Insomnium: "I hate AI in art form"

Insomnium are arriving at their 10th studio album, with a consistency that remains remarkable. Markus Vanhala explains the "black magic" behind their non-stop productivity, talks about "Shadowlife", a simpler and more commercial song they wrote on purpose that landed a spot on the playlist of Finnish Radio Rock, and explains why artificial intelligence has no place in their work.

Markus welcome to Rocking.gr and thank you for joining us. I’m really happy to have the chance to talk with you. We have an inside joke inside the editors of Rocking.gr. Every time you release an album, we're like, how can these guys never miss? With every album, they do it again. They make a great album. So what is the secret behind your continuous productivity, both in terms of frequency of releases but also in terms of quality? What is the secret recipe?

I don't know. Magic, black magic. (laughs) I guess it's always competing with yourself. Like, you don't want to do worse than you did before with your own music. So it's always a challenge, because it's never easy to do music. Even though it might look like it's easy because I'm so productive, it's getting harder the older you get, because you always have to challenge yourself and do better than last time. And you have to please your bandmates first. They are the biggest critics (laughs) of our work. And I guess that's about it. And I still have a burning heart for doing music and loving this, what I'm doing.

I still have a burning heart for doing music and loving this, what I'm doing

This is your 10th record. Was there any kind of direction that you had in mind when you started getting into it? I believe you have mentioned that there was a conscious direction to go towards a more northern, melancholic kind of sound. So what was the difference between your previous album and this one in terms of what you were aiming to do while composing it?

Well, the previous album, "Anno 1696", that was quite a dark album and extreme album in the Insomnium scale. Not in maybe another, different band scale, but for Insomnium it was a quite blackish album.

Now my dog started to shout there. (clears throat) If you hear something weird, that's my Irish Wolfhound screaming really black, black metal vocals. (laughs)

But yeah, that comes as a bridge to the previous Insomnium album, which was kind of like the blackest album in the Insomnium scale. And the story was about, a dark history of Finland, and it was also composed during pandemic times, which were pretty fucked up times in the world, and it became quite a dark album. And then we felt like with this new album that we wanted to go a bit back in the Insomnium catalog and take a dose of the older Insomnium, which is a bit more hopeful. And so we wanted to share these older shades of Insomnium music to this album.

We got probably inspired because we did the anniversary tour for the "Shadows of the Dying Sun" album. I think we did it in Europe, USA and Australia, Asia, where we played that album as a whole. So we probably got some inspiration from our past doing that, and wanted to kind of go in that way in this new album.

I believe you have mentioned that you wanted to write an obvious hit with "Shadowlife". So how can you write a melodic death metal hit? Is there any rule that you have, or anything? I guess from your experience in concerts maybe you know what drives the audience a bit and what might be "clicking" for them.

Yeah, it was just a really fast conversation, actually, in my home studio. "Shadowlife" was pretty much the last, last song we wrote for the new album. And it was just listening to some demos with a beer in hand and sipping beers, and then having just a conversation, like, but it would be nice to try something simpler and so-called commercial in an Insomnium way. If some, like, because metal is huge in Finland and radio stations are still playing metal, but Insomnium has never been in playlists.

So that was just a neat idea, like, let's challenge ourselves, do that kind of Insomnium song which is not selling the band's soul and still sounds like Insomnium, but might have some chance to go on national radio. And then we did "Shadowlife", and actually our evil plan worked, and it's now in a playlist of Finnish Radio Rock, and it's been played many, many times a day here. So, mission accomplished. Yeah, our evil plan kind of worked. So easy. Insomnium 1, music business 0.

Insomnium 1, music business 0

This is how it should be.

Yeah, we did that after all.

The album opens with a cover song, which is "The Cold Song". What is the idea behind this, and using it as an opening track for the album?

Well, Insomnium has never recorded any cover song yet. So this is the first cover song we recorded, and it was quite a difficult task to think what cover to do, because we've never done one before. And Niilo and I have spoken for years about this song. This is actually an aria from an opera by Henry Purcell, and so the original version is really different than what we have in the album. And so this felt good, because it's a really dramatic song, and I think that's the darkest track on the new album. So opening with a really dark theme.

And it fit Insomnium perfectly also story-wise, because we are from Finland, it's cold, and actually the song is singing a story about a person freezing to death. And then actually the composer himself, after this song, he actually died by freezing to death in his own garden when he was returning from the pub and his wife didn't open the door. So he froze to death in his own garden. That's a really Insomnium-like story. So that's why we picked this song as a starter, and I think it turned out really well. We wanted to do a Clockwork Orange-style version of this song, and it works perfectly as an intro.

Insomnium albums usually have an intro, because we like this cinematic style of album. We like to have an intro and an outro, and a dramatic set of songs in the middle. And we still see albums as a whole and not just like a different set of songs. Unfortunately, people are streaming individual songs nowadays and not listening to the full albums, but we still try to do the full experience with the album.

I'm pretty sure the fans who appreciate your music are actually going for the experience, maybe getting a physical copy and going through everything.

Yeah, in the metal field, it's still working, that people are buying physical records, and a lot of collectors in this field.

Indeed that’s the case. So also have some guests on the album. On "The Hour Grows Late", three members of Amorphis end up in the song. Can you tell us a bit how this idea came about, and what elements were you looking to bring into the music through this collaboration?

Yeah, it's a bit by an accident, that when I composed that song, I played this trippy acid keyboard solo in the middle by myself to the demo, and I was already thinking, like, I want to ask my really good friend Santeri Kallio from Amorphis and Cemetery Skyline to play on this track. Then when we were studio recording this album, our producer Miiro Varjus said that he's been thinking to ask both Tommis from Amorphis to sing on this album, on this song. And then I said, this is too good of a coincidence, because I already had asked Santeri to be here. And so, it was perfect synchronicity not to use. So that's how three members of Amorphis came for this song.

And I just love the idea of Miiro, to ask Tomi Koivusaari to do growlings and Tomi Joutsen sing only cleans, as Tomi Koivusaari used to be the original growling singer of Amorphis. And back in the day, in the dark '90s, Amorphis was one of the biggest bands to influence our music. So that's a great full circle moment for us.

I think this is the longest track on the album, at about 8 minutes. Thematically, it's a bit about aging and time running out. Does the theme feel maybe a bit more personal to you as a band, for a band that's been around for 30 years? Are there still things that you are looking to accomplish, or are you feeling the pressure of time to still keep at it, still push the boundaries and try new things?

It's still about doing the thing we love, which is called music. That's the main point. But yeah, as we are getting old, time is just disappearing more and more. And then you notice that your friends and relatives are dying from your side. And that's pretty much what the album deals with. And that's just a testimony of getting old and everything disappearing, and how "The Hour Grows Late" is that kind of story, that your loved one is deceasing and you stay here alone.

And it's quite a progressive song. It's the longest and most progressive song on the album, and Insomnium albums have always had this kind of, like, one longer song at least. Like, our previous album had "Godforsaken" and "The Rapids", and  the previous one had "Pale Morning Star". So this goes hand in hand with those songs, that it's one shade of Insomnium.

Since you said about being progressive, i have to hear it from you: is "Winter's Gate" one song or as different songs? Because in my mind, it's like a huge progressive metal epic, so to speak.

I count this as one song, a 40-minute song. And we hate it when iTunes and streaming software wanted to cut it in seven different tracks, because it was supposed to be one track. But I understand that, but in my world, it's one track.

Okay, then I'm not alone. At least hearing it from you, I'm not alone in considering this as a single track.

You have my blessing. (laughs)

Thank you. So also now you worked again with Jens Bogren for the mix. I believe this is the first time since "Heart Like a Grave". What was the decision behind this collaboration?

It felt natural again to work with him. He did a good job with "Heart Like a Grave", and he's been working with my other band, Omnium Gatherum's, previous two albums, and always doing a really good job. And now when we were bouncing ideas for a mixing guy, Bogren came, and he did a master job on this. So, job well done (laughs)

You also had some changes  in the lineup. So Tomy is now from a touring guitarist to a full member, I believe since January. So did he write any material for the album, or did this change a bit the dynamic of the writing process for your band?

Yeah, three years ago my really good buddy Jani Liimatainen kind of disappeared and was missing in action, and then we just had to get a stand-in guy for tours. And Tomy has been my friend of 25 years, and also other guys knew him really well, so it was really easy to get him on board. And he did a great job on filling in, and then after one year we just asked him to join the band, because he's a great musician, a great guy, and can compose good music. So everything is top-notch with Tomy. Easy fit for the band. And he did some demos, and then "The Banished" is his track on the album, we polished it, and it sounds exactly like Insomnium. So Tomy has an Insomnium heart.

Nice. Also, maybe a bit more personal question to you, but you write also for Omnium Gatherum and for Cemetery Skyline. So there's a lot of distribution of ideas between different bands. Is there any preconceived concept in your mind when you have an idea, to which outlet this idea belongs to?

It is crystal clear, always crystal clear, or perfectly dark in my head, always. I know exactly what band I'm writing for. And sometimes it's been crazy, like now when there's so many different outlets, when also Cemetery Skyline came on the table. So especially with this Insomnium album, I was writing songs for an Insomnium album and thinking, like, I have to write for Insomnium because the deadline is coming. So I accidentally, when I had, like, days that nothing, nothing came from Insomnium, then I actually accidentally wrote many songs for Cemetery Skyline. So it's good to have an outlet. Like, if something is not coming together for this band, then accidentally you write for another band. So it's good. This riff doesn't have anything to do with Insomnium, so let's use this for something different. I think it also keeps my mind more fresh, that you can, I'm not forced to write only in one style. So I can use different scales of music. (laughs)

Also, I think the artwork of the album is really impressive. Probably one of your best ones, I think. So how did you choose to collaborate with Travis Smith for this one? I believe this is your first time working with him, right?

Yeah, this is the first time. We were just bouncing some ideas, and then I think I said, like, you've never worked with Travis Smith, and he's like a household name. He's been doing so many great artworks for whatever, Opeth and Katatonia, Devin Townsend and stuff like that. And then all the guys were like, that's exactly true, why haven't we used Travis before? And then we asked if he wanted to be on board, and he was of course interested, and he was really easy to work with.

He was fast and painted a lot. In a few days we got a lot of stuff from him, and then we noticed that he's really great. And we sent him the lyrics and a little bit of a concept, and he immediately knew what we needed for this, and that's how it came out. He's a real professional, and the result, I think, speaks for itself.

Going into a bit of a controversial discussion related to your art, but there has been some criticism about some of your videos for using AI. So, comparing this to using Travis Smith for the cover, I wanted to see your opinion on AI usage in creative outlets, and if you understand the criticism and  what is your stance on this matter?

I hate AI in art form. That's my honest opinion. The first video didn't have any AI, and "The Hour Grows Late" video is definitely not having any AI. And I don't know what Patric Ullaeus was thinking. We didn't know that he's going to be using AI... He also did music videos for Cemetery Skyline, and they were really great. We said that we wanted to get a '90s vibe music video, and so that was the key word, because in the '90s there was no artificial intelligence. But for this new video, somehow he made this decision that he was using a lot of AI.
And I think this video was even cancelled by our label, Sony, Century Media Music, because it has too much artificial intelligence, and Sony has some rules about that. Now that video is not online anymore (laughs), which of course sucks, but I can understand that. I don't like AI on stuff like this. I would never do music with AI.

So I don't want to dig my own grave

I guess there's a lot of controversy on this, but the nature of human creativity is something that is very difficult to replicate.

Yeah, I would feel useless if I would try to do Insomnium music with some AI software and the result was good. My self-esteem would be devastated. I would be worthless. And composing music is one of the only things I'm quite good at. So that would make me feel totally worthless. So I don't want to dig my own grave.

For sure. Now back on the album, there's going to be an extended version coming out with three more songs. What should we expect from this and how did you choose which songs stay out of the regular version and into this extended one?

Yeah, that's the artbook of the album. That is always some democratical process, that all people are voting the songs, and this is how it ended up this time, that the songs which were left out, they're as strong as the songs on the album, but now they didn't fit into the regular version of the album. So they are just standalone tracks, but it doesn't make them any less valuable songs.

Moving on to the tour plans, what can we expect from the tour, and should we expect a visit to our place in Greece as well? You have some connections now with having a guest from Sakis Tolis in your album so it’s definitely time to be back here.

Sakis did a great job on "White Christ" and is my good friend. I love Rotting Christ. We are starting this week from Finland. We are having a Finnish tour as a starter, and then have a North American tour with Amorphis, and then European tour with Amorphis, and then we are having some Asia and Australia after that, and then it's summer festivals. There is some talks for '27.

Okay, I'm keeping it as a scoop (laughs).

I wish I could tell all the plans, but of course you know how it goes...

I understand. Any time for Omnium Gatherum as well, or is it, like, Insomnium 100% for you for the coming year?

There’s always time. Next month we are going to Malta, with Omnium Gatherum, as our singer Jukka was having health issues. He had this lymphoma, and he couldn't join us for the previous European tour, but now he's getting better, and now he can travel, and he joins us in Malta. And next year we are doing a European tour with The Halo Effect and Lacuna Coil and Omnium Gatherum. So definitely doing that. And also the new Cemetery Skyline album is into work. So we keep busy, no rest. I’m always keeping myself a bit too busy, and that's my way of life. But that's how I live my life.

Thank you so much for your time. If you have any message for your Greek fans, now’s the time to share it!

Malaka. Malaka. (laughs) Yeah, we are definitely trying our best to come back, and I have a good vibe that we are going to be there next year. There are definitely some plans already flying, and I've seen something. So, fingers crossed that it happens.

Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. Looking forward to see you maybe in 2027. Fingers crossed. And again, congrats on the new album, and keep up all the good music that you do.

Thank you so much. Thank you for kind words, this was a pleasure.