With ‘Demon Steel,’ Finnish Urn delivers its sixth album, for which Season Of Mist was exchanged for the also French Osmose Productions. Prior to this, most of the older albums were re-released by Osmose Productions as well as a compilation album with demo tracks and those from the split LP with Decayed. Of course, all that is enough to warrant a conversation with bandleader Jarno “Sulphur” Hämäläinen, but prior to our interview he made some remarkable statements about his frustration over the lack of recognition. All this resulted in a very personal conversation that will certainly make you listen to ‘Demon Steel’ differently…
Hi Jarno, this interview was in the making for a couple of weeks, but here we go! Let’s start off with the period leading up t the new album. You haven’t exactly made a secret of the rather difficult or at least intense time and process leading up to the final product that is ‘Demon Steel’. The life and sacrifices of a musician, so to speak. We’ll go into that shortly, but, now that the albums is out, how do you look back to the years between ‘Iron Will’, your last album, and this new one?
Well, years haven’t been merciful so to say. Right after release of our previous album Covid shit started and everything stopped completely, a global common problem. Anyways, since that we are in a same position. I mean when everything stopped we are almost on the same steps as then when it comes to live shows and other activities. Personally, things have been going forward. Past three years have been the most creative time ever for me. At the moment I have approx. 8 new songs for Urn and 15 songs for solo material. Funny, it has been five and half years since previous albums. In the 80’s it was the highlight years for some genre. You know something that started and faded away in that time. Now for us (and for many others) just a gap in between the albums. And a cherry on the top.. the older we get, the faster time goes. Two insanities fitted into one aaaannd here we are and it’s called TODAY!
In some words you also commented that you expect this new record to be a bigger success than any other album from your back catalogue, if not this might be Urn’s last sign of life. What brought you to such a train if thought? And, how would you define “success” in terms of (relative) underground music?
I have been doing this approx. for 30 years getting nearly nothing (except pleasing my thirst to create music), I have had a couple of good opportunities to get Urn become bigger (this just means more shows and stuff, a bit better album sales as well) but failed in a very rough way. It’s like hitting a wall of steel. I am ready to try one more time but I ain’t that stupid to keep on doing it. At some point when you have created music and burning for it. You need some sort of payback as just to please yourself ain’t keeping you alive. We can’t live for free in today’s world. Mentally it’s just crushing to face the fact that your new album is the best musically what we have done but the sales are the worst, kind of. I am not after being famous, just an honest win/win situation. Now it’s like I have sacrificed my whole life, doing only music and what I have got? Few interviews and zero goals and the bar, where I have set it, we just need to crawl under the goals to realize today’s scene just wants another copycat and bands made from plastic. It’s been going downhill since ‘The Burning’-album.. how long should I last? It has been this way nearly ten years by now, ha!
This ain’t any sort of whining or me want to be a famous, it is mostly like setting a bar to the level that is hard to reach and aiming too high. It is sort of a side effect when living an isolated and lonely life with the recording program and my guitar. Sort of an imaginative world dominating too much and thinking yourself being greater than you actually are. See?! self-esteem is here but mostly rest is gone, ha!
I recently went on a trip into the band’s history with the recently released ‘Morbid Death And Birth Of Unreleased Nightmares’ compilation LP. Although I had been familiar with most of the music, what struck me most when hearing all this in succession, is the musical consistency of the band. If you had to comment on the evolution the band had been through since its inception back in the mid 90’s, how would you describe it and what is the overall feeling if you’re taking the same trip back in time?
Yeah, it’s a quite nice release, having unreleased material we did in two different studios back in the days and the first steps to melt the group together as a trio. We all lived in the same town and life was simple, plus we were way younger. Actually, speaking about the studios.. we should have use those ones for album recordings as well.. damn. We had some trouble with the first two albums and split release, or at least to have a some sort of guideline for the sound. S. Jämsen had his own vision for the sound and we didn’t have any experience on that side so it all ended up on the wrong rails in my opinion, but you know, past is a past. Buuuut, this release nails together the first eras of the band. I think on our next album we made a small development and a step forward.
Now we are in 2025 and celebrate the arrival of ‘Demon Steel’, your sixth full-length album. Although still very much recognizably Urn, it feels like a slightly different album. Perhaps a logical progression from ‘Iron Will’, an album that I personally consider as a highlight in your discography, but at least the overall feeling is that it is again a bit more melodic and Heavy Metal-fueled on the hand and more rough on the vocal department on the other. A process that, I think, already started with ‘Iron Will’ but has pushed another step up now. Is that something you recognize?
I want to keep Urn’s career going higher step by step, more or less. Some could look it as a downfall, but come on, only Motörhead could keep doing the same for decades, they found the rails to sail, so maybe we are still searching for real Urn, hard to say. A creative process is always a process and especially when doing it in an honest way, there is usually something coming that you didn’t even expect. In these days there are not many bands playing real metal and still having their roots going back to that time when metal was evil, with having aggression and passion to it. Today’s music just sucks, I just can’t get it and I will just keep on doing what I do. Musically, ‘Demon Steel’ is a step ahead.. when we started the recordings, I had a clear vision to get it done with a professional sound that still have the real feeling of metal, how it was done back in the days. The vocals are very ”natural” and quite on the top to get the feeling of natural playing and in your face. The song writing was done in the same fashion, we know how it must be done. I am very glad with the studio we chose for this one. So huge credits to Tomi Uusitupa and Oxford Studios!
Part of the shifting towards a more melodic style might have to do with the addition of two new guitarists just before the recording of ‘Iron Will’. Did these two guys add new ideas, influences or possibilities to the band or maybe just refueled the energy and re-sparked the flame of Urn?
At very first, I have to say that sometimes I listen some new albums that pop up at social medias. I just can’t stop wondering about where the riffs and creativity are. There is a lot of music that you can easily put together an album of within a week. So, my point was to get a melody or two for every song. It’s just my way to do this and stay out of recycle bin.
We had both guitarists already on ‘Iron Will’, like you said but Petri had just joined the band and Aki knew the songs like the back of his hand, so it was a decision as to who of the two guitarists would record them all at studio, that was Aki. Aki is doing songs for Urn as well as giving his own seasoning to the mix. It is a good thing to have another vision in the band. Aki is simply one the best guitarists in Finland. Petri is very good as well and we are now in the situation in which I am the weakest link in the band when it comes to playing skills. But in fact, this to me is a sort of a healthy situation that empowers me to do my work better. I basically come with the ideas of the songs and the guitarists add their own ideas if they think the songs need a different flow or so. But basically the basis of the songs are Aki’s and mine and will bring them to our rehearsals. Of course everyone learns the songs at home before we start jamming them in our rehearsal dungeon. I usually avoid writing lyrics as long as possible, but right at the beginning I keep myself focused on the track and how vocals should go over the song.
Perhaps this picks up a bit on some previous questions, but… ‘Iron Will’ saw the light of day in 2019, which means ‘Demon Steel’ had been in the making for a good couple of years. Although not being too explicit about it, you commented you were relieved to have been released from your commitments to Season Of Mist. Without needing to go into details of your disappointments, how did this affect the time after the release of ‘Iron Will’ and what did this to the band and you personally?
Yeah. It took few years to get the new one out. Well, a few months after the release of ‘Iron Will’ Covid shit started and ever since we got more or less moving nowhere fast. We had some motivation problems, but man… imagine chopping wood with a hammer. How many years you going to do it with no actual result coming up? So, for us Season Of Mist wasn’t a good choice and we needed a new and fresh start and luckily Osmose Productions were still interested in us. Before signing a deal with Season Of Mist we had a two options and Osmose Productions was the second one to choose from, but you know, I always make the wrong decision at first, haha!
But since we started to talk with Aki and got the deal like some two years ago we started rehearsing new material. The whole process took a bit less than one year. It took approximately 17.000 kilometers of traveling back and forth to rehearsals, so no one can complain for me not having the motivation to keep it going. Well, I have no other job so let’s stick to the one I have, which actually doesn’t make a real income, but fuck it.. I am more or less free to do the things I love, but yes, it kills me at times. You know, it’s hard to live almost completely broke in today’s society.
If we extend that personal connection a little bit, on ‘Demon Steel’ there are a few lyrics that could be rather close to you as a lyricist – or just pure fiction. While some tracks deal “just” with hell, war and satanism, but there are a few that seem to be more about dark thoughts, mental issues and depression. Is this a bit of a departure from what you used to do some years ago? And is this album, in some way, a bit of an autobiographical piece of work too?
I wanted to take a step forward on my lyrics and put more intense and personal stuff onto this one and to give lot a listeners something to read as well. Basically all lyrics are somehow related to my personal life or the things that makes me inspired or something that I have experienced during the time I have been doing the songs. Past three years have been the most creative for me, more than ever before, like I mentioned before. I really tried to hit new gear and let the engine roar. Which I did but still seems like it ain’t enough, sales and views are the worst ever. But let me say, you world fuck with me, I will fuck you back. Simple. Like it or not it ain’t stopping me for doing what I like to do so fuck off again. I would like quote the most greatest line ever ”living in shit, fukk you Satan!”. You know the band behind this!?! May c replaced by k be your hint, haha! Just take a listen and read the lyrics meanwhile maybe you get something from it as that was my goal.
And, a small step to another but related topic. The band has been around for about three decades now with you at the helm from the beginning, that means you are thirty years older than when you started Urn back in 1994. Are the things that drive you now different from the very beginning? How do you think your age and life experience affect the music you make with Urn? Do you still have the same sources of inspiration and is Urn just an outlet for you to express your youthful self unconcernedly or is there more to it than that?
Man! Lots of blood been flowing since then.. I start to feel depressed even thinking of this, haha! Why the fuck I just can’t be like normal human being and wake up for work every morning and do just normal things but noooo! These demons inside my head ain’t letting me enjoy my life that easily. In the beginning we were young and wild, still I am young and wild.. in my own thoughts. It’s a bit hard to say what keeps me going on like this. Maybe a therapist would be helpful and give better answers than I can give for you. On the other hand, I am doing more music than ever since my career. At the moment I have 8 songs, more or less ready for Urn and 15 for solo material. Oh, I haven’t spoken about it with you yet, but I have recorded three solo songs under the names of ”Graves”. It’s just mixing and mastering that needs to be done to spread them out. Basically for both Urn and Graves my biggest inspiration has been channeling spirit world and doing meditation. Strong influence has been and still is all abandoned places I have been visiting and the photos I have taken there, they speaks thousands of words to me. Actually there is quite a few human faces and shapes captured in these pictures. This all kind of came to me in a bit surprising way. The past house I lived in was haunted, at least shitloads crazy things happened in that house. More likely I thought it was the spirits of the house and they just tricked us a bit at times. Anyways, long stories.. but all these has been transferred into melodies of Graves and Urn.
But yeah, my 12 years of marriage ended and I split up with my wife. Very last things was taking a picture from the house we lived and saying goodbye when moving out. After few months I just scrolled through my pictures and opened this very picture I am talking about. Then I zoomed into window and my world turned upside down.. there was a woman looking from the window and few other very recognizable faces in a window as well. This made me to discover more into this world and I started transfer these into music.. But yeah, it sounds crazy.. turning ghosts into melodies but that’s what I have been doing. Dealing with energies and spirits, transferring them into music. Let’s say it didn’t work that well in Urn but Graves is 100% that.. every single note has spoken to me by the dead. Creativity just hit the other level for me and it’s hard to turn back from that. Here I am and here I try to stay. It’s quite a challenge at times, mostly because I do this all alone and in my daily life there is not many people around me to share these things with. A lone man’s world, but when you get a call you just can’t refuse to answer to it, right!?!
Currently you are signed to Osmose Productions, a label that clearly didn’t waste much time embracing Urn. Not only did the label release your new album and the previously mentioned compilation LP, it also reissued the older Urn albums. I saw you selling bundles of these Osmose Productions records, how did it feel to have all that material in your hands again? Some of these records have been out of print and hard to get for a long time. Did that re-energize your enthusiasm for the band?
Super points and the award of “label of all labels” goes to Osmose for releasing all these in a physical form. It just sucks that circumstances do not match with all the work label and band has done. I mean, we need shows to survive and what do we have, one or two shows in a year. Rough world but it is what it is. I have tried my best and that’s all I can do. If I have given everything and it ain’t enough there is not much to do anymore. Basically we go with this slow flow we have and I try to concentrate on my solo music to keep me sane. No one really can’t chop wood with a hammer many years in a row. Today’s sales are bad, postage rates go up and no shows is not a good combination while I know we sell quite ok at the gigs buuut positions of stars or the demons keep us in this moment of suffering till we are done. Bring it on you bastards, that’s why I am here for!
You also recently starting to be active on social media (again?). Judging from your posts and the frequency of them, you seem to enjoy yourself being in a band. Urn was founded in 1994, times were quite different back then. If you’d compare the band from juvenile days to today’s Instagram times, how would you describe the evolution that the “metal scene” changed in these three decades? Do you still feel at home and comfortable in these modern times with lots of easy and shallow contacts, ratrace competition and short attention spans? It is all quite different from exchanging demo tapes, using stamps and glue sticks compared to all bands jumping on the flavor of the day…
No one can’t take away the fact that I just enjoy a process of creating music. That gives me the energy and passion. I hardly even listen to music that much… The new riffs I do and a melody on top is what makes me live for another day. The energies and the channel of that flow what I have found is just something that is a strong part of my personality.
Ah yeah, let’s go back more to the question. Times indeed really have changed from tape trading and even actual physical media. People hardly buy albums but luckily in underground there is always a few that are keeps things alive, its good be a part of that somehow. Just spoke today with my bandmates how bad it’s going to be for the cover artists and the ones who do that related stuff. Crazy AI taking over that too, but it will never beat a real creativity and talent but for sure it ruins some income of cover artists. Still, I do send letters out weekly. Thanks for the fans that keep us in this rollercoaster of endless madness! I don’t even want to know how does it look like in few years. I would just recommend every single artist to stop releasing music until the industry is on its knees and artists can rewrite rules.
Alongside bands like Flame, Desaster and Nocturnal you were part of the great ‘Hellbangers Metal Forces’ compilation LP released by Iron Pegasus Records back in 2008. It was a record that combined bands from Germany and Finland that shared similar musical and/or aesthetic views on “True Metal”. At least it displayed a certain fellowship. Are you still in close contact with these bands/people or with other (Finnish) in general?
Yes. Not daily, but with some of them quite often, it gives a bit of hope to see some of my friends/bands keeping up the same spirit that we had back then and seem to be the same page in these current days. We are not growing any younger, but metal ain’t dying, yet! Damn, the older you get, the years start go pretty fast. Way too fast! 10 years feels like a few years. That means we are really, really old in few years, damned…
Basically, I live a quite isolated life and do not follow the scene that much nor what is going on, but we all need outside contacts at times, so it’s good to see old friends and chat a bit. Nearly everyone just have a family and other activities in life, so it’s always good to catch up with someone.
When it comes to playing live, Urn has never really been a band you run into easily as a concert of festival goer. Is that something that you possibly like to change too now that you have a steady line-up, a new record out and your back catalogue been made available again?
We definitely need some shows, but it seems that we are a band that does not easily arouse the interest of a promoter. I have tried to turn a couple of stones for this but always failed. It doesn’t matter much anymore, but it still amazes me when a band makes the best album and gets zero offers for gigs. Reviews been really good though, lots of interviews are coming in too with this latest album. Luckily I have my solo material to work with. Without that its completely meaningless to keep on going.
Although you have been a part of Barathrum for a couple of years, your resume “only” mentions Urn. Have you never felt the urgency to try something else or to join another band? Urn, with all the necessary respect, hasn’t exactly been cranking out album after album…
I tried to avoid to answer to this in previous your questions, but alright… I have already spoiled a few things. Well, I try to get three songs ready for Graves and spread them out and reach for a label to release a full length, as I have material for 2 albums. It sounds quite meaningless to not to get these out, but nothing surprises me anymore. In these days, all of these songs can be totally meaningless and will not see the light of the day. I have been jamming on those for some years and personally like the songs. It’s just a matter of time when the first track will be out. In the upcoming weekend I will go to my friend’s studio to continue working on the mix. It’s been recorded at Rats Nest studios by Chris Nunravager (ex-Adorior bassist). The first thing is to see how people will take that new stuff, that really interests me. Personally I am quite excited and I really gave them my all. I am fan of real metal, mostly liking 80’s stuff and so on. Everyone expects me to release something like that, but let’s be honest here. Personally I didn’t even imagined to create music what I did. It was just an honest flow and it actually started during the songwriting of Urn. I just started to have a lot of material that didn’t fit easily with Urn. I could put a riff here and there, but it would have been too much wasting of the flow I have created with those riffs. So I am curious to hear the result, but I kind of know already how it’s going to be. As a hint I would like to say that I am a lone wolf and musically I follow my own path which always been slightly off from the rails of what is usually going on. Even for underground standards. But, soon we’re all going to hear it.
Just a question that I throw in every now and then to kill my curiosity. You already said that you do not really “follow” the local and/or global metal scene that much. But does that mean there are currently no bands that were able to leave an impression on you? Or do you just rather stick to your favorite classics?
No, indeed, I don’t really follow the scene that much, I know few newer bands and I still go at least once in a year to a local venue to see some bands. Pretty active, right?! I am just enjoying to create my own music which doesn’t actually make any sense, but my inner call is strong. At the moment feeling it’s even way too strong. We never know what is going to happen, but for sure I can be honest at my final judgement and say I did what made me excited and no one can blame me for not trying.
Usually I tend to end my interviews with asking what we can expect from the band in the next couple of months, but since we already exhaustively discussed much of how you currently feel with the band, I would like to take this question a step further with you. Given the answers you already shared with me, something that holds some importance. So, a bit of a question that your boss or HR-manager would ask you, but now it is more aimed at your musical ambitions: where would you like to be in five years from now, seen from a musical perspective?
A: Seeing Urn going slowly downhill year by year probably there will be nothing more coming up.
B: We record a new album in a case we get some shows outside of Finland.
C: I focus on my solo project and try to get shows with that and see how it reactions will be. If the response is even worse than its now for Urn, it definitely shows the world is not interested at all in the stuff I do. I hereby swear that I will never follow the trends that comes up in every genre, let the others do that OR I am just a terrible musician and I just need to quit!
D: I quit all these and move to Lapland and live rest of my days just fishing and hunting, giving zero shit to anything else.
Alright Jarno, thanks a lot for your time and your insight into the life of Urn. If you have anything to add, the last words are yours…
Thanks for the interview man. This brought up some painful memories and low points throughout the years. With 30 years of experience a lot has happened and I have tried to navigate through all these issues. From that point of view… the course we sail at the moment does not have safe waters nearby. I just need to navigate through this and hold the rails until clear waters have been reached. Life is a bitch, right!? For some things are easier than to others yet I close this interview and try to hold the rails I have and get my focus onto something else for a while. Cheers to your readers out there. The world is a dangerous place, be aware!
