1. Greetings Mathew, how are you doing? I guess that you have been busy like never before.

Hello sir. I have a lot of things going on in my life right now indeed. Some things creative and a lot of living going on too!

2. You are now living in Finland. What lead you there and how do you like the country?

I moved here because I got married to a Finnish girl and we wanted to escape from the world a bit. We've both lived abroad in Europe and travelled a lot, so we were quite jaded with modern city life and the way the world has taken a turn for the worse. This country has a very small population and vast areas of countryside/lakes/woodland. You can live in a city here but still not feel to stifled and constricted. It's my beloved home now. I adore the place and the people. I'm just spending my time trying to immerse myself within a life I am constantly crafting. It's never easy to reinvent and restart your life in a new place, but it feels right for me and I'm quite content with the way things have gone. There's much more to come, with learning the language and getting more stability, but I'm doing really well. I feel like a lucky soul.

3. Let’s get to your new solo-project HEXVESSEL. It is a surprising shift from your ordinary style so I would like to know about a purpose, idea and a background of the beginning of this project.

It's not a shift from my style at all. It's totally my own style, as it always has been and always will be. I've always been an eclectic music addict, just sapping from the source of good music whenever I can get turned on or tuned into new things. It's been enjoyable to partake in other people's music in the past and I joined a few metal bands over the years. I don't feel that my own personal vision with music can be obtained purely by following the dogmas of one particular genre and so I need borderless music without bounds. No matter how experimental a band like Code might have seemed to some narrow-minded metal heads, it's still has its own inherent rules and boundaries. I wanted to make an album that was my own and had it's own sound and universe. I don't want to be forever caught up in playing a game where the rules are set by others. To be a simple zero or footnote in a scene where the legends have already been made and broken doesn't interest me ultimately. I feel like I have done enough in tribute to my teenage heroes and indulging my love of metal. As far as my work in blackmetal is concerned I have always been viewing it as my experimental pathfinding. It's been part of the work that lead me this far, but I wont let it define who I am as a creative artist. In truth I have always been toying with the ideas that have come to fruition in HEXVESSEL. It's been my musical destination since I was a child.

4. You categorized HEXVESSEL as a psychedelic occult folk. You’re mentioning themes like Haitian Voodoo, Aleister Crowley’s teachings, Magic etc. Do you personally practise some of these arts?

I adhere to some Crowlean principles about magic. I think that spirituality is a very personal thing and magic to me is like the asking and answering of prayer. I work with magic every day of my life, but to me it's not the instant gratification or materialisation of profound unexplainable miracles. It's about turning your life into one ever increasing ritual and spell where your every breath leads to onward to your goals. Ritual, prayer and enactment of some kind of ceremony is an obvious part of my life, but I prefer to keep the details of what/who and how I practice for myself. I don't believe in organised religion, and so I don't wish to share my spirituality directly with others. I would like to think I am helping in some small way, with the music, to open people's minds to spirituality. It's more about vibes and feelings in the end rather than spelling and laying it all out. Mysteries can only be discovered while they remain a mystery.


5. Let’s now focus on music itself and especially how it was born. Is my assumption correct that you took care of composing and “The Death Magicians” were invited for recording?

Yes it's true that I composed 99% of the album. Aort helped write some small sections such as a couple of bridges and an intro. He wrote one track of the guitar-lines only that I composed the song from and the intro. The rest was by me. The Death Magicians are my band post-Dawnbearer recording. I never thought of the people who contributed to the album as being a proper band. I knew it wouldn't work out with everyone being so busy doing their own thing and the distance of the guys contributing. I'm also on a sort of vision-quest with HEXVESSEL too, so I needed people I was 100% sure would fit into where I was going with the music on the next record too. I have found some very special musicians here in Finland who really have helped to make HEXVESSEL into a real band, rather than a solo musical project. They totally captured the whole persona and universe of where I want this band to exist. It was as if they were always meant to be in this band. I wanted them to have their own band name too, so I dubbed them the Death Magicians in the vein of of D.Van Vliet's Magic Band and to remind people that these are some seriously magical cats one should not fuck with!

6. Let’s combine previous two questions and merge the music with an idea. I assume that you were engaged in various kinds of experiments during the recording. Am I right? By the way, what exactly is the “vessel of hexes”? You personally or the music?

There were a lot of things happening with the music on the debut. I wouldn't say they were experiments at all actually, since I always knew what I was doing. I followed a different kind of intuition on this record than when I have been in bands before. I suppose where I now had free reign to utilise all the sounds and musicians I wanted, exactly where I felt they should be used, I made decisions that were based on the music alone, rather than some kind of artistic compromise. I knew the Krugers Medbragte fellowship would bring the extra dimension I needed in the albums entire scope and they delivered more then I could have dreamt of. There is always room for error or experimentation but I feel that when you trust your instinct and a musical endeavour has a clear head, then you will always make the best gut decisions and your art will be pure and perfect.

I have no idea what a “vessel of hexes” is. HEXVESSEL is about many things and not the literal meaning of the words alone. It's a metaphor that means possession, carrying out the law of the will, magical workings and being a channel for divine or spiritual truth/enlightenment. It is about me personally and also about the music. I want HEXVESSEL to be about more than just words and sounds. It should be about entering the void and stepping into another world. It's more about breaking reality tunnels than entertainment.

7. I can feel a different personality from the album. It feels like a different part of yourself which has been dormant till now. A personality never seen or heard by the fans. Embodiment of absolutely different emotions, moods and senses. What can you personally tell us about this?

There is no dual personality and I have never been hiding HEXVESSEL or the work I have been doing with this band. I think if you listen to my words with Void's 1st album you will hear psychedelic and beat-poet influences, when you listen to Supervillain Outcast by DHG you will hear my intros and start to get a sense of where I was heading musically and then my intro and vocals for the Code album, Resplendent Grotesque, was a small step towards the sound and composition on the HEXVESSEL album. If you hear my song-writing with Code then you can hear a lot of my HEXVESSEL influences there. Aort may have written the guitar for Code but those, albeit great, works are never actual songs until you put the melody and structure of the vocals and the meaning of the words there. I have always felt that Blackmetal is about 50% music and 50% vocals/lyrics. All the best stuff is.

Anyone that has met me or worked with me will know that I have always been HEXVESSEL. It's just a name I have given to what I create musically. It's not about exploring different sides but about releasing my own music. What I have created with bands before has been part of other people's work, so it's never been 100% me. I think if you liked the avant-garde and experimental side of Code for instance then you will find a welcome home with HEXVESSEL in your ears, after all I pushed and fed that side of the band since the very beginning.

Right now I am not too concerned with what fans of my other bands will be interested in. This is a new chapter for me and it feels like the first time I have done something totally honest and not dressing up, playing a game. I gave my all for my other bands, but this is the real thing. I appreciate that it wont be most headbanging black metaller's wet dream, but I am comfortable and happy about that.


8. Music is one thing. But what is also important is the visual side, artwork, photo sessions and similar stuff. Has everything been done by yourself or did you use skills of some other people?

I came up with the ideas for the photographical element. Albert Witchfinder worked on the drawings. He was very instrumental on the whole way the album looks and feels.
Some friends helped with taking the photos - but they weren't important to the concept or any part of the artistic side. I have loved what Albert has worked on since he made comic books back in the day. He's a genius artist.

9. A video clip was made for the opening track “Invocation Summoning”. Why did you decide to choose this track? Could you also describe what is going on in the clip? For those who haven’t seen it or didn’t understand it.

I chose that track because we had a good idea about the kind of video and visual element I wanted to convey with that song. I think people should just watch the clip. There's more than enough to take in! I don't care at all about people who don't get it. Videos for me are take it or leave it. As an author I would never ask someone to like the film adaptation of my work without question. It's just one vision, and if people don't get it then they can make their own video or just ignore it and listen to the album. I was trying to install a feeling with the video. They are meant to start to dream or be reminding about other things that made them dream. When I watch it I am reminded by old classic Italian horror films or the cinematography of Gaspar Noe. Fortunately most comments I have got back from friends and talented colleagues have been very appreciative and full of praise. I think the film-makers did an exceptional job.

10. Once on your myspace we could hear the track “Preachers Orchard” which didn’t make it on “Dawnbearer”. Why? Personally I think that it was a very good song..

It's a good song but it was already released and the album is an album, not a collection of songs. People who like the song should go and buy the compilation it was released on. I don't want to keep releasing the same songs over and over again. The compilation was called Death Aesthetics and was released by Paradigms Recordings in the UK. There are many great artists on there and I want that compilation to be treasured and cult. Some people have also talked about this track and mentioned the same thing, but I really have no idea why they have some kind of mental block when it comes to understanding that it was already released.

11. Svart records are rather unknown label here. Could you please introduce it to us and tell us what is the cooperation with them like?

Svart is a home-grown independent label from Finland that specialises in repressing old classics of all kinds of music – but mainly metal so far. They had released Magnus Pelander from Witchcraft's solo MLP and I loved the job they had done with it. They are some great people who live and breathe music. I enjoy what they do because I think they are bravely swimming upstream against the current tide of musical oblivion. We need more labels like them who specialise in vinyl. I fell in love with vinyl when I was younger and it still remains the definitive format for music to this day. Svart understand this and they put a lot of effort into their releases. Everything they do is with care and appreciation for the artist and the person who will enjoy the release. I think they've done more than a good job getting HEXVESSEL off the ground with me and I am happy to have started on this adventure with them.

12. You have played in Czech republic several times. So I’m wondering if you’re going to visit our country this year and to which occasion?

I would like to visit Czech with HEXVESSEL for sure, but we have no plans right now. Hopefully in the late autumn we'll play in Prague.


13. I was pretty shocked when I found out you have left CODE recently. What was the reason behind your departure? Is there a chance you may return to the band when time allows it?

I was quite busy with my other commitments and Aort had some new material he wanted to work on for a new album right away. Try as I might to make it work, I didn't think the material was ready or worthy, and I wanted to put the band on hold for a while until I had the time to give my full attention. I was very busy trying to promote the new HEXVESSEL album and to start playing live again with DHG. In the end I think it can be put down to a conflict of interests and expectations about what the band was and how it should function. Aort's main focus was Code, so he wasn't too thrilled to wait around while I got on with my other bands. It's understandable when all things are considered. He works hard at what he does and shouldn't have to suffer anything less than 100% from his band-mates.

From my perspective, I never thought of Code as a band that should release 20 albums one after the other and I think we're known for releasing quite well thought-out albums that offer something really heartfelt and unique. I thought the fans would appreciate that we take more time over things and wait until we had another masterpiece on our hands. Sometimes people's common goal in music just drifts apart and then it's time to call it quits before it gets ugly. We didn't see eye to eye about how we should work and I guess my attempts to put the band on ice for a while were just creating obstacles for him to get the music he wanted out there and be happy to do things the way he wanted. Code has always been a compromise and not often a happy one. We struggled from day one to get an agreement on anything from the lyrics, to the image, to the sound. The tour was not a personal success for us and we had a lot of things that we needed to get resolved that I don't think would ever be resolved within the band. In the end I would have liked to give it more time before leaving and seeing if we could have worked it out a bit better for a new album, but it was only delaying the inevitable. After struggling to put the band on ice, I was forced to let it go and give up on it again. It was a sad and hard thing for me to do because I considered it to be my band 50/50 with Aort and I was there from the beginning, helping to shape the lineup, signalling the name change and bringing in my own influences into what I think helped define the band's character and sound. On the other hand, I feel as if I have done more than enough with the two albums we released and I don't think I had much more to achieve musically with Code. At least not for some years.

So in answer to your question, no I don't think I will ever go back to that project. I think of what I am doing with HEXVESSEL to be more of a challenge for me both musically and as a singer.

I should stress that Aort is a fine man, a good friend and he makes exceptional music. I think it's important that he keeps the focus for all the hard work and strife he has put behind the name and ultimately it was his band to carry on if he wants to. I gave my side of the banner to him with my blessings and I wish him all the success in the world with his music. He doesn't need me or my legacy to carry on making killer albums. I will say again that I am sure my name will be a footnote in Code's musical history and vice versa.

14. Interviewing a guy like your is simply a pleasure. We could talk for ages about various things but we do not have so much space in our zine. So the ending of the interview shall belong to things which hasn’t been mentioned yet and they should be unearthed. So if there’s anything you have to add feel free to do so…

Thank you for the interview.