We caught up with Timo from …And Oceans for a chat about how all things old become new again.
How does it feel to be working together again as …And Oceans?
It feels great. Great to be back in the Business. [I’m] really looking forward to touring. But we might have to wait a bit for that. We have such a great line-up now and [a] great album coming out [that] things couldn’t be better from [my] perspective.
Since the dissolution of …And Oceans we got a few albums from you guys under the name Havoc Unit (killer ones too!) what inspired that change and why come back as …And Oceans?
We released one album with Havoc Unit. Then Magenta Harvest with which [there were] two full length albums. That band is on a hiatus now though. We also released one album with our old death metal band Festerday.
Havoc Unit was [a] continuation of …And Oceans in that we took industrial stuff to a new level. That was one reason. We lost a few members then.
I [felt] it was time to come back with …And Oceans. We had talked about this a few times [over] the years. We decided to rehearse late 2017 and play some old songs. That was the turning point for the comeback. We started rehearsing more. Word got out that something was cooking and we started to get gig offers. The rest is history.
Tell us more about the new album Cosmic World Mother how did it come together?
The story is more or less the same as with every album. [We write] lots of riffs and melodies then [arrange them to] make demos of them into complete songs. [A] minor challenge was arranging them since I wanted to try different riffs and [experiment] with the drummer using different drum patterns. The fact that we live so far away from each other didn’t help this. So we instead arranged demo sessions with our keyboard player and used a drum machine.
“We can’t support our upcoming album with gigs…”
This time we [have] two songs that our keyboard player [wrote on] keyboard first and I just [layered] guitars [over] them. The title track is one of them.
When we had demos ready we shared everything with the whole band and took suggestions [for] arrangements and re-recorded if needed.
The final stage [is where] Mathias (Finntroll) wrote lyrics and [made] vocal arrangements.
Sadly the music industry is suffering a big of a hiatus at the moment. How are you you all dealing with the current world crisis and how has it impacted you as a band?
We can’t support our upcoming album with gigs etc. We hope that people find our album nevertheless. We’re waiting for this to calm down and for the possibility of having gigs again. In the meantime I have started to write new music for [our] next album. This is perfect time for that kind of activity – keeping yourself busy.
Of course there is not much we can do about it, but adapt and wait for better times.
What does the future hold for …And Oceans?
New album out in May. Then we try [to] reschedule our club gigs here in Finland. We [are] looking [at] the possibility to tour abroad, but that is most likely next year [at] the earliest.
[Article edited for brevity – Ed]
