Artist: MyGrain
Origin: Helsinki, Finnland
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
Label: Reaper Entertainment
Link: https://www.facebook.com/pg/MyGrain/about/?ref=page_internal
Bandmember:
Vocals – Tuomas „Tommy“ Tuovinen
Guitar – Teemu Ylämäki
Guitar– Joni Lahdenkauppi
Bass – Jonas Kuhlberg
Drums – Janne Mikael Manninen
Hello dear musicians of MyGrain,
Thanks for taking your time doing this interview, in which we would also like to talk about your upcoming album, which we already have listened to. But let’s start quite relaxed.
Time For Metal / Kai R.:
Do you remember what your favorite toys were in your childhood?
MyGrain / Teemu:
What a great start! Hmmm…I remember really digging about excavators! =D I had an excavator made of legos. And I liked rally cars also.
MyGrain / Tommy:
I definitely would say that He-man action figures were my favorite ones! Coolest thing was to have the Grayskull castle and having a battle with bunch of figures.
Time For Metal / Kai R.: 
As a band – has there been something like an evolution process in the past?
MyGrain / Teemu:
Well, the latest need to evolve case was when our synth player and one of the founding members, Eve left the band just before the new album making got started. We as a band felt like that wasn’t an optimal point to bring a new member in, we are tightly knit bunch as you can imagine, so we decided to try something different instead. Eve was one of the essential components for creating MyGrain sound and her taste for synth lines was just perfect. We decided to try out the synths by ourselves so me and my fellow colleague Joni were up to the task. It turned out quite nice indeed!
MyGrain / Tommy:
As Teemu mentioned, this was the latest evolution process, along with creating the new MyGrain after the hiatus and come up musically stronger than before.
Before this I think the process between our second album Signs Of Existence and third self titled album MyGrain was also one of the biggest evolution processes in MG universe’s history. Back then we also renewed our sound quite a bit, and the third album was also the first album for which Teemu joined in the composing process of the songs, and made us sound better and more versatile than ever before.
Time For Metal / Rene W.:
After the hiatus from 2015 till 2018 you have returned strengthened with III, and also V can seamlessly continue this progress. How important was it for you to take this opportunity to collect yourself, or was it more a kind of anger after this compulsory break?
MyGrain / Teemu:
It was a needed break from the music business. The desire for making music was never lost but the external difficulties after the end of our record deal with Spinefarm, trying to find a new one, getting left out with no booking agency and stuff was frustrating at the moment and atmosphere in the band was going down because of all this, so it was time to take a break then and enjoy life otherwise a little bit.
MyGrain / Tommy:
Yes and the break did its thing, we started to get back the need to make music together and the spark was re-gained. It was a good solution to go forward without stress and just for the funs of creating music, without further expectations – now it turned out quite good in the end!
Time For Metal / Rene W.:
I really would like to know, if your approaches in collecting new material are now different and if there are other focusses in the studio, which have not been considered before.
MyGrain / Teemu:
Composing new material for the V album was indeed different now. We mainly composed at home because everybody has their own everyday chores to run and family life to spend, so it was relaxing to just be able to sit down with the computer and get into making music in 5 minutes instead of getting the whole band in the rehearsal place at same time.
Time For Metal / Rene W.:
During the pre-presentation beginning of August I already took a closer look into your new album V. Now your thoughts would be even more interesting for your fans and readers. Could you please do a kind of track-by-track-commentary to make your feelings more tangible.
MyGrain / Teemu:
The Nightmare starts the album with At The Gates style riffs with heavy and melodic chorus with some progressive c-part followed by nice melodic guitar solo. Like a section of basic go-to MyGrain song. Out Of This Life follows with Strapping Young Lad influenced intro with a good example of great MyGrain style chorus with a progressive twist in c-part, again! Summoned Duality offers a little more mature MyGrain with the mid-tempo rhythm that makes your head want to keep up. The Way Of The Flesh is one of the fastest and rawest songs on the album. Some friend of ours also mentioned that it reminds him of Wintersun! (hahaa!) But with MyGrain style of course. Then it’s time for our first single out of the album. Haunted Hearts is MyGrain’s sort of „metal ballad“. Our producer said that maybe you should try to do one so we did! Maybe we raised a tempo a little bit too!(heh!)
MyGrain / Tommy:
…after Haunted Hearts it’s the midpoint of the album and then The Calling hits it progressive and hard in your face with more technical approach yet with some atmospheric melodic vocals and a heavy 50/50 harsh/clean chorus – this song’s main prog-riff reminds me of some futuristic tentacles going all over inside your brain making you a slave of that human-dominating machine that controls all, hahah.. Then we gotta deal with Game Of Gods that reminds me of some manga adventure hero fighting his/hers way into a victory, level after level, winning obstacle after obstacle. This song is a bit different. When the game is over for the win of the hero, we head to Stars Fading Black which is partly really atmospheric/ambient with some mystical stuff as if you’d be flying a magic carpet ride above some far-bound horizons…the chorus in this song though is quite heroic yet 50/50 melancholic/uplifting (guitars vs vocals). A nice face off here! Now it’s time for the second last epic track of the album, that is Fathomless Freefall (not a fat homeless as some heard it, hahah…). This song reminds me of some Insomnium stuff a bit in the start, quite wintery with the image of snow floating down the sky, almost dreamlike…then the song crusades into the space-saturated theme lyrics-wise with the traditional fast forward-melodeath verse. Then via the pre-chorus universe the fiery asteroid hits the winter wonderland with an impact that is poppy yet epic and the same time, not forgetting the vacuum space-fumed darkness that it brings with it. And now it’s time to land into the last song of the album which is probably the most epic song we have ever made: full 13 minutes of the story-like post apocalyptic atmosphere, evolving from relaxed intro into the almost black metal-like blast. After this starts the first part of the song that could be a song within this song, but it intertwines with the second part of the song seamlessly and creates a whole with the ending of the song merging back to the start of the song….not forgetting the most epic mid-part with synths… This is kind of a song we never made before. And actually I hear some Ayreon-vibes in the middle and second part of the song, which i like to the fullest myself. This song is a story, a trip from fiery devastation to a post-apocalyptic tranquillity and back to the bitter end of the world with all the regrets and what if’s, in the brink of the oncoming devastation….and after that just a tranquil emptiness.
Time For Metal / Kai R.:
What means passion for you?
MyGrain / Teemu:
To be able to do something you truly love and enjoy.
MyGrain / Tommy:
Something you urge to do beyond/without a reason or a cause.
Time For Metal / Rene W.:
Passion is a wonderful hook. The artwork of V is quite modern but still very simple. What is the philosophy behind it, and what feeling should be aroused in the potential buyer?
MyGrain / Tommy:
The V artwork got inspired from the lyrics I sent to our visual mastermind Timo Honkanen / Death-illustrated.net, and it was so fun to see that the artwork had exactly the same colors that i thought the lyrics brought to my mind, and the same atmosphere that’s in the lyrics. This was all without any guidance like „we want this or that“, like as if there was this strange connection between minds without talking. It’s always hard to open the lyrical concepts to people, but key players here are the individual facing hardships and fiery pain, struggle etc…learning to evolve to a higher level of being, as a functioning part of the surrounding universe. A fiery hell that either burns you to a charcoal or elevates you into something more…
Time For Metal / Kai R.:
If you think of the upcoming future – where do you stand in five years?
MyGrain / Tommy:
It’s always hard to put any expectations or such, where we’d be in for example five years from now…at least that much older and maybe wiser! But truthfully, i wish after 5 years from now we’d be still making music and being able to see the world along bringing our music to people!
Time For Metal / Kai R.:
Due to the COVID-19 crisis many festivals and concerts were cancelled. Did you plan anything like a livestream and what do you think about that kind of opportunity?
MyGrain / Tommy:
Yes unfortunately we have to deal with the covid shituation as we speak, but hopefully in the near future we’d be already able to pull off more shows to promote the album! We haven’t discussed any live stream thingies, but who knows, maybe we will do one, one day, if there’s demand for it…
MyGrain / Teemu:
The Covid crisis hit in the middle of recording process so we weren’t planning to play any gigs during that anyway so no livestream gigs yet. Let’s see if there’s a need for one in future.
Time For Metal / Rene W.:
COVID-19 unfortunately remains a dominating subject. How much has this slowed you down, respectively, which restrictions did you face in the preparation of the release of V?
As already mentioned, the event business lies down in whole Europe. What do clubs or promoters do to bring local bands back on stage? And which plans do you want to implement directly after the pandemic?
MyGrain / Tommy:
Actually this predominant situation hasn’t slowed us down that much yet as a band, as it actually gave us more time to finish the album in relaxed settings (despite of some external work-related stress that effected some of us). We lost one of the scheduled shows for this summer that was Summer Breeze Open Air, but let’s hope we would at least be able to pull off these few shows around the album release, here in Finland.
Let’s hope that after that the pandemic hopefully settles down, we would have the chance to throw gigs around Europe too! I’m sure the clubs and promoters are bloodhungry to get every possible date filled with artists both local and bigger international ones, whenever The shituation gives in!
Time For Metal / Rene W.:
Thank you very much for this open discussion. We wish you every success with V. The last word is traditionally yours, and you may directly reach out to your fans and our readers.
MyGrain / Tommy:
First and foremost, stay safe all! But in the meantime, check out our new album that comes out Oct 2nd, since it’s really gonna kick some serious asses! And after the pandemic is over, we wish to see all you lovelies on the road!! Thank you for the inspiring interview!