturday, it's more like a zoo... With zombies mixed in... I think I was 14 when I started my career as a drunk. I haven't tasted gorilka YET, I hope we can come there some day and try it!
Olli: Never drunk shit. I was probably 14-15 when I passed out the first time. Unlike Antti, I ain't that proud that I drink. not at all :) Seen so many people face down because of it, its creepy. I guess I'm getting old.
Pete: I was around 14 when I got wasted the first time too... Don't really remember much from it, for obvious reasons, haha! Drinking in bars is quite expensive in Finland, especially in Helsinki but you can always go to the liquor store and buy a cheap vodka bottle or wine and get mashed before going to the bar! I've personally been drinking way less this year than before, last year I was drinking waaay too much, I even got injured a couple of times... I would love to taste Ukrainian vodka too, hope we get the chance to come there one day!
Patrik: When i was underage i wasn't so interested of drinking, i didn't even like beer. I just watched from the side how my friends were wasted and act stupid. I was 17 when i went first time to the pub. After that i drinked couple years nearly every weekend. Nowadays i try to drink less as possible...i hate hangovers and like Pete said it's so damn expensive to drink in Finland. But of course tours, festivals and summer are good exceptions.

In continue of alcoholic question)) What Finnish word is equal to English “hangover”? Could you give your own recipe how to struggle against hangover?

Antti: In Finnish we usually call it "krapula" (after the Latin word "crapula") but there's many other names for it too. The best recipe is of course a bottle of Jaloviina! If that seems impossible, then just mineral water, pizza and TV.
Pete: Yeah, 'krapula' is the most common word for it although we have a bunch of words for it: darra, kankainen, kohmelo, kanuuna... Best hangover drink is 6cl of Jägermeister mixed with a can of Red Bull. Drink it fast.

Let’s talk about Feastem concerts. What are your impressions about OEF 2010? Some people say that sound was really bad… And what conditions must create organizator in order you say: “Yeah, man! This gig was great!”

Antti: Well, actually we weren't at OEF '10. When we played there 2009 it was great in every way, though it was at a different place. It's always nice if the organizer arranges food and drinks backstage and makes sure we have the equipment ready (drums, cabinets, PA), but I think the audience is more important in the outcome.
Olli: Wasn't there in 2010, I was studying in Portugal for one semester, and couldn't make it. In 2009 though, the sound was great, mostly because we had Panu from Afgrund behind the main mixer. Audience told us the sound was great too. Gigs are always great. :)
Pete: A good promoter provides us with food, drinks, a place to sleep and most importantly, keeps his promises.

And what can you tell about Feastem European tour? Can you name the best and the worst things from this tour. Which cities did you like much? And maybe – one fun story from tour days?)

Olli: Best thing in the first tour was beating The Arson Project's guitarplayer Elis for hours with a towel in Poland with the rest of the band while he was trying to sleep. That was epicly hilarious! The worst was either our former singer burning his leg a week before the tour and having to take him constantly to different hospitals and canceling some shows or the breaking in to my car in Berlin.
Patrik: I think the best thing was to play in OEF and also just being there. It's well organized, all the people and the atmosphere are indescribable. Worst thing was of course the thief who broke into our car and stole mine and Olli's cameras... And our tour money... Fucker.

What defects you see in grindcore as a life style (not only music)? Did you ever regret to be grindhead? Maybe your parents in their dreams saw you as successful businessmen or somebody like that))

Olli: Grindcore has only positive effects!
Antti: Haha, have to agree with that! There's no regrets when you do what you love!
Pete: Grindcore is love. My parents have already abandoned all hope, I think they're happy I'm doing something that has kept me out of harm's way (most of the time). Besides, I am adult in my early thirties, what are they gonna do? Ground me?

Our traditional question: what do you know about Ukraine as a country and about our musical bands?

Olli: Isn't that the country that has Swedish colors in their flag?
Antti: I know Mila Kunis! I honestly can't name any Ukrainian bands, hopefully some day!
Pete: I have to say the first things that come to mind when I think of Ukraine are (unfortunately) Chernobyl and (even more unfortunately) national socialist black metal but also beautiful women! I would really like to visit there one day.

Thanks for your answers! Some words in final?

Pete: Thanks for the interview! Keep grinding!
Patrik: Thanks & stay brutal!