Finnish garage-rock band, Varvara are set to release new album Death Defying Tricks.
The new album was mixed in Stockholm by Pelle Gunnerfeldt (The Hives, Refused and Disco Ensemble) and was mastered by Brad Boatright (Beastmilk, Fucked Up and High On Fire) at Audiosiege, in Portland, USA. The first taste from Death Defying Tricks, Sons, introduces Varvara’s new confidence in spades. A hint of that ‘Finnish melancholy’ wrings from the opening pangs, till the crunch arrives and we’re thrown into Sons energetic swirl.
Varvara are Mikko Kiri – Vocals/Guitar, Tommi Muhli – Guitar, Toni Raukola- Guitar/Vocals, Simo Kuhlman – Bass and Lauri Tattari – Drums.
You can check out Sons below!
We managed to catch up with the band as they talked about the upcoming album, Finnish roots, fans and more!
How proud are you of the release of Death Defying Tricks?
We are really excited and proud about how the album and songs ended sounding like. Also the feedback we’ve got from all over the world have been beyond our expectations and we’re pleased to see many new people digging our music. I think we can also be proud of the fact that we’ve come to this point by ourselves and released the whole thing without any record labels helping or funding.
What is your favourite song from the album?
My personal favorite is Caught. It kinda carries all the key ingredients Varvara is made of..Catchy melodies, rocking riffs, unexpected turns and plenty of pure joy of playing loud rock ’n’ roll music 🙂
Tell us a little about the album, what is it all about?
Well…A death defying trick is something you do to get your adrenaline fix. Or its something you do to impress your friends with..you know as a daredevil. Death Defying Tricks though are the 10 songs on the album. It’s all sarcasm in a way. We live pretty normal lives and sometime laugh at ourselves for being such a lame bunch of people. So if we want to write a rock’n’roll song of something that considers a moment about something that happened, it most of the time has to be disguised as a ”Death Defying Trick”. And its a pretty exploding title for a rock album we think.
What inspired you guys to write it?
Mikko and Simo originally founded the band just to hang out in good company and play music that inspired and made them happy. I guess our main musical influences come from our youth..Weezer, Foo Fighters, Fireside, Penniless, The Posies, Queens of the Stone Age, The Smashing Pumpkins…all the good rock stuff we grew up listening and playing in several local bands as a kid you know 🙂 This is our third album and I think this time we didn’t think too much of the outcome. We produced and many parts recorded it by ourselves and quite fast..We didn’t do that much polishing so it sounds very relaxed and energetic.
How was it working with Pelle Gunnerfeldt and Brad Boatright?
Pelle was in a way the first person we thought of when figuring out who should mix the album. He’ve produced and played on many of our favorite albums and we just knew he’d get what we are after. He nailed it with the first track he did and we really dig the way the record sounds; dynamic, raw and punchy. The same thing with Brad..He managed to get the most out of the mix with nice dynamics and plenty of punch. We’re thrilled to have the guys work our stuff and hope to work with both of them in the near future as well.
Would you say your Finnish roots inspire you guys?
Well…I guess you can hear some of the ”Finnish melancholy” in our music but it’s something that comes naturally. Many of the Finnish media feedback we’ve got say it doesn’t sound Finnish at all..We aim to keep our music fun and I think that differentiates us from the majority of Finnish music crossing the borders to the international market..
How much does your fans mean to you?
A lot .. but not in a way we would try to follow any expectations or try to please anyone. We’re just doing our own thing and are extremely happy if someone outside the band likes what we’re doing 🙂
If you could work with any band at all on a album or perform with them, who would it be and why?
If I’d have to pick behalf of the whole band I guess if someone like say..Dave Grohl or Josh Homme would come and say he’d like to work with us..I guess we would die out of excitement before hitting the studio or stage. Those guys have created so much great rock music to this world and influenced the way we are as band, musicians and as persons that it would just be … surreal, crazy and fun.