YDIN interview 2007

Things went pretty simple; I like both YDIN’s demo so I send them this intie. These sociopaths really convinced me with their malignant brutal death metal. They sing in their native tongue but without understanding a single finnish word I just feel enough ferocity in their music to enjoy it and dare to say that YDIN is able to stab and please any bloody death metal freaks out there; now enter the morgue for a mutilating lesson.

-Hell-o all members of YDIN, how are you doing guys? What are you going to listen while answering this bloody interview? It’s time to introduce our readers to the musical “core” of YDIN, please sum up the band history.
Ahmis (guitar):
Hey, just came from rehearsals…going to open a tequila bottle and listen to some Finnish punk band called “Puhelinkoppi” (phone booth)…
Ydin philosophy is that when you think about the sickest things in the world –
you find out that the one of those things is a human mind, the human's core (ydin). Sick, twisted and brutal sides of mind. These things Ydin creates in music and lyrics.
About the history of Ydin, it was year 2003 when Kangas was gathering some musicians from Ylivieska…and lineup was found almost in a couple days.
Our musical direction was crystal clear from the very beginning – fucking brutal and raw death metal sung in Finnish.
Well, we trained like maniacs and soon we had 5 tracks ready for the Verityöt (blood works)
and the recordings started in year 2004 in Coffin-studios that was operated by Löytynoja.
Silvottuna ja häpäistynä (Mutilated and dishonoured) recordings started in February 2005 and after we finished the recordings, Löytynoja decided to leave his drummer position in Ydin.
Kuusisalo joined Ydin in August 2005 and nowadays Ydin is more ruthless than ever.
That´s about it - our history in shorter version...
Kangas (guitar):
Hi. Nothing more to say about our history. I´m listening a new Watain album and drinking coffee. Basic shitty ordinary evening.
Kuusisalo (drums):
Hey. At the moment I'm listening “Informis Infinitas Inhumanitas” by Origin. Ahmis already told the history so...

-I discovered your band through an ad you put on “Voices from the Darkside” webzine’s forum promoting your last material. How has been the response towards YDIN’s music so far? I guess you have more feedback coming from Finland actually, right?
Ahmis:
Feedback has been very good and surprisingly it has been better from the foreign zines.
That shows that there is no problem with language barrier and there is a demand for us.
I have promoted Ydin almost every place, hopefully you aren’t the only one who finds or contacts us.

-YDIN is a very young band but did the members have others bands before or do they have other bands/side projects today? Why do you choose to play death metal? What are the elements you find attractive about death metal?
Ahmis:
Somewhere in 1995 I got my first bass guitar and joined to punk band, not sure when it broke up and my bassist career ended also…. my first metal band called Malignus was formed in 1997 and nowadays I have second band called Teardown – it’s very different kind of metal than Ydin…but that is why it’s interesting. I like to write/play many kind of music, but death metal is surely my main genre after all, I like its honest brutality.
Kuusisalo:
I’ve had few bands in the past but none of them really achieved anything so they aren’t really worth of mentioning. At the moment I play in two bands, Ydin and another band called Fatal
Sound Project which is also some kind of death metal I guess but not nearly as brutal or dark as Ydin. It’s more melodic and so on.
Kangas:
Main thing that I like in death metal is the crushing and suffocating feeling that it brings. It is just so ruthless. Every member has some playing experience in bands before Ydin, which is very good thing. I´m playing also bass in a metal/rock band beside Ydin.

-Listening to “Silvottuna ja hapaistyna”, I would describe it as brutal and raw death metal with black metal touches (because of some riffs and some raging dark atmospheres). Is black metal a conscious influence and do you have any interest in this style? A song like “Verivaltias” is close to black/death metal stuff like for example ANGEL CORPSE.
Kangas:
It is not any considered thing that “lets put some black riffs here and death riffs there...” Riffs just come from our twisted minds and if some riff does not work it will be modified or replaced with some better. New songs will continue quite same line that Silvottuna ja Häpäistynä.
Kuusisalo:
I guess we all have listened to black metal pretty much so it’s natural that you can hear it in our music. Some people seem to dislike our black metal influences but I think it's only good because it brings more variety into our songs.

-As said previously, YDIN unleashes death metal with a particular
sombre and suffocating vibe. How do you manage to make us feel your evil intents? The alternation of guttural vocals and screams ones are also enforcing these feelings. What makes you create those sick and disgusting tracks?
Ahmis:
In my opinion, a range of thoughts must be in anger and disgust, these elements are present in every day life, then you don’t have to try to make vicious music, it comes naturally from you. A discontent should be present in everyone’s life, it pushes you to develop things - if you are satisfied – you stay on your own false loop and stay there.
So what makes me to do this? – Anger, ambish.

-Is there a label that would fit to YDIN’s brutal music and imagery? Do you feel close to this wave of ultra brutal US bands spread by labels as Unique Leader or Unmatched Brutality? According to you, how a band shall act to get apart from the numerous death metal bands of today?
Kuusisalo:
I haven’t really thought of any label that would or wouldn’t fit to our music but I guess it’s pretty obvious that it has to be a label that spreads extreme metal. I don’t think we are really close to those really brutal bands music because after all, we have pretty many different “wibes” in our music. Not only full speed blast beats all the time etc. I'm not saying that there's something wrong with the bands that do that (I listen that kind of bands too) but that isn't “our cup of tee”.

-I guess horror movies are a creative fuel for YDIN members. Do you see the “Saw” movies where a diseased man punishes people he considers not appreciating life as it must be? I think YDIN tracks would have been nice soundtracks for these movies? Are there Finnish horror movie makers who released sick shit?
Ahmis:
Yeah, I have seen those Saw movies and those were quite good, very cool ideas.
From my childhood, I have loved horror movies. Nightmare in Elm Street is one of my favourites…so perhaps it can be said that horror movies have influenced me because I have grown up with those.
We had in one gig this so called “ MassacreMedia “ that contained war and horror movie shit build in quite mind blowing form, it worked very well aside with our music so perhaps we use it again in the future.
Sadly I don’t know any horror movie makers here in Finland but I am sure there is many.
Kangas:
Saw movies are great. Haven’t seen the third one yet but I wait a lot about it. Horror movies in generally are great because the atmosphere is so good. Evil Dead is one of my all time favourites.
-YDIN lyrics are sung in Finnish and give a particular touch to the band; it strengthens the aggressiveness. Was it an aim to take distances with other Finnish bands? Did you try to sing your actual songs in English just to hear if it could sound different or better?
Ahmis:
We haven’t wrote any songs in English or tested how it would sound like.
It isn’t impossible idea that we would someday write material in English but so far there hasn’t been any reason to do so.
As I said, it was a natural choice to sing in Finnish and it felt right thing for us all, if a bad makes this kind or any kind of decision based to something like
“we want to be different that you guys…” – it would be false start even to make music in my opinion.
-Finland has always been a nest of talented death metal bands like DEMILICH, DEMIGOD, FUNEBRE, DEPRAVITY, ADRAMELECH, etc… The actual death metal scene is promising as well with bands like yours, NERLICH, TORTURE KILLER, STENCH OF DECAY, DEEP RED, SLUGATHOR, etc… Do you have any contacts with the bands mentioned? Can you name some more talented you would recommend?
Ahmis:
We live in the middle of nowhere so it means generally that we don’t have any contacts.
Surely it would help to know right peoples, for example it’s almost impossible to get gigs around this area or nearby…but when we will get Ydin to the position we want, it will be sweeter accomplishment than anything.
Band called Incarnate is one great act from Finland, you should check them out.
Kuusisalo:
I think that a band called Fornjotr is really going to get far with their music. They are really young and they are playing pretty brutal and technical death metal and I really recommend all to check them.

-Talking about 90’s Finnish death metal wave, one can notice that very few acts kept playing death metal but evolved in weird or non-metal orientation like SENTENCED, CONVULSE, DEMIGOD, XYSMA or DISGRACE. What do you think about those bands and their nowadays musical orientation? A band like ADRAMELECH kept playing pure death metal. Do you like their shit? How do you think YDIN will evolve with the years?
Ahmis:
Ydin will stay in death metal for sure. I don’t judge the decisions of those bands that have chanced their ways, but surely I respect more those kinds of bands like Adramelech or anyone who believes in what they are doing and keep their flag high.
I believe that Ydin will develop more and more after every release, it cannot be said in this point what kind of changes there will be but in death we stay.
Kuusisalo:
Like Ahmis said, we don’t want to limit our music really but I also think that because we started to play death metal, it shall also be that in the future. Nothing against those bands you mentioned. Everyone is allowed to choose their own styles like they want.

-Metal is very popular in Finland and it’s not rare that some bands reach the charts or play at national contests as witnessed recently, if you see what I mean. What’s your view on this? Don’t you consider metal as a restricted and underground thing which is something that shall scare or repulse “normal” people? What’s your opinion in the way that metal becoming more and more mainstream?
Ahmis:
Thing is that there might be more opportunities now for bands because metal music has grown popular – but that haven’t brought us anything. If talking about mainstream metal, you can always choose not to take part to that “carnival”, so I don’t give a shit if there is a mainstream or not, important is that you know your place and what is for you…
Kangas:
I think that heavy boom in Finland has grown too big. Metal is so fucking cool thing that everyone “loves” it and shows devil horns in magazines and in television. I think that the boom will go away in few years or at least I hope so. Good thing about popularity is that there are a lot of good gigs.

-Can you tell us about YDIN and gigs? How many of them did you perform? With which bands do you hare the stage? Have you had some memorable moments (bad or good) you would share with our readers?
Kangas:
We have done only few gigs so far. The reason for that is that we live in a small city in the middle of nowhere and our music is too brutal for local gig places. And another thing is that we don’t have contacts to the right people.
In the next week we will throw our third gig and I hope it will beat the shit off from the audience. There is nothing special to mention about our gigs so far. First we throw a gig as good as possible and then drink a lot of alcohol.
Ahmis:
We have played our gigs in band events with many kind of bands.
Hopefully we will get more chances to play live in future when we’ll release new material and people will start to know us, we sure are ready.

-YDIN is currently working on new material to release an EP, right? In which format will this stuff be released? How many tracks are there? What can you say about them compared to your previous demo-tracks?
Kuusisalo:
We’re not sure about the format yet but maybe something more “professional” than CD-R but like I said, not sure yet. It will contain five tracks that in my opinion are stronger than the old songs. The new ones are more crushing but they still have really dark atmospheres at some points.
Ahmis:
The drums have been recorded to five tracks in this point and soon we start to record rest of instruments and vocals.
Material is more furious, cold and sharp than our latest releases for sure, I have been eager to record and release new songs with Kuusisalo, his drumming skills have brought more power to Ydin and of course we all have developed with our instruments.

-Beside YDIN, do you have any other activities (musical or not)? Has your drummer any training to keep healthy as he plays intense drumming?
Ahmis:
I do some visual arts like CD layouts, web-design etc. I have made so far Ydin artworks and am planning to continue this way. More can be found in my personal websites (ahmis.com)
Beside that, I am keeping the fluid balance stabile with alcohol… Hahah!
Kuusisalo:
Training... well besides drumming, I try to drink a lot of beer to keep myself fit. Seriously, it would be a great help for my drumming if I had time to do something like running, biking etc. but because I’m so damn busy with my bands and studying, I don’t have time for that.
Kangas:
I like to walk in the woods with my shotgun. It is very relaxing.

-What’s your knowledge about my country? Do you have any contact with French bands, labels, zines and distro? How do Finnish people consider France and its president for example?
Kangas:
Well, something about France. Hmm, I think that we don’t have any contacts from there. Deathspell Omega comes from France and it is awesome. I remember the riots and immigrant problems in past years. I think that basic Finn don’t have any special image about your president and main thing about France what they think, is that it’s one of the biggest authors that effects in EU´s policy.

-I think I asked almost everything, so thanks for your time. Good luck with YDIN. If you wish to add anything, it’s time for final punishment.
Ahmis:
For those who don´t know us yet, go visit our website http://www.ydinband.com/, we offer all our releases for download etc.
Thanks for interview, cheers!