Hello Harri, how are you doing?

Fine thanks you! A little bit sore throat but otherwise good. The spring is heavily on its way and so one. Just listening the new Crowbar album…

Before we go further I think it would be nice if you could give us a background information on Total Devastation. What is your goal with the band and please also talk a bit about the members in Total Devastation. Total Devastation feature among others two members from the melodic death metal band called Omnium Gatherum, no complications there or?

Total Devastation was formed back in the year ’98 in the football field of Katajainen, near by the downtown of Karhula by Jaakko Heinonen and Lauri Pikka. They made few demos, and after the fourth demo some gig proposals started to pop up, so the new (current) line-up was formed. After the first demo that was made with this full six men team, Firebox Records from Seinäjoki, Finland offered a chance to make records. First album “Roadmap of Pain” came out in summer of 2003, and now the new album “Reclusion” has been released.

The main goal is to make good songs and have fun on the gigs, and if some other people enjoy our records and feel the need to jam while we’re playing, that’s just great. All the members in TD are somehow on the same wavelength, of course because there are two brother groups in the band and we have known each other all our lives. Pasi and Saku are identical twins so their songs are hard to tell apart, they’re equally good. Then there are three Pikka brothers, Harri, Jarmo and Lauri, all bald haired by the way. Jaakko Heinonen is the singer with no family connections to any other member in the band.

I and Jarmo play also in Omnium Gatherum, it’s been a busy sping with the bands, but so far everything has gone smoothly. TD members can be found in a band called Kaihoro also (www.sorbusproductions.com/kaihoro).

Right, you have now released your second album entitled "Reclusion". It's not a secret that I loved it (just read my review!), how has Reclusion been recieved elsewhere?

In Finland the reviews have been very good. The new album was just nominated as the album of the month in Finnish Inferno-magazine, which was very nice. Seems that most of the Finnish critics are familiar with the first album too, so they can easily see, that TD has developed greatly from there. Some articles outside Finland haven’t been so praising, but that’s how it always goes. We are very pleased for the feedback we’ve received, so most of the reviews we can agree with.

Tell me more about Reclusion. Are you guys satisfied with the outcome and how would you compare it to your debut album from 2003 (Roadmap of pain)?

The song writing was this time more intense and everyone was involved. So there are elements from every member which brings more variation and fun for us to play the songs. Janne Saksa, who recorded and mixed the album, was really great fellow and made the record sound somewhat we had in mind. So we were extremely pleased to hear the finished CD from the magical mastering hands of Minerva Pappi.

There’s more band playing on the new album, the first one was rather stiff and followed maybe too much the old demo versions of the songs. Those versions were made almost entirely by machines, so the result wasn’t that airy. Good songs altogether, but I think we feel the new album is more on the right track.

Now onto songwriting. How is the Total Devastation's way of writing a tune?

The song writing goes old traditional way, band playing, jamming and so on. Nowadays the songs get their form regularly from guitar or bass riffs, when in the early days machines, loops and samples dominated the field. Now the industrial stuff and additional keyboards are used to colour up the noise from time to time. I and Hakuli brothers produce riffs and often complete songs and demo them at home, sometimes songs come up entirely at rehearsals. It varies, but there are always nice riffs around, when you happen to forget one, that’s not fine. Riffs rule.

When you write music, where do you find your inspiration?

Mostly from the music you have been listening lately. Movies are also important. And of course all the stuff you’re been into along time will be always there, in my case Entombed, Carcass and bands like that are often present.

Lyrics are different thing, mostly they get their shape around some main idea, and grow on their own.

Fans are always curious about touringplans. Will you do an European tour in support of Reclusion? I see you soon will play some dates in Finland with interesting bands like Ajattara, Pain Confessor, Finntroll and Stam1na. Please feel free to talk about this mini tour.

There is no plans at the moment for gigs outside Finland. We have the best possible booking agent in Finland so here are in good hands. We hope that some opportunities come up to play abroad too.

We’re doing an Easter mini-tour with Pain Confessor and Ajattara. Three shows in Finland. I think it’s going to bee good, timing and all the places seem very promising.

After that we’re doing few gigs with Stamina and other bands around here, old bastards Rite are playing with us also in their original hometown Mikkeli, that is going to be something special.

Speaking of which, what is you view on the current Finnish metal scene? I personally think there are many new great Finnish bands these days. Last band to kick my ass was Stam1na actually,

What do you think of them?

Lots of great bands, nice people and big variety of concert happenings. My favourite Finnish metal bands are Callisto, Rite, Swallow the Sun, Stam1na, Rotten Sound among others.

Stam1na is dominating the Finnish media right now, and for a reason. They have made a groundbreaking album and it sounds truly amazing.

Tell me about the beard. In the same run you can also tell me about drinking, that's something you crazy Finns enjoy more than rest of the world, isn't that correct?

Well I don’t know why, but 5/6 of Total Devastation members seem to have beard, there’s no reasonable explaining, company makes alike I suppose. We may look like trashy bums but in reality we’re really fresh guys.

And bums like to drink of course. No one spits in the cup in this band, but usually there’s no problem with drinking. We like to take some beer in good company and when the company is really good, we take some more.

If I recall correctly you're also the main songwriter in Omnium Gatherum which is signed to the big label Nuclear Blast. Total Devastation is

signed to FireBox which is a rather small label, but an excellent one in my opinion. Tell me about this contrast, is it like belonging to two different worlds?

I don’t think that coping with two different companies is like belonging to different worlds. On a smaller label I think you’re a little more involved somehow, more of what happens depends on your self and how much you’re willing to stake on your thing. Of course if you want to have Sean Connery to sing backing vocals, Nuclear Blast may have the necessary liquidity to do that, so there are good things in both. The contrast isn’t that big ‘couse Omnium doesn’t belong to the major league of Nuclear Blast roster. Maybe some day.

Any cool recent news to share with the readers of Scandinavian Metal zine?

There’s a new music video coming up, it’s from the opening track of Reclusion album “Murderous”. It will probably be out in summer or early autumn. It will be available from our website www.totaldevastation.org

Now comes my standard question. Every band has given me their list so far, do you feel game to give us your top 5 albums released by Scandinavian Metal bands only?

Xysma – Lotto
Entombed – To Ride, Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth
Xysma – Deluxe
Entombed – Wolverine Blues
Grand Magus – Monument

Nowadays, filesharing/pirating is greatly discussed. What is your view on filesharing and what do you think about the medium 'Internet' in general?

Internet is really important media for bands today, if you don’t have a website, it’s really hard for people to find any information about the band. Filesharing has good and bad sides, you can easily find new bands and get their music, but then the actual records aren’t been bought, so artists and records companies loose money. Of course it’s easier to click the mouse button once and download album for free, than click the mouse button twice and order the album from the netstore…

Thanks for your time Harri. Anything else you would like to say? The last words are yours!

Thanks for the interview and have a nice day all readers!

[This interview was first published on the now defunct scandinavianmetal.info webzine]