Everfrost from Finland are young, full of power and love anime. The symphonic power metal band recently released their new EP Frostbites. Reason enough to ask the guys a few questions.
Hey Guys! First of all, thank you for being part of this interview. How are you? How was the new EP received by your fans?
We are doing great at the moment. The EP itself has been recieved very well! People seem to be digging the covers and the fact that we used multiple different vocalists on these tracks. We have also garnered some new fans thanks to these said vocalists, which we appreciate greatly!
You cover Manga songs on your new EP and there are different voices. Tell us a little bit about how this EP came to be.
This project was quite the ride, let me tell you. What should’ve been a small, quick side project before the 3rd album became actually much more of a task than we thought. We talked about making a cover EP of our favorite anime songs many years ago when we started with the original line-up and realized in time that many fans also wanted to see us do some anime songs covers. It was in fact before we went to Japan in early 2020 our former singer Mikael Salo came up with the idea to do it now as an EP called Frostbites, so we set about putting it together with a goal of it also being a production test for the upcoming third album. Of course as we all know the world situation with corona in 2020 made a lot of things hard and we had a lot of lineup changes that year also bringing the band to what it is today. This made the recording take longer than expected and we also parted ways with Mikael during the recording phase, which lead to us inviting guest vocalists ShiroNeko and Rob Lundgren on board to deliver the vocals. It was a challenge but we pulled through and are stronger than ever now. We also found our new lead singer Eveliina Tuulia towards the end of the EP’s production, whom we’re very happy with!
When it came to the song selection, everyone in the band, of course, had different favorite themes and songs, so it was a bit of a challenge to decide the best ones that we would like to cover and the audience (the fans) would recognize and like. Gotta Catch ‘Em All from Pokémon was always ‘a must’, since everyone in the band grew up on that show. Flyers from Death Parade was always a favorite for Jope and Benji, and it has this ‘Everfrosty’ vibe in it which made it a perfect candidate. ‘Hacking to the Gate’ and ‘A Cruel Angel’s Thesis’ were, in the end, the obvious choices for the remaining slots, since they are from many anime fans’ favorite shows, and have a special meaning to them. Many anime fans can say that Steins;Gate and Neon Genesis Evangelion, the series where those two songs are from, were one of the first anime series they watched.
Besides your great covers you also make your own music – the most famous song of you is definitely “Winterider”. How have you grown as a band over the years and what does a songwriting process look like for you?
The core focus has always been our own music even though we have done some covers here and there with this EP being something quite different for us. Keyboardist Benji has always been the songwriter and lyricist plus the one taking care of the arrangements. He’s a multi-instrumentalist so he’s adapted the parts for the various members who have been in the two main lineups of the band. Once the songs are presented to the band, everyone then puts their own spin and spice on their parts in the song, especially Jope with the drum parts and now Roi Partanen with the bass parts. Guitar solos are also always written by the lead guitarists being Markus Laito from 2015 – 2019 and now new lead guitarist Samuli Heiskanen from Frostbites 2022 onwards. Our new rhythm guitarist Joose Ylianttila is also a great arranger and has been actually rearranging the guitar parts of the first album’s songs to fit the heavier, rhythmic metal style we have with the new lineup. While Benji will be handling the songs for the third album as usual, some ideas for riffs and melodies will also come from other members.
What are you planning for your future as a band? Is it a fun project for you or do you want to go on the big stages?
This is definitely a serious band and we want to take it as far as we can, bring more listeners better and better music while staying sincere to who we are and what inspires us. It is of course quite an unorthodox concept we have, so we try to stay creative and think outside of the box with how we do things. We very much want to expand our live show possibilities and opportunities, however it’s been challenging as we’re still looking for a booking agent or to get onto a concert agency.
Tell us a little about yourselves and the individual members of the band. How old are you, where does your musical influence come from and what are your favorite mangas?
We’re all in our 20s with Benji being the oldest and Roi being the youngest. We actually listen to all kinds of music although we all commonly listen to metal and have many of the same favorite bands. Joose in particular probably has the most extensive music history knowledge and knows the most genres and bands, Roi is heavily into prog music and Eveliina has a large pop background. The biggest influences in the EVERFROST music would be local Finnish metal, anime music and some other genres like pop, eurobeat, industrial metal, disco etc
When it comes to manga/anime, we all have our favorites. For example Roi’s favorite is Neon Genesis Evangelion, Joose loves Ghost in the Shell, Samuli’s favorite is Konosuba, Steins;Gate is Benji’s all time favorite and Jope loves Overlord (anime) and My Dress-up Darling (manga).
Could you share a stage with a band of your choice, which one would it be and why?
Of course we all have our favorite bands, (for example Jope would immediately say Metallica) but we would want to play with the bands our fans would want to see also, so it could be better to ask them haha! One band though that would be awesome to play with is Beast in Black since they are so loved in the modern power metal world and even have some anime/manga influences too. Benji is also friends with their singer Yannis.
What can we expect from you in the future, what is planned?
The next thing we’re gonna concentrate on is playing some shows and finishing the third album. As we mentioned, Benji has been hard at work in composing the new songs with some help from the rest of the crew as well, and the album’s concept and idea for the story has already been decided. We’re also greatly looking forward to producing and recording our new singer Eveliina Tuulia!
Here you can still do a little advertising for you and send a few words to fans and followers.
Thank you to each and everyone of you in the Everfrost family (yes all you fans) for being so patient these last few years! It’s been a bumpy road, but here we are, stronger than ever! Hope to see you all soon as we get things planned and rolling again!
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