Wide Awake for Heidenfest

Frosttide presents themselves to the world with the album Awakening, but a lot of folk-metalfans know them longer. At Folk-metal.nl we first heard from Frosttide with their previous EP Our Journey. A lot seemed to have happened for Frosttide since we wrote a review on that one last year. Time to speak to these guys…

What a Year!
Joni tells us he believes the most remarkable event during last year was that they found a keyboard player. Because of that it was possible to play gigs again, have good rehearsals and for the first time it was possible to use real keyboards on the making of this album. Another important event happened this year was when they got the record deal with NoiseArt Records and booking deal with Rock The Nation. That was and is a great boost and motivation for the band. As well it has opened many doors for Frosttide. And of course during this time they have grown as a band. The whole recording process of Awakening and the preparations for the tour has shown the brotherhood between the band members, and this even unites them more.
Speaking of this recorddeal with NoiseArt which obviously meant releasing another album. What’s the difference between doing this yourselves or with label?
Felipe: ‘When talking about the recording process of the album, the only difference was to do everything much more carefully and elaborated in comparison to the two self-released records. The great difference of course was the release of the album and it’s promotion. NoiseArt Records did and is doing an excellent job promoting our debut and us. It has helped us to reach more people and gain more fans in Europe and other parts around the globe. It has been a positive experience to work together in the release of Awakening and the arrangements for Heidenfest. Huge thanks to Florian Fink and the crew at NoiseArt Records!

The style of songs is in Our Journey and Awakening not much different, while writing the review on the full lenght I wondered if there were songs which were written earlier and Juho confirms this. ‘Some of them have been written even before the “Our Journey – EP” was recorded.’ But he also tells us some of the songs were written just before hitting to studio. For example the title track “Awakening” was written about two weeks before the studio.
The songwriting is mostly done by one or two guys, they write the songs and send them to the other band members. Of course there’s some exceptions. For example the chorus of the title track was pretty weak earlier. The guys decided to make a new one during the studio-time. They just started to jam together one night between the drum recordings and that’s how the chorus of the “Awakening” was made. So every member of the band is able to bring forth their own ideas.
The ideas for the songs just appear in the mind of Juho. Sometimes he gets inspiration while watching some movie or listening to movie scores. Usually it’s just trying to unleash the feelings or capture some visions and views into music. Anyhow, everything must happen spontaneously.

True Art
When you look at the coverart of Our Journey and Awakening it will catch your eye, they’re in a nice style, and have the same feel. It’s obvious they come from one and the same artist. And Juho is responsible for the layout, while the coverart was designed by OneTwoTree designs. The entire artwork (band photos, design, layout) of “Awakening” was done by Mikko Henrik Huotari. He took the band pictures for “Our Journey” as well.

Felipe says they fortunately know many friends that are musicians as well, so it was not difficult for to find someone to play bass as a live member on the forthcoming shows, when their bass-player left a little while ago. When taking someone as an official member to the band, then it is a different story. As a band, they share all the duties that come besides playing. Such as: promotion, updates, interviews, organizing documents, e-mail etc. They’re in the same page musically and share the same vision and goal regarding the band. In order to take a new band member, besides of his/her playing skills, this person has to be ready to collaborate, take responsibilities and share the same vision for the future of the band as the other members do. So, finding a person with those qualities becomes difficult. This has been the main reason of line-up changes within the band.

Ready!
It must be quite different now Frosttide becomes a little bit more famous with this new release and the participation in Heidenfest, I think but Joni can’t confirm this. ‘I haven’t noticed any big difference. For example I have seen that nowadays there are more reviews about Frosttide in the Internet but that’s it. And I don’t believe that the news about our participation at Heidenfest has given us more reputation, maybe few more listeners but that’s all. The Heidenfest itself can be a major boost on our career but that requires great shows from us!’
Well, they know what to do then. And it’s up to the fans to make it a big party when they’re on stage. How do you these guys feel about the upcoming Heidenfest tour?
According to Joonas, they’re very excited about it! ‘It is great opportunity for us to take part on this tour together with Ensiferum, Turisas, Equilibrium and Suidakra! As well this is the first time we play shows outside Finland (except for Felipe who has already played abroad)! We are looking forward to meet new people along this tour and play our music to new audiences. Our set-list consists entirely of songs from the “Awakening” album. We’ve been working pretty hard to make them sound as good as they are on the record. We will do our best to keep the same energy in the shows for the entire tour!’
Felipe: ‘We have been hard at work with the preparations and rehearsals for Heidenfest. We have updated our gear setup and arranged the songs to work live. We are ready to give everything we have on each show on this tour! It is difficult to say what is for you to expect from us, still we will do our best to play an intense and bombastic show! If the audience is happy and has fun with us during the shows, we have achieved our goal. We are looking forward to it!’
And they look forward to see every band in Heidenfest! The line up in this tour is great and they are very happy to be part of it. Still, the band that Joni feels bonded with the most is Equilibrium. ‘Because I have listen to them for a long time and I never have got the chance to see them live! So this is my first time when I’m seeing them live and moreover I heard that we are travelling in the same bus during this tour so I’m really excited about it!’

And Joonas agrees with me thing seem to be going rather fast the last year! ‘There has been a lot of work for us in order to get to this point in our career and it is rewarding to start to see some results.’ At the moment their focus is on promoting Awakening as much as possible. And they have already started to plan the recordings of next album. But only time will tell what will happen!

And at the end of our chat we ask them of course if there is anything else they would like to say to our readers?
‘First of all, thanks to www.folk-metal.nl for this interview. To the ones reading this, thanks a lot for your great support! It is rewarding to read the great comments and reviews regarding Awakening. We also thank the ones who have bought the album! We hope to see all of you at the Heidenfest shows! Cheers!

By: Michel