What are your personal feelings about Follow the Reaper and what makes it different from the previous albums? 
Well, as a musician, it could have been better of course.  [laughs]  As a guy who wants to do everything perfectly, there's always something…  It's very good though, nothing to complain about.  Peter Tätgren was very good at producing the sound, so we are very happy with it.  It's much deeper.  The Hatebreeder album was right in your face, bang, but this one you have to listen more carefully.  After three or four times, then it is like opening to you.  People have been saying that it is a difficult album to listen to but, after a while they come and are like, 'Oh, these songs are very good, now I get the point.'

Follow the Reaper is a definite step forward.  Did you have it in mind to write something different from Hatebreeder and Something Wild or did it just happen that way?
We just make the songs which are to ourselves good songs.  We don't think about making it difficult or different, no no - it's just good songs and that's it, we don't think about anything else.  So it just developed that way, we didn’t try to be Dream Theater or something. [laughs]  In the live situation, I think the songs are going to be very killer

The vocals have remained very much as extreme as ever – is that important?
Of course, there are people who say, 'You should get clean vocals so you will sell more albums,' and we're like, "No no no…'  It's part of our music, an instrument like the others, it's just that way. Peter Tätgren had very good ideas on how to use voice on the new album, because he is a vocalist himself, so he had some very good and amazing ideas.

How important are the lyrics to you?  Seems like an afterthought for a lot of bands nowadays. 
Not so important as the music of course.  All the lyrics on the first and second album, they were kind of about anger and feelings like hate and stuff like that.  But on the new album, we have for example one drinking song [laughs], which just tells about our lifestyle.  Of course, there is still a very dark point of view.

What environment do you need to be in to work on music? 
Well, mostly everything comes at night.  Alexi makes all the music and brings it to the rehearsal room and then we start rehearsing it and arrange it a lot.  We spend a lot of time and effort to arrange the music and try different things, so that it is the best possible..  On this album, we had a little difficulty.  We made all the music and then we noticed that it's not so good, so we had to reschedule the studio a little bit, to make everything sound very good.  It's just the best way to work for us, as Alexi is very good at writing songs and lyrics, so we let him do it because he knows it very well.

What inspired you to call the album Follow the Reaper? 
Of course, we were thinking very much about what it would be called.  For us, it is very almost obvious name because the reaper guy has been our symbol all the way.  It's not quite like Iron Maiden's Eddie for us, but it is kind of the same thing and we want to keep it that way.  It will be there somehow on every album we make.

Back when you released Something Wild, did you think to have the reaper theme on the album covers continue the way it has or is that an album-by-album decision?
No, it was kind of by accident.  When we were deciding the cover for the first album, we went through tons of pictures and then it just came.  It was a very little picture in the corner of one page of one book and we were like, 'Boy, that is very cool!'  When we did the second album, it was very obvious, okay, we will use it always.  It's a powerful character - powerful but still kind of mystical.  Perhaps in the future when we are going to do our last album, he is waving good-bye or something. [laughs]

Did the recording go pretty smoothly for this one?
Oh yes.  It was different, because so far we've always used the same studio, which is located in eastern Finland, but now we decided to escape the same sound.  We wanted to have a raw and tight sound and The Abyss studio is perfect for that.  Dimmu Borgir and Destruction have done their albums there and Peter Tätgren is very good at creating a very tight sound, but not forgetting the attitude in the sound.  We had a few problems with the older studio, as they wanted to do a very clean and technical sound.  It's not so far away from here, it was easy to go there.  It's a very peaceful place.  As you know, it was an old mental institution [laughs], so it has a very peaceful atmosphere.

How has the reaction been so far?
Well..  we haven't played any gigs, for example here in Finland yet, but then we'll know what people really think about it.  When we released the album, we opened our new website and there have been very good comments about it.  It has been selling pretty good here in Finland, too, so I guess people haven't forgotten about us.  But I like to wait for the live gigs to see what's going to happen, but I think it is going to be cool.

Your upcoming European tour is with Primal Fear - how did you hook that up?
Well, we had a few difficulties arranging schedules with Sinergy, as Alexi plays with that band too, so that was the choice we were offered.  Our album will have been out for about 3 weeks by the time it starts, so it is a very good time to tour.  People will have bought it and listened to it a while and then we come and play live.  We don't want to wait until summer to go tour, so we decided to take that tour.  It's something like 4 weeks.

And then you go to Japan.  Can you tell me a bit about your experiences last time you went there?
We were there with In Flames.  We played only 3 gigs and we recorded the live album there, Tokyo Warhearts.  It was our first time there and the people were amazing.  It was totally amazing how well they knew our music.  Very polite and fanatic people at the same time.  It was very cool and a very important trip for us and I'm really looking forward to going back there in April, when we will have five gigs.

Was it your idea to do the live album or the label?
The label.  At first, when we heard about it we were like, 'No way!'  It's really bizarre for a band that has released 2 albums to make a live album, but we decided to record them and then decided whether we would release it or not.  When we mixed it, it sounded cool, so we let it go.  It was a limited edition for the true fans, but it has been printed like 20,000 copies or something.  I think it is very good when I listen to it now.  There is mistakes, so it is a very very live album [laughs]

Do you have any say in the choice of singles?
We have released 3 singles, but only here in Finland.  We had "Children of Bodom" and "Downfall" and now "Hate Me!," which has been released in Europe also.  We have been recording a few cover songs for B-sides, such as W.A.S.P.'s "Hellion" and some for different tribute albums.  We want to do something for the fans here in Finland.  If we sell something like 50,000 copies, then almost 20,000 of those are sold here in Finland, so it is important to have something special for the fans here.  And it is very important to play them live also.  It's an important country for us.

Do you guys have an elaborate stage show or not?
We don't have any kind of stage show.  We've thought about it, but so far we have just been playing as accurately as we can.  We don't want to have too fancy of lights or anything - the music is the issue, not any special effects or pyrotechnics, we would only kill ourselves. [laughs]

Does the band get along pretty well?
Yeah, we like to spend a lot of time with each other, outside of the band also.  We go out to bars and whatever, you know.  It's more family to me than my true family, my mother and my father, because we practice very much and we have very much going on anyway.  If we don't practice, we might hang around the rehearsal room and listen to music or whatever.  We never fight or have disagreements, everything goes very smoothly.  Some bands have told us they are jealous because we are such good friends with each other. [laughs]

Can you tell me a bit about each member of the band?
For me..  me and Alexi are guitar players so we are the most 'musicians' in the band I guess.  Alexi is writing all the music so he is very good at playing guitar and writing music, but sometimes he has difficulty with normal life.  If he has to go to the tax office or whatever, it's impossible for him. [laughs]  I'm kind of like the same, but I like to have everything under control in my life.  Like I've always said, he's the guitar player and I'm the musician.  Then we have our drummer; he is a very good drummer and practices a lot.  He's kind of a dark-minded person, sometimes we don't know what he is talking about.  I don't want to say complicated, but kind of dark or something like that.  Our bass player is a very sporty guy, he plays golf and tennis, and our keyboard player is a very good player also, but he's not so much interested in music, which is interesting.  He's very good at drawing buildings and stuff like that, but his ambition is cars.  He's very multi-personality. [laughs]  He's like me, he wants everything to be under control all the time.

Since I'm here in the States, I have to ask - is there any hope for a tour of the US?
There has been discussions about it.  As you know, we did the Milwaukee Metalfest in July and it was very good.  There is nothing for sure about touring yet.  It would be really cool to come there and play because I know we have much fans there, so perhaps sometimes, but I don't know when.

Who are some musicians that really inspired you when you first started playing?
Well, of course, every guitar player has to mention Yngwie Malmsteen.  When I was like 14 or something, Yngwie was like, 'Whoa! This is amazing,' but also all the Ozzy Osbourne guitar players - Zakk Wylde, Jake E. Lee, Randy Rhoads - they are very good players and have very unique styles of playing.  One of the most amazing guitar players in the world is Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits.  He has a very moody playing style, even though he doesn't use a pick.  Everything he does fits with the music, he's very very good.  But if we are talking about bands, I like to listen to older stuff like older King Diamond or Slayer, it is much better than the new power metal bands like HammerFall - I hate those.  If I listen to a Primal Fear album, I'll go mad. [laughs]  Even though we have to tour with them, it doesn't mean I have to like their music.  Manowar is a very good band.  Even though I'm a guitar player, I don't like Dream Theater - it's too complicated.  I want to hear something just good songs and good riffs.  Nowadays, there are so many bands that just want to show their capability of playing.

I watched the video for "Everytime I Die" on your web-site.  Were you happy with how it turned out?
Well, we did it on a very tight schedule.  We came from the studio and Alexi was going on tour with Sinergy, so we had to do it in a week.  It could have been better, but it's okay.  The one thing I'm proud of…  My girlfriend watched the video and she was like, 'Oh, I'm going to get nightmares from this video,' and I was like, 'Oh, then it's good!'  [laughs]