I guess SOTAJUMALA are unknown to most of us listening to metal. These Finnish guys release there records more in irregular periods, which unfortunately is not the best way to gather true and real fans around the band. Besides, SOTAJUMALA get easily ignored by the press it seems. I can’t understand this, because their newest record Teloitus emerges as a real crusher! Also the band’s last album Death Metal Finland (2004) was anything than bad. Those of you who like American influenced, technically sophisticated Death Metal, check out this band! For us it’s time to bring you these Finnish lads closer...

Timo: Greetings from Finland. And yes, SOTAJUMALA is a band that is probably pretty unknown to the most of you.
Michael: First let me say „Congratulations!“ for the great work you did on Teloitus! This record was a real surprise to me and deservedly gained 9 out of 10 points.
Timo: Thank you, danke schön! I probably would’ve given it the same score, haha.

Michael: But why was this album released one year later outside Finland?
Timo: We wanted to push the album out in Finland as soon as possible. Our label at that time wanted to see if some label would license the album abroad. This of course took its time and in the end all labels turned down the licensing citing whatever reasons, so Woodcut ended up putting the album out abroad through their own network of partners. I guess it was a gamble between putting the album out abroad right away through ordinary distribution versus possibly getting a good licensing deal.

Michael: What led to the line-up changes since Death Metal Finland?
Timo: I was only a session member on the album. It took me almost a year to realize that I should join the band full-time after all (that and the guys asking me a bunch of times). Our singer on DMF was fired when I joined. It was due to motivation problems and we simply had had enough. Mynni soon became a session singer for us and after a year of being a session member, he became full-time member.

Michael: Musically speaking you got much more complex compared with your last full-length record. Was that your purpose for the songwriting process or just an ongoing natural development in your music?
Timo: I actually think DMF was more complex, haha. But we had no specific goals in mind when we started writing Teloitus. We simply wrote songs that felt natural for us and these eight songs on the album were what felt right for us, so it was simply natural progression over time.

Michael: You so far exclusively sung in Finish language but the info sheet of your label displayed all songs in English language. Something that makes you angry or is it to take as a discreet hint for possible English-sung songs in the future?
Timo: I don’t know exactly why the song titles are in English in the info sheet. I mean, we had a good friend of the band translate all the lyrics and song titles into English and you can find these translations in the booklet next to the Finnish lyrics. I guess our label just felt like putting the English titles for foreign press in order to avoid questions “What are these songs about?” haha! (Comment Michael: as form e it would have been more expedient to add a booklet to the promo CD…)
After DMF we were very open for the idea of doing some songs in English (and we actually did one for the split we did with Torture Killer back in 2005). At that point we thought the next CD might have many songs in English, but when it came time to write the new album, continuing with Finnish just felt like the natural choice. Never say never, but right now I think we’ll just continue with Finnish all the way.

Michael: Since I don’t speak Finish (as most of our readers do not too), please tell us more about the lyrical content. It’s said that you work with war themes, but what are you focusing on? The historical view? The people behind, the brutality of war? At least your label Woodcut seemed to be forced to mention that your lyrics on Death Metal Finland don’t have anything to do with fascistic themes.
Timo: I can’t get too much into this, because I don’t write the lyrics, but yes, so far they’ve been about war and death. On Teloitus they deal with various situations, I guess you could say they deal more with the people and their acts, the brutality of it all instead of stories based on historical facts. War is an ugly thing, so what would be more fitting subject to sing about in death metal, you know?
Michael: Would there be different lyrical contents such as the war of resources (water, energy…etc.) interesting for you too?
Timo: Even though our name translates to “wargod” we don’t want to restrict ourselves to any specific themes. As long as the lyrics are good and fit the music, I don’t really care what they are about. It’s fully up to the person who writes lyrics (nowadays mostly our singer Mynni and somewhat our bass player Tomi).

Michael: I find the cover art work quite interesting. Is there a special meaning behind?
Timo: We wanted to do something different. We knew very early on that we wanted something really simple, something very different. We had all the idea of using silhouette images and seeing we had decided on the album name (“teloitus” means “execution”) we were thinking about showing an execution taking place or just showing scenes where an execution took place. We took these ideas to our AD Anna-Kaisa Reed and she came up with the red/white theme and using the pictures that you can find in the booklet. For those who have only seen the cover, the booklet basically has a “story” in picture form using the same type of images that you see in the cover. As you turn pages, you see different images and it all ends with the final track for the album, Teloitus. (Comment Michael: seems like there are more reasons to be „thankful“ for the missing booklet …)
We were extremely thrilled when we saw what Anna-Kaisa had done and we are very, very happy with the way the booklet turned out. A lot of people have also complimented on it and rightfully so.

Michael: What you think: would you sound different when bands such as Death, Morbid Angel, Obituary and others never would have existed? You think there would have been a death metal scene at all nowadays? Or did you get influenced by completely other sounds and bands?
Timo: All of those bands have influenced us a lot. On top of influencing us musically, they were important bands when we grew up, so in a way they have a big influence on us (not so much with our music, but with us starting to play death metal and doing this band). And while those bands are of course extremely influential to us and death metal as a genre, I think that if they wouldn’t have existed, other bands still would’ve, if you know what I mean? It just happened to be those bands.
We all listen to various bands and genres, and always have, so while we play death metal, we are extremely open-minded with music and where we might draw influences from.

Michael: How long we have to wait on the next album, four years again? ;) I mean, during this time a lot of new songs should have written, shouldn’t it?
Timo: We have had one new song ready since early summer 2007 and we are currently working on more songs. Slowly gathering ideas, seeing where everyone is musically and just kind of seeing where we end up from here. We have no pressure from outside, and we don’t set out to write certain type of music. We simply write what feels right and that’s how we’ve always done. Hopefully the next album will be out early 2010.
Michael: Or what about a tour that is bridging the time?
Timo: We’d love to tour, but it’s hard for a small band like us that’s on a small label. But we’re working on that and hopefully we’ll be playing in Europe in 2010 at the latest. We’ve played a lot of shows with our current line-up and everything you hear on our albums, you’ll hear live. Add tons of live energy, moshing and stage presence and I can guarantee that we annihilate the CD when we play live! (Comment Michael: what I have seen on YouTube looked pretty promising; maybe it really works out next year)

Michael: Ok, I’m at the end of my questionnaire. The last words are up to you ;)
Timo: Thank you so much for supporting us. Hopefully you’ll do another interview in 2010 at the backstage of some club and you’ll also do a live review! Danke schön und guten nacht!
Michael: You can’t stop us then… ;-) Thank you very much for spending time on these questions. Cheers & have a great summertime!