Interviews

ShamRain, whose wonderful music is described as dark melancholic rock with ethereal elements, have been rather quiet and we wondered if there was any new music on the horizon.

• ShamRain web site
• ShamRain myspace

Rain and I want to thank Kalle Pyyhtinen, ShamRain guitarist, for taking some time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions.

 

EB: It’s been a bit quiet as far as ShamRain goes, what have you been up to during this extended break?

KALLE: Actually we’ve been working quite long on new material; writing music and lyrics. Now we have around 15 new tracks almost ready, only Mika’s vocal tracks are still missing. Hopefully he can do them soon. We don’t want to hurry and make ‘ok’ material. We want it to satisfy us fully. So there hasn’t been any break actually.

During this time the other guys (Matti, Mikko and Janne) did also Hanging Garden debut album and Mika was busy with Entwine’s new album. I’ve worked with some other music projects (no names yet, but one post-punk/rock-project and synth based soundtrack-like project) and of course, designing stuff.

EB: With all of the outside projects and interests of the Sham members, what is the deciding factor to come back together and pick up where you left off? Is it just a matter of finally having your conflicting schedules coincide or is ShamRain more or less the project you all come back to as a break between other projects?

KALLE: In fact we never really leave off from ShamRain. It’s a process which continues all the time, even when it seems quiet to other people. We write songs all the time mainly for ShamRain and when we feel like it, then we write for other projects.

EB: In addition to being in ShamRain, you also are a very talented graphic designer (utudesign.net). You’ve designed cd covers and websites for music artists. Which is your preferred way of communicating an emotion - through visual art or music?

KALLE: First of all, thank you for your kind words. It depends which mood I am in, but if I would have to choose between music and visual art, I’d choose music. It’s more important for me. I also love to create visual beauty, no doubt about that. Actually, usually when I create some visual art it is influenced by music. I get into some mood by music and then want to visualize it.

EB: Have you ever done work in film? Would you ever consider producing or directing a video?

KALLE: I’ve done some school projects in film, but nothing special yet. But I’ve started planning to make my long time dream true and do a short film. I hope I have enough time and inspiration to get into it and make it true during next year. If not next year, then later. We’ve also planned to make a ShamRain video by ourselves.

EB: I think the ethereal quality and dark atmosphere of ShamRain’s music is best left for the listener to imagine what the songs are about, as opposed to being influenced by video. Is there any particular song you would actually love to see in a video version?

KALLE: Hard to say. I don’t have anything in mind now, but it would be interesting. Maybe some slow, ethereal track like ‘The Missing Pieces’ or ‘Into Distance’. But I think it’d be a very hard job for the director and writer since what comes to visualizing our music, we would be extremely demanding.

EB: Tell us a little about the process of writing and choosing which songs you will record? After not working exclusively on ShamRain material, how do you decide what is best to keep and best to shelve? What influences the flow the album will take?

KALLE: Most of the time a song comes from a melody or a rhythm playing in my head, and then I just try to lay it down the best I can. It usually is quite different from the original idea, but it doesn’t matter. It might be better. Then it builds up track by track. It’s easy these days, when you can make demos with your own computer at home. We record all the tracks and then see which end up to be recorded for the album. The decision of what to keep and what to shelve comes out by itself. You just somehow know.

EB: When you are ready to take the band out for gigs, what determines the songs you will play live? Does rehearsal weed out things you think may not go over well in a club environment; friends have opinions?

KALLE: The songs we play live are usually a bit more up-tempo. Of course, there are slow songs too to spice it up. But we just choose the songs we think are the most suitable for the gig situation. Friends don’t have much opinions, hehe. It all is quite clear already when the album is under making which songs will end up in a live set and which won’t.

EB: The band has recently aligned with Eurobands Promotions to form an international street team. What do you most look forward to in bringing ShamRain to a wider, more diverse audience?

KALLE: I don’t usually have many expectations. So there are fewer disappointments.

EB: On your personal myspace page you have quite an eclectic list of musical favourites… from A-Ha to Katatonia to Nick Cave. Who has been the prevailing inspiration for you, songwriting wise? The Cure, of course, is a big influence for ShamRain but personally is there something out there that to this day just rocks your socks?

KALLE: True. I love music and listen to a lot of different kinds of music. Whatever sounds good. Lately I’ve got inspiration from bands like Radiohead and My Bloody Valentine (I’ve listened to their album ‘Loveless’ for the last 3 weeks!). Some inspiration also comes from bands like Joy Division and Interpol.

EB: There are bands with staying power (U2, Aerosmith, The Cure) and bands that have just simply stayed too long (The Who, the Stones). Where do you see ShamRain say in 10 years? Do you think you will still be together making the same style of music or do you think you will have moved on and morphed into something else?

KALLE: I rarely plan more than week ahead, so I don’t think I can answer where we will be in 10 years. But I think we’re morphing all the time, but still recognizable. At least I hope so. I don’t want to get stuck and do 30 same albums.

EB: What constitutes success to you? What would you like to say about your musical career when you look back on it years from now?

KALLE: Success, hmm. I don’t think there has been much success, hehe. But I think it’s better to sell 1000 albums than to be a shooting star, which disappears after one album and no one remembers them after five years.

EB: Is there any other news you would like to share with us, for example, when will we see a new ShamRain album and are there any new tour dates coming up?

KALLE: I hope a new ShamRain album will be ready soon. As I said earlier, we’ve a bunch of almost-ready new tracks and we hope to start recordings of the new album during winter/spring. So I guess it will be released during 2007. And no, no new gigs at the moment.

EB: Finally, anything to say to all the North American fans who have discovered ShamRain?

KALLE: Hope you like it and will continue following our work. And try to buy our albums, not download them. By buying you support our small band best. Peace.