Review Fix chats with guitarist and Ragnarok Juletide founder Erkka Korhonen who discusses the ten-year anniversary of the symphonic metal christmas project, it’s first year in English and its goals for the future. Although often compared to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Ragnarok Juletide is a different animal entirely.
Review Fix: How has the Trans-Siberian Orchestra influenced you?
Erkka Korhonen: TSO was the main influence when I started creating Ragnarok Juletide, or “Raskasta Joulua” as we’re known in Finland. This was 10 years ago. I got a homemade christmas “mix tape” cd from a friend of mine and it had “Sarajevo 12/24” and “Mad Russian’s Christmas” from TSO. I instantly liked the mix of classical Christmas tradition and hard rock that they were doing. This led to the idea of doing something similar with Finnish metal vocalists, doing both domestic and international material.
Review Fix: Is it difficult to get acts to join a project like this? Explain?
Korhonen: It has been surprisingly easy. Marco Hietala from Nightwish was the first guy we called and he jumped at the opportunity right away. With a guy of that magnitude on board it was a lot easier to get other people along as well. The vocalist line-up has grown over the years and at the moment we don’t really have room for new vocalists even though there are a lot of people who’d like to join us. Also, some people we’ve asked earlier turned the offer down, not feeling that the band would be something that they’d enjoy.
I’m glad that we’ve basically had the same backing band since 2008 now. It really makes everything work and sound a lot better since we know the core material very well. Another great thing is that we’ve now been able to re-record a lot of our back catalogue with this band since the versions have really evolved throughout the years.
Review Fix: Considering that, what do you think of this year’s lineup?
Korhonen: This year’s lineup is definitely one of the strongest ones we’ve ever had. Of course we miss Ilja Jalkanen who decided to pursue other musical interests after 6 years with us.
Review Fix: How is this album different from other symphonic christmas works?
Korhonen: Firstly, I don’t think that there are that many symphonic Christmas projects in rock or hard rock music. Or if there are, I’m not aware of them… If you compare us to TSO, they have a lot more original material than us, and it’s mostly very gospel- or musical theater -oriented. We come more from different genres of heavy rock and metal and our songs are mostly classic, traditional christmas songs both from Finland and other countries. That said, we actually released our first original songs in Finland this year!
Review Fix: Have you done anything special for the ten year anniversary?
Korhonen: We have released Ragnarok Juletide, our first ever album in English language. It was the first time ever that many of the most loved Finnish Christmas classics were recerded in English language with brand new texts. We have the biggest tour we’ve ever done with shows in theaters and even a few hockey arenas, it’s our own production with lots of lights and pyrotechniques.
Review Fix: How do you want this album to be remembered?
Korhonen: I want it to be remembered as an album that showed the people outside Finland what we do and what we are, and create a base on which we will be able to tour in other countries as well.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Korhonen: We are looking forward to continuing our saga with Ragnarok Juletide and also to do shows in at least some European countries next year. We already have plans with some great people who can work with us to make those things a reality. But first, we have to get over this Christmas. May it be merry and rocking for everyone!
Leave a Reply