You Know You're Not In Bozeman When... (Finnish Edition)

In my last post, I covered signs you are not in Bozeman, from the perspective of instead being in Sweden. This time, I'm going to cover signs that you are in Finland, instead of Bozeman, based on the week we spent in Helsinki. If you experience a few of the following, odds are you're in Finland:

- You're looking over transit maps, trying to plan a day trip and you encouner more umlauts than a double bill of Motörhead and Mötley Crüe.

- You can visit a local recording studio (Sonic Pump) and meet both Nino Laurenne (Thunderstone, Hevisaurus) and Teemu Mäntysaari (Wintersun). Better yet, you can hear them playing on soon-to-be-released masters.

- You can visit a different recording studio (Finnvox) where almost all of your favorite metal albums were recorded (including releases from Sentenced, Charon, Nightwish, HIM, Lullacry, Edguy and Stratovarius). Literally, stand in the the room where the drums were tracked...

- You can visit a local music store (Musamaailma) and find a room filled with Bogner, Blackstar, VHT, Krank and Orange amps. No disrespect to our great local music store, Music Villa, but sometimes a metalhead needs to be surrounded by Heavy gear.

- You can walk a couple blocks from your hotel and visit a record store (Record Shop X) that has all those import albums that are marked as "Temporarily out of stock." on Amazon. On the window of the store, you see a concert flyer for Crucified Barbara (Swedish) headlining over Warner Drive (American).

- Apocalyptica is playing in the main tent of city's big festival. You are disappointed because the tickets are already sold out.

- Wandering through town you stumble onto a part of the "200 years as capital" celebration, which includes a massive chain of oversized dominos. They're all stone, no wood involved...

- You visit a zoo, a historical fortress and an outdoor museum, all on islands and all reached easily without a car.

- In less than a week you have great Nepalese, Cuban and Malaysian dinners. You also have a great pasta dinner while watching people eat quick dinners at a table hanging from crane.

- You're at the airport at 6 in the morning, eating a killer croissant when you glance over your shoulder and notice a familiar face. Long blond hair, blond (almost white) long beard and immediately familiar from wall photos at a studio you just visited. Further iPhone digging confirms that it's Marco Hietala (bass, vocals) of Nightwish, grabbing a bite of food before catching a flight. Not long after, you realize that Tuomas Holopainen (keyboards) and Emppu Vuorinen (guitar) are with him. A little more digging confirms they are headed to Trondheim, Norway for a show that night. Yes, that night. You are impressed that they are up early in morning flying two hops to this coastal city in Norway to play a big headlining show. Makes me tired just thinking about it...

There you have it, Helsinki, you rock! Special thanks to Nino Laurenne and Risto Hemmi for taking time out of their busy days to talk to me about the concept and implementation for my next musical project. It's an absolute pleasure interacting with people that know metal, and share my love for great songs and stellar production. For those of you out there looking for a recording studio, and Finland is convenient, or at least feasible, I highly recommend both Sonic Pump and Finnvox!

The Quest: the metal heartland

As I mentioned not long ago in my article about my next project, I'm striving for something new. The ingredients for my next album need to be fresh and unique, yet still completely aligned with my love of heavy, melodic music. Although I have recently become friends with a number of metalheads here in Bozeman, the common theme amongst them leans too heavily toward death metal and guttural vocals to be the right fit for me. I need the contributors for this next album to come naturally to melody; they must be forceful and graceful all at once. And, as I previously mentioned, the most sensible place to look for those musicians is where most of my favorite bands come from: Finland and Sweden.

The plane tickets are purchased, my family's summer has been scheduled. In mid-August we will embark on our quest, combining the goal of seeing Amaranthe perform in their home territory, with my own goal of making the first round of connections I need for the next album. Earlier this year we had hoped to accomplish the family goal, and see Amaranthe at the House of Metal festival. Nancy, Kiley and Zane are all crazy about Amaranthe, and we were immensely excited until we learned that the House of Metal show was not all ages; neither of the kids would make the 13 year old cutoff. Those were sad days in the Hearst-Reynolds house but they planted a seed that continued to grow. A few months later, while preparing my Amaranthe blog article, I was looking at their website and noticed a show planned for August at the Liseberg Stora Scenen. Being part of a family-oriented amusement park, I quickly contacted the park representatives and learned that, yes, there will not be an age limit. With that information, the quest became reality.

Centered around the Amaranthe concert, we will spend a week in Sweden and a week in Finland. I hope to make advance contact with various studios and engineers in Helsinki, Stockholm and Göteborg. I'm attempting to find someone that can act as a champion and coordinator for the project, someone that I will pay for their responsibilities but who will also immerse themselves in the vision. Ideally, this person will be able to assemble a collection of musicians, a drummer, a bass player, a keyboardist and a singer, that are perfectly suited to this project. Then, the coordinator/engineer/producer will help me establish the monetary and temporal logistics for the project. I hope to visit with various engineers and producers, and tour their facilities, so that we have enough opportunity to recognize the right fit when it shows itself.

As a family, there will be more to this trip than architecting my next album. We will see the sights, experience the culture and, hopefully, spend some days outside the city, most likely exploring the Finnish wilderness. But, for me, the trip really hinges on my quest. I will strive to gather enough data to make the path to the next album clear. I will also endeavor to gain enough familiarity with the cities and their music scenes so that I'm prepared for a potential return trip. I suspect, budget-wise and time-wise, it will make sense for me to track guitars here in Bozeman, however, I do think that it makes sense for me to take part in as much of the other tracking as possible. Depending on scheduling, perhaps I can be present when basic tracks and vocals are being laid down.

We will see how it all comes together. If you are a heavy musician in Finland or Sweden and have an interest in the project, please contact me. If you are a recording engineer, producer or studio owner in Göteborg, Stockholm or Helsinki and think you could help me accomplish my vision, please let me know. I would be happy to communicate before and to meet with any and all of you in August. If the vision seems still a bit nebulous, you are right, I'm trying to leave a lot of room for it to define itself, based on the creative people involved. I firmly believe in the magic of collaboration and that "my" vision is really more of a catalyst than an exacting road map. For more information, clarification and questions, please do not be shy, I'd love to hear your thoughts.