Morket interview

Interview by Michela
Editing by Alessandra

Mørket was born in 2014 in Helsinki and their sound is an an unique mix of black metal, crust, punk rock and even a bit of prog. 
Their debut album Musta Luonto (Black Nature in english), was released last May and has gotten good reviews and feedback. They signed a record deal with Suomen Musiikki label, owned by legendary Finnish music guru, Kari Hynninen (Amorphis, Apocalyptica).
Today their singer (Otto) and guitarist (Samuli) talk for us about Morket!

LFdM:  Hi guys, how are you? Thanks for picking space to spread your music, it’s a true pleasure. Let’s start with a simple question: how would you define in one word Morket music?
Otto: Mean.
Samuli: High-powered (ok, that’s two words, hah)

LFdM: You are Finns but your sound touches the strings of the American prog, British punk and Norwegian death metal. An explosive mix you have to l now how to manage to avoid falling into the trap of confusion. How much work is there behind, to get a well-balanced and never out of sync sound?

Otto: We all have a really diverse background and taste in music, so I'll guess it's just kinda natural how things take shape. Severi (guitars) and Samuli (guitars) are the guys who usually make the groundwork of a song and then we shape and mold it together as a whole band to make it what it is.

Samuli: Like Otto mentioned, our musical tastes are all over the place and we all dig stuff from different genres of music. I personally love everything from Ariana Grande to Mayhem and all of us really are open for different kinds of stuff.  As far as the songs go, usually we start from some guitar riff and then the song evolves from there when we all put our creative minds together. We have noticed that crazier the musical idea is the better the result usually is. There’s no need to hold back!

LFdM: How Morket are born? Who had the idea and how has been developed?

Otto: I joined the band later on, so I can't really give the best answer here, but Severi (guitars) Samuli (guitars) and Lauri (drums) had been jamming together and making songs and then decided to take it to the next level and recruit me and Janne (bass) to make it the rabid sludgy sloth that it is today.

Samuli: Yeah. Me and Severi used to play in the same band for a short while about four or five years ago, but that fell apart pretty quickly. That band didn’t even have a name or anything. Then in the spring of 2014 our paths randomly crossed, we literally bumped into each other on the street. We started to talk how great it would be to start a band which would mix punk with black metal and decided to start writing songs.

We had a feeling that this could actually be something really cool, so we started jamming with Lauri. Then we realized that we need a kick ass vocalist and bassist and through mutual friends we found Otto and Janne: After few rehearsals together it was clear to all of us, that this is THE line up. It all actually happened pretty smoothly. We also quickly decided that after we have an album worth of songs we gonna head to studio right away and that’s what we did. Looking back, everything has happened fast. Good example is probably the fact that we played our first show EVER at our record release party!

LFdM: Returning to the multiple facets of your sound, exactly what and from who do you have drawn the main influences? Which, among various genres mentioned above, do you feel closer to your strings?

Otto: As stated above, we all have a broad taste in music, but I guess the main focus of our sound comes from punk/hardcore and I guess we're most at home with that as a solid framework. Then broadening the palette with post metal, black metal, crust punk ferocity and proggish sections.

Samuli: Otto pretty much nailed it. Generally speaking, the easiest way to desricbe is that we are metal. But we’ve been compared to everything from Kvelertak to Mastodon. Somebody even mentioned that some parts of our songs sound like ”if Genesis would play black metal!” (laughs) and some reviewers have picked up jazz influences! So I guess it is a mix of crust, black, punk and prog. It will be interesting to see where our music will go in the future. We can pretty much play anything and it all sound like Mørket.

LFdM: I found the sound very visceral, almost intimate. Can you please talk about the lyrics and how do they are written? I imagine that being you at the beginning, the biggest part is written at home.

Otto: I usually first test with vocal patterns, as how the vocals support the song as a whole rhythmically and then move to write the lyrics themselves. The lyrics usually take shape around one sentence or a phrase and I just start meddling with it and filling in the gaps how it fits the song atmospherically. I write about religious stupidity, bigotry, political hypocrisy, excess work, poverty and hunger and the downfall of the humankind. I might spice it a bit whit the occult just to aggravate religious people, hehehe.

LFdM: Do you love to talk about your personal experiences or do you prefer a different kind of approach?

Otto: It's easy to shed personal life to the lyrics by just watching the news and the miserable state of everything and everyone.

LFdM: Also about the band / audience relationship?

Otto: Even being this nihilistic I really like meeting people at shows and altogether, it's awesome if someone likes your art and comes to say hi after a gig, that never gets old. It's really flattering and I'm honored to the bone.

Samuli: Crafting songs and recording them is awesome, but personally I love playing live – go out and share the tunes with the audience. It is really flattering if somebody says that they like our music, to see people wearing Mørket-shirts and realize that there are people in different countries who listen to our band. It is insanely cool!

And it is also great to play live with these guys, since all of us are so damn energetic!

LFdM: In contrast to many bands the voice seems to be an appendix and instruments the real stars, as if for you the performance is something more technical then interpretative, even for the kind of singing that you have, not always comprehensible. (laughs)

Otto: Haha, yeah, I guess the vocals are there more as an added instrument than just a way to deliver lyrics. And as I "sing" in finnish, even my countrymen can't always make sense what the hell I'm saying! (laughs)

Samuli: Yeah, the way Otto delivers the vocals makes his singing sort of an instrument and yes, when he comes up with his parts I also have to listen very carefully, since there are parts that aren’t that easy to understand (laughs). Then on the other hand, for my mothers sake, I’m happy that it can be a challenge to understand what we sing about, since she probably would be shocked (laughs).

We do also have an unorthodox way of coming up with the songs, since we usually first write the music and individual parts and since the tunes don’t have your typical chorus-verse-chorus-structure they shape up to have lots of varied and constantly changing instrumental parts. But even if our songs might sound technical, we don’t consider ourselves as technical players. And apart from few short parts, we don’t really even have guitar solos on our songs.

LFdM: Have you already had experience with touring? And if so, what about it? Is there a band in particular you would like to support?

Otto: We haven't toured with this band yet, since we just got our first LP out, but that's definitely in our plans! There's like shiploads of band we would love to be an opening act for! Converge, Kvelertak, Mastodon, Oathbreaker… There are too many to name!

Samuli: No touring yet, but we will definitely do it and we are really looking forward to it. Since we have so many different influences and we mix different kind of sounds we can open up for lots of different kind of bands. We could open up to everybody from Ghost and Amorphis to Deafheaven and Raised Fist. So anything goes!

LFdM: Do you think that the black metal scene has made progress in recent years or the attention to it has moved on a side?

Otto: I can't really say anything profound about the black metal scene, since the black metal bands I like are usually more than just classic "true" black metal. Like Darkthrone is more and more leaning towards punk nowadays. But I have noticed, that some bands take influence from black metal and mix it with their sound, as we do. I know that black metal purists sincerelly hate us, but they usually hate everything other than Burzum anyway. (laughs) Though there are really interesting black metal bands around, like MGLA.

Samuli: Same goes for me. I don’t really follow the black metal scene. Generally speaking I think that no matter the genre is, it is always cool to be open to all kinds of sounds since the result then is way more interesting and unique. Let’s put it this way: if you eat only one kind of food, it gets boring, so if you listen only one kind of music, it sure as hell also tend to get boring.

LFdM: What's next? Do you already have ideas for a new album? Can you show us something to whet interest?

Otto: Well we just wrote two new extra songs for our debut hence it's coming out on our new label Suomen musiikki, so that's something to look forward to. After that we barricade ourselves to our rehearsal place and start molding our second LP, which will sound more bitter, mean and rabid.

Samuli: Yeah, Suomen Musiikki -label will release our Musta luonto –album widely early 2016 (kick ass vinyl coming, by the way) and we have two, cool new songs for that release. So we gonna play live as much as possible next winter, spring and summer. But we definitely also have plans for the second album! It will probably be full of 10 minute reggae tunes. Nah, just joking (or am I?), but we can promise, that we’ll come up with something cool.

LFdM: ok guys, thank you so much and I hope to see you soon!

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Line-up:
Janne Leskinen : Bass, Vocals
Lauri Heinonen : Drums
Severi Romsi : Guitars
Samuli Väänänen : Guitars
Otto Aleksanteri Eräjoki : Vocals