1. Hello Mikko, how is the weather in Finland right now? I heard that winter in 2009/2010 was really intensive and hard in your country. To be honest, we have had a long winter; it was like never ending white hell.

Hello Fastred, it’s been rainy all day and also the stormiest day of this year so far. The ground is filled with branches, the wind has been really hard tonight and we also lost the electricity for a while today. The winter was beyond anything within at least the last 20 years, there was a huge amount of snow everywhere, white piles everywhere you looked for months and the temperature was also quite low, it was one of the coldest winters I can remember. It hasn’t been like that in a long time, it almost seemed like the snow would not melt before the next winter, but as suddenly as the winter hit our soil in the late autumn, so did the spring arrive and took the piles away way faster than I’d ever had expected.

2. Two years after “The Womb of Primordial Nature” is your new album finally out. How do you feel about? Were there some differences in the writing and the recording process in the face of your previous works?

I feel like I now managed to fix the mistakes I made with the previous album, not only music-wise, but also in production. By no means do I have any regrets or feel it was not a good release, but when some time had passed by, I felt that half of the album was like I meant it to be and half of the songs were a bit raw, not bad at all, but they lacked something and that something is the thing I tried to fully capture when we were recording “A Collapse of Faith”. Overall, the writing went as before; nothing was planned, it just ended how it is. However, this time we recorded everything more properly, so there was no haste or pressure. We took our gear away from the haste of the city and set up the drums, amps and studio in a house away from here and relaxed and recorded and I think it was a perfect method for us. We later recorded some other parts in various locations, but having the basics already captured, everything else went quite smoothly.

3. The songs are longer than before, is there any specific reason for this? I mean; I’ve checked your discography and you’re making longer and longer tracks, is it natural progress or goal-directed?

It was not something I planned, but something that just happened along with the writing. I think this is the last time we’ll only make few longer songs and it’s more than likely that the next album will have many more songs, but naturally they’ll also be shorter. I never think about the potential listener when composing the material, but it’s obviously much harder to listen something as conceptual as “A Collapse of Faith” is, because there are no clear songs, only an album filled with material flowing together.


4. A sound of the album is from my view better than on “The Womb of Primordial Nature”, but it’s not a big change at all. From my view, some people would say that your music became stereotypical…

The change between the previous and this album was the fact, that I didn’t mix this myself like I did with “The Womb…”. However, I was very strict how this should sound, and the guy who mixed it, T.Hakala, followed my ideas and made it sound how I wanted, but I couldn’t do by myself. The overall sound is indeed quite close to the previous album, but just as the compositions, it’s more focused and better captured. Some might say it sounds just like one can expect a new OF-album to sound, but if you go through the discography, there are 3 full-lengths and 3 minis and this can only be compared to the previous album, so a “stereotypical sound” might be a bit too harsh to say. Naturally, “A Collapse of Faith” is what I wanted “The Womb…” to be, so it has some similarities, but the whole album is more focused, better composed, better performed and better produced than anything by OF before. If someone feels that two slightly similar albums in a row makes a stereotype, then this is not the right band to listen, as I personally dislike bands that keeps changing their sound on every record they made. It’s like a search for success; the first style didn’t cut it so maybe the next one will. It’s more than likely that the next OF-album will differ at least a bit from the previous, but I don’t change because of change, I change if I feel that I want to.

5. The reason why I asked you to this is that you still making the same music; deep, melodic, but yet still powerful. I read some reaction and people wrote something like: “I expected some musical progress, I like October Falls, but when I started to listening to the album, I knew what will follow.”…

I actually saw some comments like that too, but I’m not making music so I can make people happy, I’m only making music with the feel I have at the moment. I think it’s a bit stupid to say that if you’ve actually heard the whole discography and then you listen the new album and “you just know…” how it will sound. I don’t know, I never do when I start to write the material. I don’t even know if it will be acoustic or harsher material. I’ve actually recorded few songs between the full-lengths, both have been acoustic and were recorded for a few compilations, but naturally if they’ve only bought or downloaded “The Womb…” and now “A Collapse…” it can seem, that OF always sounds quite the same.

6. “A Collapse of Faith” is a name that will make people thinking about the sense. Your topics were about the nature and things around, so what is the meaning? I personally think it is some kind of story that is divided to three parts. Am I right? Maybe not… But anyway, could you please tell me the story (sense) behind the album?

I took the title from the lyrics as I felt it fit perfectly for the aura around the time when the album was been made. The main inspiration, themes and lyrical aspects on the album are coming from different cultures and nations that were betrayed by people who had no respect for their cultural heritage, but instead stained everything that was built by their ancestors for them to carry on. And also about the ones, who had the strength to stand behind their beliefs, who had pride for their heritage and a strong will to rebuild on previous ruins. Those ideals or the theme itself are not tied to any certain part of the world, as the world is filled with interesting cultural elements. Too often those old traditions are fading away and replaced by the modern influences.

7. When you started with composing of the new album, did you have clear imagination what you’re going to do? I mean in lyrics; if you had the lyrics on the paper or in the head? Are you a man that is working spontaneously or a man that is preferring awareness?

I usually have most of the lyrics written by the time I start to make demos of my ideas, but almost every time I rewrite everything before I start tracking the final vocals. The same thing happened again with this album, all the lyrics had been written, but I basically rewrote them all before tracking them. I usually have the idea where to go when I start to gather the demos, but after they’re done, I usually want to write the lyrics again, maybe using parts from here and there from the original lyrics, but eventually wrote them again, this seems to be the best way for me.


8. The cover art is simple, but I think it has some specific sense, am I correct?

It’s a picture of autumn, when the cranes are leaving and I thought it would fit perfectly for the cover. The actual cover is a huge panorama-picture, so the front cover only shows a small part of the idea. The picture on the digisleeve never really ends, you can turn the panel and the picture always seems to go forward, just as I planned. Last time I had a lot of pictures taken for the covers and I think they worked great, but this time a simpler approach was the way to go.

9. Do you have any vision regarding future of October Falls? May listeners expect some change to unforeseen ways?

At this point I have no real plans for the future, maybe it will be a harsher album with shorter songs or maybe it will again be an all-acoustic album, but that can only be seen when more material for it has been written. I’ll go by the flow and the feel. Still, I think the path of longer songs is about to end, but then again, who knows, there are no certain answers for the future.

10. Your cooperation with Debemur Morti (Eitrin Editions) still continues. Is possible to understand it that label is satisfied with your music and you are glad for their work they’re doing for you through the years?

So far, Debemur Morti has done everything just as we’ve agreed and I haven’t seen any reason to change the label and they’ve been interested in the material, so we’ve continued like this. In some ways, they’re now better than ever before, when I release a new album, I can expect it to get good promotion, the releases made as agreed and what else could I even ask from a label? It’s a perfect sized label, big enough to handle real promotion and distribution and small enough to focus on its bands.