Exclusive Interview with Black Light Discipline

MusicReview had the honour of chatting to Janne Kankkunen, the man behind the programming and synth effects for Finnish electro-metal giants Black Light Discipline. Read on to find out what he had to say about Rammstein comparisons, Finland’s abundance of talent, and BLD’s plans for 2010.

BLD’s sound is extremely different. When the band first started, how did you decide which direction to take?
At the beginning, we had a vision about being more of an electronic band without guitars and only with electronic drums. After some testing, we realised that we wanted to have a more aggressive live sound and that’s when BLD’s sound started to form – after all, all of us like metal/aggressive music. At that time, I was listening to a lot bands, such as Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein, Samael, Prodigy, but also more atmospheric stuff such as Ulver, Massive Attack, etc. I think that these bands had a big influence on the style of music we started to create. We like to mix different styles and make it hard for others to categorise us (laughs).

So then tell us who are the biggest ‘metalheads’ of the band?
I’d say that all of us like it, but the biggest consumers of that style might be our drummer Veikka and guitarist Antti.

Children of Bodom, Nightwish, Sonata Arctica, Apocalyptica, and now Black Light Discipline – how does Finland produce such amazing metal bands?
It’s hard to say. Metal music is quite popular in Finland, and as I remember from my childhood, bands such as WASP, KISS, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden etc. were really popular here amongst most of my friends and me. Also, Finnish people can be quite persistent!

If you were given the opportunity to tour outside your country, which other nations would you like to visit?
Maybe Germany, France, and United States – but actually there are quite a few countries where we wouldn’t like to tour!

If somebody described BLD as “The Finnish Rammstein”, would you take it as a compliment?
I’d take it as a compliment.  Although, I might comment that there are similar kinds of elements, but we sound quite different, in my opinion – one major difference is our vocalist’s singing style. I think that the “Finnish Rammstein” title should go to a band like Ruoska.

What are BLD’s plans for 2010?
We will release our new single titled ‘Aggressor’ next month. After that, we’ll start to work on the next full length album. It should be released at the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011. We are going to create a new music video soon and start to do some more live gigs – we have been a bit lazy in that area recently.

Thanks for your time, Janne. Where can our readers find out more about you?
Thanks! Check out our homepage at www.bld.fi. Also, our next live gig will be at Graveyard Party – Helsinki Finland with Diary Of Dreams, Hanzel Und Gretyl, Proteus, Turmion Kätilöt etc. on the 30th of April – 1st of May.

- Sergio Pereira
sergio@musicreview.co.za
Join MusicReview on Facebook