Interview: Phlegethon (Finland)

This is the Interview with Lasse Pyykkö from the Surreal and Mythic Phlegethon!!!

1.- At this moment who are in the line up of Phlegethon?
- Actually I´m the only member in the band at the moment.

2.- What is the meaning of Phlegethon?
- We picked up the name from Greek mythology. Phlegethon is a firestream in Hades.

3.- Back in time, do you remember how was the Finland scene? What differences do you note with the actual scene?
- The scene back in the good ol´days was great. Lots of interesting young bands creating something fresh and exciting. Nowasdays the scene in Finland is doing well again. There´re many good bands around and many of them are strongly influenced by the older Finnish DM bands so it´s a good direction. But man... although the scene is interesting again it´s a bit unfair to compare it to the old times. Back then death metal was like an adventure. Nowadays it ´s pretty predictable. Don´t get me wrong! I think these times are good! Things could be worse. A lot worse! It´s just that the greatest and the most exciting era of metal lies in the past and it won´t come back. We are recycling the same old ideas again and again but at least surprisingly many of us are doing it damn well! As long it´s like that I cannot complain. The modern styles of metal don´t really impress me. Modern polished production and all that is not very metal in my book. So this so called “Renaissance” of old school death metal is a good thing. You can still find exciting new bands that reek of total death. Of course some of these new DM bands are mere unispired copycat stuff but that was the case more or less in the early 90´ s as well.

4.- After Phlegethon you was involved in some other projects?
- When Phlegethon broke up in ´92 we contued playing music together. It was just totally different stuff and that´s another story. After that I played in different projects but it was nothing serious. I was musically quite numb for many years until 2006 when I came back with a new Phlegethon demo. That led to the birth of my newer bands Vacant Coffin, Hooded menace, Claws and some others.



5.- I had the chance to hear your demo "Neutral Forest" and the EP "Fresco Lungs", what was you thinking when you make "Female Sabbath"? Is fucking insane!
- When I composed that song I was deeply possessed by “Darkness Descends” from Dark Angel. To be more specific I was heavily inspired by the title track of this brilliant album. I wanted “Female Sabbath” to have lots of fast parts that lasted for a good while. This needed to be a furious track. When Juha wrote the lyrics for it, it was just typical Phlegethon lyrism. Surreal and mystic. I remember once Juha finished it, Juha didn ´t have a title for it. Spontaneously I dropped the words “female sabbath” in Finnish language and we all started laughing. We translated it into English and there we had a good title for the song.

6.- In that time, did you never had a offer deal with some Label for a Full Length album?
- Actually Witchhunt Records originally asked us to do a full lenght but instead we offered them a mini LP. There was an interest after “Fresco Lungs” mini LP/CD but it didn´t led to a deal because we had drastically changed our style during ´91 already. We played pretty crazy crossover crap. We fused almost everything we listened at the time. That was a bit too much for one of the leading extreme metal labels that was interested in us. They were pretty confused after hearing our latest rehearsal tape at the time, haha!

7.- What is your main motivation to create music?
- The joy of overmatching myself and simply just good music. That makes me want to grab a guitar and start writing songs. It´s a reaction to the stimulus. Also bad music can cause a similar reaction or reading a mainstream music magazine with all these crappy bands featured, hehe! So in a way some of my music comes out from frustration too, I guess.

8.- Do you remember the compilation "Weird tales of madness vol. I"? How was the contact to participate?
- Yes I remember that compilation! I don´t remember at all how we got featured tho.




9.- Why do you split two times, the first in 1992 and the second in 1995?
- Originally we split up because we were dead tired with playing death/thrash metal. It wasn´t exciting nor very special anymore. So we eneded up playing this insane crossover stuff then we got bored doing that too and finally called it a day in ´92. We got together in ´95 just to record one demo “Promo 1995”. We don´t regard it as a real reunion. We just recorded a couple of songs for the fun of it and disappeared again. It wasn´t a serious attempt to make a return. We could (and should) have used a different moniker instead of Phlegethon for that demo. It doesn´t sound like Phlegethon at all. It wasn´t meant to be a Phlegethon demo in the first place. For some reason we just ended up using that name again.

10.- In this period what did you do?
- During ´92 - ´95 (up until ´97 or so) we were playing punkish stuff under the monikers Tallow and later One Trick Pony. We enjoyed playing something very simple after all that complex Phlegethon stuff. It was refreshing. Now as I look at it I´d say we were drifting. We were a bit lost.

11.- When and why you decide to reform Phlegethon, from who comes the idea?
- I´m the one to blame for it. I think it was in 2005 when I got this almost compulsive urge to write new Phlegethon material. Why now? That´s a mystery to me too. I was spinning again some of my old fave metal albums like crazy and also absorbed lots of stuff that I missed during my absence from the metal scene. For some reason I felt very inspired to write metal again. You know, the idea was lurking in my mind every now and then and in 2006 I was ready to record a new Phlegethon demo “Totems Within”. Of course it didn´t feel exactly like in the old days since the line up was just me and Saku. Juha was also put in the line up although he only wrote the lyrics and didn´t touch a guitar. He didn´t want to do that. Saku played only the guitar solos while I was taking care of all the rest. Of course I wanted Teemu and Jussi to join the band but it was impossible. Teemu wasn´t interested and Jussi was too busy with other things.

12.- Talking about the lyrics, what are the main themes of the songs?
- Phlegethon´s lyrics have always been about our odd dreams and visions. Something that flows from the writers subconscious. They are quite surreal and mystic. Like some dark surrealist poetry or something. I can´t analyze them any better than that. They are very spontaneous.

13.- You recorded two demos before the reunion, this demos are available?
- They were originally released on tape of course and they haven´t been available since ´91 or so.



14.- Now you released a Best Of Complation "Drifting In The Crypt", how was the contact for work with Xtreem Music?
- Yes, this 2CD release includes the entire discography of Phlegethon. Mr. Dave Rotten from the label contacted me pretty soon after I put up a myspace page for the band and he threw me the idea about reissuing the old material. At first it was supposed to be just the first demos + some rehearsal and live tracks but in the end of the day it bloated to 2CD including all released material and the rehearsal and live tracks were left out.

15.- How is or was a gig of Phlegethon?
- We did only like 10 gigs. I´m not sure if we were very interesting live band to most of those people since we didn´t headbang or move on the stage much at all. Anyway, the crowd seemed to like us and stage-dived their ribs out. We just focused to play our songs well and that´s it. We played gigs with bands such as Xysma, Afflicted, Funebre, Old Funeral, Disgrace, Convulse, Sentenced, Demigod, Amorphis and so on. We didn´t enjoy performing that much because we felt like it was a bit awkward to be in the center of attention.

16.- For you what is the meaning of Death Metal?
- To offer a dark and vital alternative in the music field. Something that can be more than just music. It´s offers an comprehensive experience and a life style.

17.- Could you recommend us some Finnish Metal bands?
- Sure! Here goes a few names that keep the scene strong up here: Ascended, Lie In Ruins, Forced Kill, Krypts, Stench of Decay, Vorum, Slugathor, Death Toll 80k, Speedtrap...

18.- Plans for this 2010?
- The entire Phlegethon discography on 2 cd´s “Drifting in the Crypt” should be out any day soon. There will also be at least one surprise Plegethon release in 2010. So I´m not going to ruin the surprise by unveiling it just yet. I also hope to write and record some new Phlegethon material but we´ll see about that. I don´t want to make empty promises tho. We´ll see then.



19.- Anything to add or ask?
- Thanks for this interview! Now I will crawl back to my inner crypt and listen to Grave Miasma! They rule all!

You can check Phlegethon on:
www.myspace.com/phlegethonfin