Sentenced Interview

Interview
Sami Lopakka
Sentenced

Lineup – "The Self-Killers":
Ville Laihiala – Vocals
Miika Tenkula – Lead Guitar
Sami Lopakka – Guitar
Vesa Ranta – Drums
Sami Kukkohovi - Bass

5/28/05
Interviewer: Karma E. Omowale

"After September, I'm not really sure what will be next in my life. I certainly will spend time with my family, finally I have the time for that properly, and I will sleep a lot... Maybe go somewhere in the countryside and I shovel shit for a living!"

Finland’s Sentenced’s music can be best described as melodies to lull you to the grave, the sweetest lullabies to swallow life’s bitter pill to; the soundtrack to usher you to the netherworld. Speaking of death, The Funeral Album, the band’s appropriately titled swansong, will be released on May 31^st, 2005 as the band has decided to end their career on a high note, calling it quits after beautifully depressing souls for some odd 9 albums and 16 years later. On the band’s site, they make it quite clear that this is IT according to the funerary statement! So it looks like the war is over, no reunion, no nothing! As a sweet consolation prize, we will get one hell of a DVD from it.

Whether we chose to accept the end of an era or not, it is what it is! Since this seems to be the case, I have the pleasure in presenting my conversation with one of the founder's of the band and guitarist, Sami Lopakka. He was kind enough to phone in from Finland and share his take on the end of a glorious era, more info on the DVD, the new album, and much more. Join me in the freshly dug grave which will soon house Sentenced.

Karma: How are you? What time is it there [as it was 9:00 AM here]. How’s the weather in Oulu?

Sami: It's like 5:00, I'm home now. The weather is almost like summer now, as we say, Finnish summer. It's 20°C. So that would make…

Karma: Unfortunately, I was not able to hear an advance of the album, however I must say that I have been a pretty big fan of yours since 2003, The Cold White Light and was greatly saddened by the news of you guys calling it quits. Thank you indeed, for giving the us, the fans such a wonderful run!

Karma: How sad was it during the writing process for The Funeral Album once you knew this was going to be your swansong?

Sami: We made the final decision when six or seven songs were written but the idea was there already after the tour of The Cold White Light. After the final decision it was totally different from anything we had ever done before. You know, you can only write the last album one time. Obviously, we wanted to make something quite depressing with it and also to write the farewell within the music and the lyrics of course.

It turned out to be somewhat a stressful and even exhausting process to write those songs. In the end, it turned out to be also something very unique and rewarding. The kind of situation not many bands even get into, they don't often know that the album they are writing is going to be the last one.

Sami: I'm pretty much still in the process, so it is a very difficult question. I would say that the very last one, "End of the Road" it's called. Obviously, it is the very last song of the whole career and there is a certain [sense] of hopelessness and hope at the same time. Arrangement wise, it's a pretty different one as it ends up with a two minute instrumental part. The lyrics are about the band coming to the end. I think at some level, at least it will have a very special place in our minds even 10 years after.

Sami: They all are special in their own way. There are some shitty songs too! [We both laugh] But even they are special in their own way. Every album has been a new birth for Sentenced as we have always tried to look for something new. We always tried to find a new direction for the music and create something that has not been done before. And to pick out one or five favorite songs is quite impossible, so I had better not do it at all.

Sami: Well in the early years we were always pretty drunk when we recorded. You know what, when we made Amok, we had maybe thirteen or fourteen days in the studio. Each night we were totally drunk and days sometimes! [Laughs heartily] One morning was pretty much a hassle as the police came to the studio; they were looking for these Metallica men. We had been breaking windows and vomiting in this bar in the town of the studio and none of us really remember anything.

Karma: I'm thinking the title of the album sums up the events surrounding the recording.

Sami: [Laughs hysterically] Yeah! You're right!! It was the Amok run every night!

Karma: Now that's funny! [Laughs] You amongst the lot of your Finnish contemporaries [Amorphis, Children of Bodom, Lullacry, Kalmah] write a lot about death, despair, hopelessness… Why are these subjects such popular pickings for lyrical content?

Sami: I'm not really sure even after all these years and after all those songs. It's just something that seems to be…I don't think there's anything that depressive about Finnish society or anything like that. It's just the way we are. It's just the Finnish mentality. I don't know, it's just the first thing that comes out when we start writing. It's not only this band or brand of music it's also movies and books, every form of art. It's kinda like the same; it's the Finnish way of expressing oneself. It's always something melancholy, desperate in dealing with the darker side of everything.

It's something natural as we, how do you say it…we don't try to hide it [otherwise] it would be lying to yourself. Try to make up some songs about sunny beaches, [grunts] convertible cars, and babes with big tits when you feel like killing yourself. You should just stay true to yourself.

Karma: Very true! You have a good point. By default, I guess you can blame it on the cold winters. Everyone else seems to do so.

Sami: Yeah! But yeah! That is always the easy explanation, you can blame the cold weather for everything.

Karma: Who came up with the ingenious funerary concepts for this current photo shoot? They are awesome!

Sami: Umm, yeah! I kinda like it and agree with it. Ever since we came up with the final decision of making one last album, it was kind of the obvious choice to have the funeral for Sentenced. It totally fits with everything we have done in the past and it fits with the sense of humor with the band. The title, The Funeral Album, we came up with pretty quickly. After that we had the opportunity to play around with the idea of having a funeral album and kind of like dying as a band. We then came up with the idea of wearing black suits and getting a real coffin. The coffin is actually a used one, it's not new. It's how do you call it, a second hand coffin. If there is such a thing.

Sami: Yeah, there was a Finnish guy who had died somewhere in Europe and they flew him over to Finland (home) in that coffin. Then he was switched to another one, a Finnish one. So that was lying around at the funeral home [laughs] and we managed to buy that one for Sentenced. It still has the deathly smell in it.

Sami: It's just very funny; it's the one from the photo shoot and we recently shot a video for the song, "Ever-Frost" where we were carrying around the coffin in Finnish nature. We just seemed to be dragged in to very weird places and happenings with the final meetings for the band.

Karma: That's pretty awesome. Considering you have worked with Hiili Hiilesmaa [HIM, Moonspell, Apocalyptica, Theatre Of Tragedy] previously with Crimson and The Cold White Light, what was the deciding factor to go with him again for this release?

Sami: It was kind of like the obvious choice as it would have been very weird to have a new guy for the last album, as Hiili is a total professional and quite a twisted fellow. Since we worked on Crimson and The Cold White Light, he has also become a very, very good friend to us. So it was the obvious choice to have him producing and to carry the coffin out with us for the last time. This way we didn't have to worry about learning some new guy, it [allowed us] to totally concentrate on the songs and on the playing itself. He always brings twisted ideas to every recording session he makes and it's always interesting to work with a guy like him. We never even considered anybody else for the last time around.

Karma: I was reading somewhere you said that with “Karu” stemming from the Crimson days, you had not found the right time to record/release the song. Are there any other songs that have not been recorded for the same reason as in not finding a right home for it that may turn up on a “Greatest Hits” release one day?

Sami: Well no, not really. We have some songs that were left over from every session but it was not about the songs finding the right place. Actually, they did find the right place, when they were thrown away! They were just too shitty, even for this band! [We both laugh] You know, we decided to throw them out. I don't think we are going to release them as any bonus or something like that. It just didn't feel like it was good enough to be make it, to be released. I think they should remain where they are at the moment.

Karma: You used a children's choir for “Vengeance is Mine” and again on “End of the Road”. Who came up this concept and which choir did you use?

Sami: He came up with the idea when we wrote the song "Vengeance Is Mine". It's a pretty brutal and even violent song both musically and lyrically. He felt that we needed some kind of contrast to it. It's always a very good concept to mix up violence and innocence. The choir delivered exactly that! There were girls maybe from eight years old to thirteen years old and there was a dozen of them or something like that. They are probably the best musicians on the album I think. They were totally awesome! It only took a few hours for them to record everything, now it can be heard on the album.

Sentenced from The Funeral Album Photo Session

As a studio experience, it was something totally different. As normally we have that kind of gloom, grit, and… I'm sitting in a corner in the studio and all of a sudden there was a dozen little kids giggling in every corner, running around, and asking impossible questions. It was a very exhausting experience but a good one as well. For the songs, they lifted the composition to the next level. For that we are of course very thankful.

Sami: You know the kind of questions only ten-year old girls might come up with. Of course we didn't have the answers; I don't remember the questions. Something to do with heavy music but nothing to do with rock at all, [chuckles], as it's impossible to explain. Just as confused then as I am now!

Karma: [We both laugh] How will you fill the void now that final curtain has descended? What are you going to do with yourself now Sami? And are you serious in saying, “You’d rather slit your wrists” than return since you feel that you’d be "taking a piss on your previous work"! Do you really feel this way?

Sami: Umm, no it's just the comeback thing is very disgusting! We're not going to do anything like that. I still see in a way that the curtain has not yet descended, we have a few months to go and with the final show and recording the DVD and that stuff. But after September, I'm not really sure what will be next in my life. I certainly will spend time with my family. Finally, I have the time for that properly, and I will sleep a lot!

Sami: Maybe I'll breed and like the seven brothers and we go somewhere in the countryside and I shovel shit for a living! [We both die laughing]

Karma: Looking back on your career with Sentenced, what is one thing you would have changed if you'd change anything at all?

Sami: Well putting the band up maybe. Musically there's nothing really that I would regret as we always did, just as we did, like what we felt like doing. We never asked anyone else's opinion of anything. I think we managed obviously without making compromises with the music.

Sami: Outside the music, there is of course a lot of shit. A lot of good things but always a bag of shit too. Like Sentenced from The Funeral Album Photo Session

the touring, the heavy intense touring was always something we didn't feel comfortable with. It turned us into the living dead. It lead us to the bottle sooner or later and that of course made it worse. So I don't know, if there was something that I would change about that it would be that. Because it was tough, the way it was. I'm not the kind of guy who'd think, "If and if and if…" It's the same thing about the future; I'm not the kind of guy who would dream something really big in the future. I just dream when I'm asleep... [Switches gears] Maybe we'd better stick to the music and I would say I wouldn't change anything.

Karma: No need to apologize!! [We both laugh] Well you guys have cited Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, & Metallica as some of the band’s major influences, who are you listening to in the scene right now?

Sami: Mostly after the studio session or the tour, or something like that, I like to listen to silence when I am home. I really listen to music only when I'm drunk. Then I don't remember what I was listening to. [Laughs] Mostly Slayer, it's always good background music for getting drunk. Then when you're drunk enough, you'd like to switch to something emotional like Anathema or Type O Negative, bands like that! It's mostly silence when I'm home.

Karma: Okay. Speaking of the DVD, in which you had brought up earlier, I understand that it has yet to be filmed…

Sami: …it will be focusing on the very last show that this band will ever make, that will be in September in Oulu. It will be a very special moment I'm sure!

Sami: It is the actual funeral night, the last one of them all. It is the moment we also want to share with people that aren't able to come there or see us live during this last run. It will be a retrospective show. We will probably play something from every album and try to make it something really special. Of course on the DVD we will include all of our musical videos and all the stuff we have filmed ourselves during tours and shit like that! So it will be a pretty full package all in all.

Sami: Yeah, it's quite a big place. It's like 2,500 or something, the capacity. It will be quite impressive I am sure.

Karma: Other than the scheduled festivals, has a decision been made for the band to cross the Atlantic to the States briefly?

Sami: Well, I have to say it does seem quite unlikely at this point. If there was a good offer, not like millions of dollars, just something reasonable, I think we would go if such an offer would come. You know it's starting to be quite late already, the last show is in September, and it is the end of May so… It would have to be something quite fast. But we haven't heard anything proper from the States yet; and for that reason also I am pretty satisfied that we are doing this DVD. As there seem to be a lot of folks in the States, Canada, and South America and places like that who seem to be big fans and hate the fact they won't see us play on the last tour. Maybe the DVD will be some kind of compromise for them.

Karma: That will make a lot of fans happy as it will bridge the gap and fill the void. Sentenced from The Funeral Album Photo Session

Karma: If you could commission a band to cover one of your songs, who would do it and which song would it be?

Sami: Uhhh, that's quite hard. Umm, I would like to hear Elvis sing "Excuse Me While I Kill Myself".

Karma: If you could work as a producer for any band, whom would you choose to work with?

Sami: Only if I hated them! I don't know shit about producing! I'd just sit in the studio and whine for more money to buy beer and talk shit about their bad songs and put them down as human beings.

Karma: What mark and/or legacy do you think you will now leave on your fans now that it's almost close to the end?

Sami: The way I see it is that there's a certain search for something new and of course the melancholy, exploring the melancholy, and making no compromises. Those are the first things that come to mind but I don't know, maybe the other people will just remember ugly guys playing shitty music.

Karma: [They will be remember for a hell of a lot more than that] Wow! Do you have any final words, Sami?

Sami: Yeah, it has been a very emotional time for us all, these last few months. Especially since we put the statement out, public that this is, the last one and so on.

Sami: Yeah, yeah. We have received already thousands of messages. We just want to say "Thank You!" to all of those people. We hope that they enjoy the last album and join the funeral one way or another, after that, all the best for all of them!

I'd like to thank Heather at Century Media for setting up the interview and of course to Sami, for the memory for allowing us to capture his sentiments in this musical time capsule.

Eulogy: The horns are blowing, the final curtain has begun to descend, as the moment of death has arrived. In memoriam a mythic silence has befallen as the band wanders into the mist beyond the distant valleys. May Sentenced R.I.P.