Marko from Farmakon on "A Warm Glimpse", Diapers and UM

Russell

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Jul 15, 2001
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The starry attic
www.russellgarwood.co.uk
An Interview With Marko Eskola

Farmakon are signed to Elitist records, and seem very at-home on a roster with bands such as Rakoth, Without Face, Ephel Duath and Frantic Bleep. A quartet consisting of young Finns Toni, Lassi, Riku and Marko, the group’s music is an eclectic form of melodic death metal. “A Warm Glimpse” is their debut. I recently had the opportunity to interview Marko, who, as well as playing bass and singing/growling on the album, performs both live – prompting my first question – isn’t this bloody difficult?

“Well, yes” is the expected reply. “But I've rehearsed it a lot and pretty much mastered the thing lately. A year ago, when we finally got a rehearsal place where I could actually do vocals as well, I was desperate with it. And I'd be lying if I said that I don't have any difficulties now. It does have an effect not to be able to concentrate on something fully. I often consider quitting either singing or bass playing in Farmakon to be able to concentrate fully on one of them, but ... I don't know....maybe my ego's preventing me. And the fact that being a mere singer in band rehearsals is the most boring thing ever.”

‘You could always get a live/session bassist? Or would your ego prevent that as well?’

“We could, but I for some reason don't believe in that. And this has nothing to do with my ego. I don't see a reason for a person to be only a session musician if he's a cool guy, comes to our rehearsals and knows how to play our songs. At that point he could be an actual part of the band as well. Unless of course he wouldn't want to.”

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A relatively young band, Farmakon formed solely for the enjoyment of playing music. The four were first contacted by Lee Barrett of Elitist a matter of days after releasing their demo, a very impressive achievement irrespective of age! Imagining the band’s shock at such a rapid response, I ask what Marko’s initial reaction was on hearing from Lee so soon.

“You know Stan and Wendy from South Park...? Like that.”

‘You threw up on him? Nice!’

“Oh no. Never done that though I've had my chances. But I think Stan's reaction describes very well this slight panic we went through.”

One possible reason for this rapid signing is the fact Farmakon had been posting on UltimateMetal for some time, along with Lee Barrett. Upon asking the bassist if this was the case, he informs me that UM gets all credit for putting the two parties in contact.

“We posted our songs on mp3.com, and then mentioned them in a few UM forums. That's where Lee read about them. We didn't have any webpages at the time, so the first contact came through UM private messaging system.”

‘Wow, we should demand a fee! Just kidding…’

“As we say in Finland ‘Oh yeah, and take the ashes from my firebox too’. Don't forget we're customers of UltimateMetal already, and paying our asses off for that forum no one but our friends ever visits.”

At which point changing the subject seems like a good idea! Farmakon’s sound is varied, one of the more apparent influences being Gothenburg. While funk, jazz and other elements are present, the band have been getting constant Opeth comparisons in their reviews. “We deserve it, don't we?” says Marko. “But you have to understand something: we were just four guys in a small cellar playing the kind of music we felt like. We didn't mind if we sounded too much like something. And then incomes the contract. BOOM. We knew we'd have to face this whole Opeth thing, but the other option would have been a sudden and unnatural change, which could have led to us making something crappy. Now the evolution has been natural and it's fair to say that the songs that sound less Opeth on our album are the newer ones.”

‘Ok, cool! Will you marry me?’

“No you dumbass! My suggestion was to ask if I married ME. How did you ever get this job?!? Someone call my manager!”

‘Oh, well, fuck. I’m devastated, there go my hopes and dreams of marriage… Wait a moment, that doesn’t make sense, how would you marry you? Doesn’t that make for a really one sided relationship?’

“One sided? No way. Sexually speaking I could use both hands, the pillows of my sofa, and all the gadgets one gets from stores. And the arguments I'd deal with a mirror and a flashlight. You know, the frightening guy in the mirror would be the evil me. And spanking myself is easy, I already do it on Tuesday nights when my girlfriend is out playing poker.”

‘A little too much information perhaps… Also, are you impugning my interviewing skills?’

“Nothing wrong with your interview skills specifically, you're just a general dumb guy” comes Marko’s all too expected retort (having talked to the lovely chap on his forum I know he doesn’t mean it! Well, hope…).

Despite this, following such an insult I feel the need to make myself seem intelligent, so point out that one of the band’s primary intentions was to make music ‘spanning all the sounds and ideas’. ‘Do you think this detracts from the spontaneity of it all? I.e. you were consciously trying to include a wide range of influences, as opposed to it happening naturally.’

“Seems you're referring to our biography in that one. Don't take it too seriously, we didn't write it ourselves, hehe. The only real thing is to make music we'd like to listen to. And it's as natural as it can come. I mean, after all it isn't too natural to make something you feel is good and then let the few jerks who happen to be your band mess it all up with their views. That's how it goes.’

‘It's really all about making music we'd like to listen to ourselves.’ Marko continues ‘And we want the music we listen to be varied. Another reason, there is this hell of being a musician...there are so many styles of music I'd like to play. The same goes for all of us. But you just can't have a zillion different bands, horror jazz, blues rock, gay disco and so on. This is a kind of compromise, a band that can play a bit of everything.’

‘Cool, but despite its diversity, your sound is still rather limited in some respects – through the instruments you play and the (albeit varied) metal/rock template. Have you ever considered a side project to act as a complete contrast to Farmakon?’

“Yeah, I consider all kinds of stuff all the time. Don't know about the complete contrast though....It's hard to find complete contrast for Farmakon cause there's so much stuff in it. Personally I have dreams of this triphop/jazz band, which would do Badalamenti and Portishead style. Gigging in small, venues with a band like that would be really nice.”

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Before forming the band, Marko taught himself to growl, having never played death metal before. “I instantly knew how to do it” he elaborates. “But it took a while to get my physics into it. I hadn't rehearsed growling before, I started it a few months before Farmakon was formed. However, I've done singing for quite a while, and I had done also all kinds of experiments with my voice. Nothing special though, I just mean that I knew how to make other sounds than plain singing also.”
‘Have you got any tips for people trying to learn?’

“Tips, eh? I don't know...well it's important to realize that this type of growling isn't a loud sound, and it isn't done by screaming or shouting or whatever. You only hurt your voice that way. The sound is only slightly louder than normal speech. It's done by placing pressure to your false vocals chords instead of the real ones. And what does that mean then? Unfortunately I'm no teacher. I've tried to teach it to a couple persons but it just won't happen.”

‘Also, what the hell inspired the really odd noises at the end of “Flavoured Numerolgy”?’

“Pissing your bandmates off can be a huge inspiration in song-writing...”

‘Do you not get on all the time?’ I laugh

“We get along...at least we've got along this far. I just personally enjoy doing parts I don't expect anyone in the band to like. They surprise me usually though.”

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On a more general note, I wonder what the vocalist loves about metal? “The energy. And flexibility. I don't like to refer myself as metal-head, but I still feel that the music I do has to have some base in metal. I don't exactly know why. Under the label ‘metal’ one can do all kinds of stuff, a really wide-range.”

‘Ok, what do you not love about it?’

“The Em-C-D chord order everyone uses! It makes me want to wear a play-suit, cry and kick aimlessly towards the roof.”

‘Now there’s a vivid thought… In fact you could use it as the cover for you next album!’

“Well yea but think about the poor photographer. I don't think it's nice to take photos when throwing up.”

‘True’ I chuckle. ‘And what do you see in the future for metal as a genre?’

“Oh dear. Considering what's been popular in the past, about anything is likely to happen...Maybe the next huge thing in metal is wearing diapers. The man-baby thing. That's something I'd like to spearhead.”

‘Haha, whatever floats your boat!’

“Man-babies float my boat? Huh? You English people with your odd expressions. Well, I guess the diapers do float, so when there's enough of man-babies under the boat…”

Somehow I think the saying loses its meaning in translation… Moving on to the fact ‘A Warm Glimpse’ was leaked, Marko expresses his displeasure. “But of course I knew it would happen, there was no way to prevent it.”

‘Have you got any message for the perpetrators?’

“I know where you live!!!”

When I ask for his views on file-sharing in general, “add a list of your favourite ugly Finnish words here” is the instruction. “ I buy my records. Of course, there's no denying the system is very valuable in finding out new music. And it's fast and easy. It's unbelievable how hard it's to find certain music from WWW at times. But the whole thing leads to people getting whole albums free. And some of them have these unbelievable excuses. Like ‘most of a band's income comes from gigging so buying an album actually only benefits the record label’, and stuff like that. What we're heading to here is destruction of many independent labels. At the moment small electronic music labels die away hi-speed. The problem in there is bit worse than metal, due the nature and audience of that kind of music. But small metal labels aren't far from that either. People should realize that if labels don't get their money they stop releasing music, and it's small bands like us who are the first to suffer. This business definitely is no charity-work.”

A very good point. Among the nicknames Farmakon have picked up online is ‘the Farmers’. When asked if he minds this abbreviation, Marko answers “Farmers... There's a band called Farm-boys or something, isn't there? Could cause some mixups, other than that it's fine by me. Lasse from Thales has called us that quite a while now.”

With this official acceptance of the nickname, I ask this farmer about his drinking habits! ‘It says in you press release that you all drink like demons (something which you’ve proven on your forum numerous times!), so what’s your favourite drink?’

“Vana Tallinn, a strong estonian liqueur. Very tasty, and makes a heavenly drink when mixed with coffee. Talking about beer I like Murphy's stout the best. Notice however, that we're talking a bit expensive stuff here, so though these are my favourites, I have to keep thinking my budget.”

‘Hah, so you’re not making millions from your music yet?’

“There's not much money to expect from this, unless we - for some supernatural reason - become huge in pop-circles and get on to MTV. Haha...that would be cool. Getting into those stupid fucking galas. Guess during an year there's a gala for every weekend and every time it's the same artists who get the awards. It's the funniest thing.”

‘Do you spend more of your time drunk than the average Finn, and is this part of the reason behind your slightly unusual sound?’

“Hehe. I don't think so. It can be said that alcohol has nothing to do with music. We don't rehearse drunk. The only exception to this was a few times during my last summer holidays. And no, I don't think we're more drunk than the average Finn. My goal is heavy reduction anyway, though I've noticed it's hard to achieve.”

‘If this is the case, do Finns drink a lot in general, or am I just enforcing an overused stereotype?’

“I don't know, I don't have much to compare with. But that's what they say. And that's what Finns like to think of themselves. In here we're actually proud of this sad alcoholised state the people are in. I'm living a few blocks away from an alcoholic village. It's an area of state-funded, fast-built small houses for hopeless alcoholics to live in. Watching those people hanging around stinking and talking to themselves, walking like they'd shit in their pants, digging the garbage tanks on our yard... It keeps my relation to alcohol pretty healthy. However those kind of people are everywhere, not just in Finland. Guess the main difference is in attitude, not in amounts.”

‘Well, I guess you’ll find out when you go on tour! Do you have any plans (like coming to the UK!)?

“Major touring is a bit difficult during this year because of our day-jobs. But there have been careful talks about minor stuff, like (ta-daa) a London show, and I guess we'll do a few shows in Finland too. Can't tell you any dates though, we are on the early phase with all that.”

With this question happily answered, I move on to the band’s inspiration. With diverse musical influences, are their other sources of inspiration equally varied?

“The lyrics of A Warm Glimpse have taken huge influence from Tove Jansson's Moomin books. There are familiar scenarios to someone who's familiar with the books, but Lassi, who wrote most of the lyrics for this album, filtered the stories through his own views. They're great books, and at times deal with some very dark and disturbing emotions. But always with a glimpse of hope. And warmth. Hehe.”

“Also, most of us also have this thing for David Lynch stuff, but I don't think there's lots of relation to our music. Unfortunately.”

‘I’m not sure, some of the changes between genre could be described as confusing as hell, just like most Lynch films!’

“Haha. You said it! Cheers!”

On the topic of their next release, the encouraging news is that “it's meant to be a lot better, hehe. Better riffs, better songs, and better as the whole entity. But at the moment we only have two songs which are almost ready. Based on those and the riffs I've been writing lately, I think - though I may be totally wrong - that the new stuff will be a bit more moody and rhythm-based.”

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One of the few criticisms often aimed at “A Warm Glimpse” is the unusual guitar production. “Toni is pretty much responsible for that one” relates Marko. “It's powerful, crunchy, crispy and clear all the same time, what more can you ask? Our riffs require a sound that is not too fuzzy, so one can actually hear the notes the guitar plays.”

‘Are you going to go with it for the next release as well?’

“Can't really say. Guess it depends a lot of the material and the mood of the songs. And whether we have guitarists on our next album... hi hi hi.”

‘Have you any idea what this mood will be yet?’

“Think about a mixture of your girlfriend's periods and the feeling of a drawer falling on your toe. Eh. Actually I’ve no idea. What we have at the moment hints at a darker album than ‘A Warm Glimpse’. But there's so many things more than just riffs and structures to determine that. The lyrics are yet to be written and we've given absolutely no thought to our future sound.”

‘Sounds good, I can’t wait. So, in conclusion, has this interview made work more interesting for you (as I promised it would!)?’

“Do you mean my day-job ? I've had a busy week, so the only thing to make my work interesting is my Madchen Amick wallpaper.”

‘Madchen Amick?’

“Maybe you'd know her as Shelly from Twin Peaks. Also starring in all kinds of crap movies like Sleepwalkers”. And on this note my interview with Marko ends. Despite being called dumb, our conversation was very entertaining, and if the image of said bassist in a diaper won’t doesn’t make you want to buy the album… well, you’re perfectly normal, but you should check out “A Warm Glimpse” anyway.