Take five guys from Finland who decided, for a bit of fun, to write and play the kind of easy going music that they grew up with, unashamedly homaging their influences in the process.  Add a quirky translation of the name of a tennis player, throw in a few Frisbees here and there, and you have Brother Firetribe.  Never anticipating for one minute that the music would go anywhere except maybe a few parties in the summer for some friends, somehow fate stepped in and their efforts were officially laid down in a studio.  The result was their debut album, ‘False Metal’, released on Spinefarm records towards the end of 2006.  Now they’re back with the follow up, ‘Heart Full of Fire’, shortly to be available to the UK audience, now that sister label Spinefarm UK has been officially launched here.  Not only that, but the debut will be released as a collector’s edition on the same day, May 12^th, under the title ‘Break Out’, with some bonus tracks. 

The last time I saw Pekka (Brother Firetribe vocalist and also lead vocalist with Leverage) was on Independence Day in Helsinki in early December and he was sporting a rather fine “playoff” beard.  For the uninitiated, when teams enter the ice hockey playoffs, the players often grow beards and refuse to shave them off until the series is over in the event of bad luck.  Being a huge hockey fan, Pekka had decided to treat the completion of the new album in the same way! 

“I don’t know if I told you about the little accident we had with the mixing,” he began, “but we had already mixed six songs with the original guy who is a friend of ours.  He is a real professional and a nice guy but he just had a different vision of how this band should sound.  We were hoping that it would click at some point, but it didn’t happen, and so we had to tell him that it wasn’t going to work.  Thank God Torsti (Spoof – Leverage guitarist) stepped in and saved our asses.  He did a great job with Jari Mikkola (an engineer at Torsti’s Studio Audio studios who worked with Leverage on both albums) and they saved the day.  We had to re-do those six songs, then the guys mixed the rest of the songs and now it sounds like Brother Firetribe.  We have nothing against the original mixer, but his vision for the band was a bit too modern.    It’s not that it sounded bad, it just sounded different, and it didn’t sound like Brother Firetribe.”

On the My Space blog the guys had mentioned that the album had cost them “an arm and a leg” to do, and obviously the little accident didn’t help matters.   “Well, Emppu and Tomppa have their own business so they kind of funded it through that.  For sure the little accident ended up costing us extra, but we have to thank Spinefarm.  They got us a bit more to work with because they understood how important it was for us that this album sounded right.  The first guy mixed ‘I Am Rock’, though, which is on the album and he did a nice job with that.  We wrote that song for a nationwide Finnish TV series called Pelkkää lihaa.  It’s a comedy series about a heavy metal band.  The production company called Spinefarm and asked if they had a band that could write songs in the vein of 80’s bands like Kiss.  Spinefarm called us, we wrote the song, and the guy mixed it.  He did a good job, but we just didn’t want to take the whole album in that direction.  It did really well as a single, and when we played it live, it was the song that everyone was singing because it got played so much airplay on the radio and TV.  It’s now our best known song.  Now ‘Runaways’ is released and it went to number 6 on the national charts in the first week, which is great.”

 I commented to Pekka about the choice of bonus songs on the re-released version of the debut album (known as ‘Break Out’ in the UK because the marketing geniuses thought we wouldn’t “get” the joke about ‘False Metal!)  One in particular that stands out is DIO’s ‘Hungry for Heaven’ which is on the soundtrack of the 1985 film Vision Quest.  (Again for the uninitiated, it’s a coming of age movie along the lines of Flashdance or Top Gun in which Matthew Modine plays a high school wrestler who sets his sights on a prize that many don’t think he can win.)  “I think it was Dante who called us and asked us to do it,” he explained.  “I believe it’s Powerplay Magazine that has a DIO tribute CD coming up at some point.  I had no question in my mind about what song we should do, because I’ve always loved that song and to be honest it’s pretty close to Brother Firetribe’s sound – all the elements are there.  We did the whole thing in two days, and I have to admit I was pretty f***ing hungover in the studio when I sang it!  It turned out ok, though.  There could have been more guitars in the mix, but all in all it’s fine.”

Apparently the next plan is to release the title track as an MCD – if anyone can enlighten me as to what this stands for, please drop me a line!  Pekka wasn’t even sure either, and we had a discussion about whether it was an Extended Play under a different name, or my suggestion which was Multimedia CD.  “Ah, ok, yeah.  The video of ‘One Single Breath’ is involved, I think, and the album version of the song, and then there is a dance version too.”  A dance mix! As I was recoiling in horror, he went on to explain.  “To be honest, I don’t understand shit about that stuff but it sounded pretty funny, and this guy JS16 is a big shot in Finland, and he did the remix on it.  It sounds like a quality remix.  It was Spinefarm’s idea, not ours.  Oh, I almost forgot, there’s a song on the MCD called ‘Two Hearts’.  It’s a real tear-jerker ballad which was left off the album because when we wrote it we thought it was too much for Brother Firetribe, but it out probably come out in some form so it should work pretty well there.”

I asked him why they decided not to include a ballad on the album.  “Well, we had eleven songs that were a really tight package and we thought we’d get some opinions from other people.  Everybody who’s heard it says it is like ‘Open Arms’, and I can only say Thank You.  So I guess we have to release it now!  I’ll send it to you after we’ve finished the interview”. 

When I’d interviewed the guys for the debut album, I remembered they’d told me how the songs are written in the band, and I was curious as to whether this formula had stayed the same for album #2.  “Exactly the same as last time,” laughed Pekka.  “We started writing songs right after ‘False Metal’ was released, and the process was exactly the same.  Tomppa came up with a riff, and because I see Tomppa every day because we work at the same place and we have a studio there, it’s easy for him to send me the file.  I’ll check it out and within thirty minutes I’ll have the  melody in my  head and some lyrics down and we just put the ideas up in the studio and polish it up before giving it to the other guys.  It’s great to work with someone who has such similar ideas, and of course we have this history of being in the same band (Cashmir) for almost ten years, so we know what each other is thinking and it really works well.”

 With Emppu’s obvious commitments with Nightwish, I enquired as to whether these had had an effect on the recording process at all.  “Well, we didn’t have any timetables or anything, and we took it slowly, but the way these songs were coming up was so spontaneous and so fast.  After we had that basic structure, the song was pretty much there, and it was pretty easy to come up with another idea.  Writing the songs didn’t take much time, but Emppu’s activities with Nightwish had already started, and I was hooked up with Leverage recording ‘Blind Fire’, so that took a while.  I think the day before Nightwish went on tour, Emppu was still playing on one of the tracks, and we were so tight for time.  Then there was the little mixing accident, but all in all it was a pretty normal timescale.”

I observed that some of the songs appeared to be more guitar driven this time, and wondered if this had been the overall ambition for the album, or whether it was simply that the guitars were emphasised more in the mix. “Yeah, probably, because the guitar was definitely lacking from the original mix, and Torsti is obviously a guitarist and he knows what a guitarist should sound like, so he really beefed it up and that was the whole point of it.  I’m really glad to hear that you noticed it.”

On the subject of “beefing up”, I assumed it made a real difference having a “real” drummer this time round rather than a machine?  “Oh, absolutely, that’s probably the biggest difference when you compare ‘Heart’ to ‘False Metal’.  This day and age you can have a nice sound from the drum machine to the point where people don’t even notice, but eventually the live drum sound is always so much better, and it sounds like a band.  Yes, having Kalle on board has definitely been a big improvement this time.” 

So, overall, the combination of live drums and beefed up guitars makes this album sound a little heavier, but Pekka also added another theory.  “During ‘False Metal’ I really didn’t think about how to use my voice, what keys to sing in and stuff like that, and that’s why on some of the songs I’m really pushing the limits and really sound strained.  I wasn’t too happy about that afterwards, but don’t forget that we never really intended to put out an album or any of those songs.  We were just having fun and I didn’t think.  This time, though, I really made sure that Tomppa wrote the songs in the right key and to my range.  I’m taking it a bit easier with my voice now, and even with more guitar and live drums it sounds heavier, but at the same time I’m not screaming my brains out, so it kind of softens it a bit too.” 

 At this point I confessed that I had noticed that ‘Kill City Kid’ from ‘False Metal’ seemed to be pushing him beyond his limits.  “Yeah, just a bit,” he laughed in agreement.  “That song doesn’t work.  We played it live a couple of times, but it didn’t work, mostly because of my vocals, but there were some other elements that didn’t work also, so we cut it out of the live set.” 

We then got into discussing some of the individual songs, and I asked about one of my favourites ‘Game They Call Love’ which has a definite Bob Catley ring to it (‘Scream’ from ‘The Tower’ came to mind).  I asked if this had been deliberate – were they all fans of Uncle Bob, or was it just coincidence.   “That’s really funny that you should ask that, because people are comparing Leverage to Magnum.  I  can’t see it myself, but it’s a  huge compliment obviously, because I like Magnum a lot, and now people are starting to compare my voice to Bob Catley’s, which is really strange but of course it’s very cool.  I love his voice, but I’m not too familiar with his solo stuff.  I have a couple of albums – let’s see what I have now that you mention it – I have ‘When Empires Burn’ and that’s about it.”  (I promised to send him ‘The Tower’ and ‘Legends’ and guaranteed he would love them both).

The opening riff of the title track sounds very much like Nightwish’s ‘Bye Bye Beautiful’ and when I suggested this, Pekka said that he hadn’t really listened that much to Nightwish, but Tomppa wrote the riff a long while back, and they hadn’t even planned that the song would be a duet.  “We only thought about it afterwards,” he said.  “Anette really liked ‘False Metal’ a lot and she wanted to come down and sing some backing vocals on ‘Heart Full of Fire’ so we thought, yeah, what the hell, you’re welcome.  Then a couple of days before the studio session, we started wondering which songs would work as a duet.  I really didn’t want to do a ballad because that would have been too obvious.  I wanted to do a rocker, so we modified ‘Heart Full of Fire’ a bit and it seemed to fit well, and Anette’s voice really suits it.  She did a great job.”  Fans of Youtube may have already seen that Nightwish have done a promotional video that features the song.  “Yeah, it was pretty funny,” laughed Pekka.  “In one of the scenes where they have put some of the lyrics up on the screen I think Jukka and Tuomas are walking hand in hand on the beach.” 

Onto the obligatory cover song.  This time it is ‘Chasing the Angels’ from Iron Eagle II.  On ‘False Metal’ it was ‘Mighty Wings’ from Top Gun.  The guys don’t necessarily have a penchant for aircraft movies, but they are always trying to give the albums a classic soundtrack feel.  “The kind of soundtrack that makes you want to do pushups and train a lot,” smiled Pekka.  “I just love those songs.  I’m a huge fan of classic soundtracks, I have tons of them, and there are quite a few songs to choose from. ‘Chasing the Angels’ has always been one of my favourite songs.  It was my decision to do this one – the other guys didn’t even know who Mike Reno (Loverboy) is, but when I played the track, they went “Holy Shit”.

Enough about my stand out tracks.  It was time to hear from Pekka what he regarded as his personal favourite.  “Well, the classic answer is I like them all, but one song that we didn’t expect too much from when we were recording it, but after the final mixing when we listened to the whole album, ‘Heard It on  my Radio’ became an instant favourite of mine.  It’s got a cool drive and I’m kind of hooked on it.  When I wrote the lyrics I was thinking of two of my best friends whom I’ve known since we were 3 years old or something.  We grew up together and started listening to music like crazy when we were 7 years old.  We’re still in contact to this day; we’re still collecting CDs like crazy, taking trips to somebody’s summer place and spending the weekend there and just going through millions of records and stuff like that.  That song is a kind of tribute to these guys.”

In true Finnish tradition, the “wrap” party was celebrated in fine style with the boys heading off into the woods to Pekka’s summer house, putting the sauna on and taking part in three days of pretty straight ahead drinking, hanging out and having a good time.  Oh, and Pekka shaved the playoff beard, and they played Frisbee a lot. 

“Yeah, and we made it back alive,” he laughed.  “We had one of the best weekends ever.  As for the Frisbees, the whole Brother Firetribe thing started as an excuse to get together and drink beer and throw some Frisbees around.  So it kind of stuck and now Spinefarm has this great idea that the first hundred pre-sales of ‘Heart’ will get a BFT exclusive Frisbee.”  

The Tribe’s music has been played frequently on Finnish television in various sport broadcasts, and I wondered were there any that had made Pekka particularly proud.  As we are both hockey nuts, his answer didn’t surprise me at all.  “I’ve heard our songs played at some of the hockey games, so that’s enough for me,” he laughed.  “In the Ice Hall they usually play ‘One Single Breath’ and ‘Midnite Queen’, which is cool.”  From hockey to cartoons, I had read a review that said ‘Brother Firetribe has become the musical equivalent of South Park’s Chef; it’s big, beautiful, brazen and full of sweet luuurve.’   “Hahaha, suck on my chocolate salty balls,” he giggled.  “Oh, that’s genius – where did you read that?  Well, I guess it’s cool to be compared to Isaac Hayes, or Barry White for that matter.” 

With Spinefarm having a base in the UK and the USA, it would be nice to think that expectations would be growing high for more interest and exposure for the band.  “To be honest, I’m not expecting anything,” said Pekka.  “It’s always good to have your album released in as many countries as possible, so in that way it’s very nice, but to be brutally honest, I really can’t see anything happening in the States, because the musical climate back there, from what I understand, is so totally different.  Whether you want to call us AOR or whatever, that music is not mainstream like it used to be - it’s really underground now.  Of course there are still people who dig this stuff, so this album is strictly for them, and it’s great that they’ll be able to pick it up in the stores.” 

With Nightwish seemingly on an endless touring schedule, I wondered if the Tribesmen would plan to tour when Emppu was free again.  “Well,  it’s true that we’d have more chances to play live, but I wouldn’t want to drag that guy back out on the road again after he’s been away for such a long time.  It takes around two weeks to rehearse the songs, get the set list sorted and get ready to hit the road.  We wouldn’t want to go out there unprepared.  Then the actual gigs will take a while to tour wherever we’re going to be.  We’ll just have to see how things go, but it just wouldn’t be right to drag him out again.  We’ll just have to see how and when it happens, but trust me it will happen some time.”

Just before I spoke to Pekka, I’d heard the news that Teräsbetoni had been selected to represent Finland in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, and I decided to ask Pekka if Brother Firetribe had ever fancied having a go.  “No f***ing way,” he stated emphatically.  “During ‘False Metal’, people really pushed us to take part, and we just said thanks but no thanks.  There’s something about the Eurovision song contest that doesn’t really appeal to me and I have a feeling that if we took part, it would eventually take so much away from this band, that I really wouldn’t want to do it.  It was the biggest thing in the world for Finland to win the contest with Lordi.  I couldn’t believe it, because the Finns have the lowest self esteem in the world for some reason, and we never had any success previously in it.  People got so carried away.  Before Lordi went to the final, everyone was saying they’re sending a bunch of clowns and we’re going to be ridiculed, then when they won, everybody’s opinion magically changed.  Even little babies were buying Lordi masks, and Lordi was the biggest thing.  Now that they have all the success, the movie, Ozzfest and big venues, it’s great.  But Finns tend to be really jealous, and when you’ve achieved something, it’s the greatest thing ever, but after that people get really jealous and try to bring you down again.  So I don’t envy those guys right now.”

After a discussion about our predictions for the Formula 1 season and the Stanley Cup, we finished our conversation with hopes that it wouldn’t be too long before we’d see them play here in the UK.  In the meantime, get down to the shops on May 12^th and pick up your copies of both albums, then sit back and enjoy!   

Dawn Irwin