Black Sun Aeon: Interview with Tuomas Saukkonen
Hitherto, Tuomas Saukkonen was known for playing in bands like Before The Dawn, Dawn Of Solace, The Final Harvest. Now, he takes the world by storm with his deeply personal solo-project Black Sun Aeon, its debut DARKNESS WALKS BESIDE ME and guest appearances of Amorphis- and Moonsorrow-musicians.
METAL HAMMER: After releasing records with Before The Dawn and The Final Harvest – what was missing in means of darkness that couldn’t be achieved with these bands and made Black Sun Aeon necessary?
Tuomas: Before The Dawn has always worked well when needed to let out some inner aggression or sorrow but this time I only managed to scratch the surface with the Before The Dawn album. The Final Harvest on the other hand is just a big load of fun. Writing really aggressive music and getting to play drums on stage and in the studio is just big fun for me but it didn’t relieve the growing pressure concerning the inner issues at all. Blacki Sun Aeon was just something I had to do and it also came out on its own like all my music. The personal depth of the album was actually a surprise and I had some difficulties to let go of the album for the first time. It’s still carrying the same feelings and mood – a funeral feeling.
METAL HAMMER: You found high-class musicians as live line-up. How hard was it to get musicians from Amorphis or Moonsorrow to participate in something they’re just mercenaries for?
Tuomas: Well, actually Ville (Moonsorrow) and Tomi (Amorphis) were only doing guest vocals in the studio. The main guest vocalists Mikko (clean vocals) and Mynni (Growls) form a trio with me and I will be doing the drums and some of the vocals. So we have three of five vocalists from the album. I’m sure we can manage to realize the multiple vocals on stage easily. Getting the guys participate on the album was really easy. I only needed to ask once. Which was nice :)
METAL HAMMER: Having the mentioned musicians on board now – do they interpret the songs individually or strictly as you wrote them?
Tuomas: The songs need to be played pretty the same way like they are on the album. There are very few tracks on the album and the way you play your parts defines how it sounds on stage. I only used baritone guitars and basses in the studio because I wanted to put the focus on the sound of the instrument and the amp and as less on tracks as possible to get big a sound and still a lot of air in the sound. Also the style and technique of playing itself was really important since I didn’t want to use massive amounts of guitar tracks to get "overloaded" and a natural sound. That means that a big part of the sound is in the hands of the musicians on stage.
METAL HAMMER: Do you sometimes think about how the record might sound if the guest-musicians had been involved during the writing-session?
Tuomas: The album is way too personal to me to think about it and measure it with an outsider’s ears and eyes. I am sure it wouldn’t sound the same and that might be good maybe for
some listeners. But that is something I am totally unable to think about while working on music. I just need to get the music out of my head to a listenable form so I would be able
to hear it. To me music is a pretty self centered art form. Some people write diary, I write music.
METAL HAMMER: As you already named chapter 9 accordingly: who passed away 4.9.2008?
Tuomas: A person who meant a lot to me and made the world a better place while living. I don’t believe in life after death so I didn’t see any point of writing the lyrics for the song since all that can be said is already said.
Watch the video for ‘A Song For My Weakness’ below.
Tobias Gerber
More English articles:
+ God Dethroned: track by track breakdown of PASSIONDALE
+ Static-X Interview on CULT OF STATIC
+ Primordial: interview with vocalist Alan on the IMRAMA re-Release
‘A Song For My Weakness’
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