After a decade of existence, Finland’s Turisas are making waves all over Europe and even in the notoriously difficult UK market. They’ve even bee credited with inventing a genre (Battle Metal). Clearly HRH needed to investigate and we caught up with lead singer Mathias (Warlord) Nygard before their recent gig in Southampton. 

Could you introduce yourself to the readers? 

MN - I am Mathias of Turisas 

How are you enjoying this UK tour so far ? 

MN - Its good, it’s going really really well. We toured the UK last September and did the normal 7 or 8 day one. We figured it would be cool to play places that, maybe, not so many other bands do. When coming on the tour we didn’t really know what to expect, after playing places like Manchester and London what would happen in Southampton we didn’t really know what would happen but so far it’s been really good. It’s been packed every night so I definitely think it is a good thing to tour outside the normal parameters. 

What do you think of the English fans, like I know you’ve played Wacken and Download so what are your thoughts? 

MN - Well Download, we played to a lot of people that never heard us unlike at Wacken where we have been seen by people who actually know the bands. So it's kind of a funny thing happening, a lot of people are coming out in the face paint so that’s cool, and fans chanting outside the gig before the doors opened. 

Were you surprised by the success of Battle Metal and how much that took off? 

MN - Well to be honest it came out in 2004 and it didn’t quite explode like we still toured Battle Metal and played festivals  until 2006 when the new one was released. Now it seems like it came out of nowhere. But I think its healthy, we’re not Trivium, I mean now that we’ve played a few really small intimate venues and you have to kind of tone it down for those gigs. As the artists a show is a show so we try to pull out the same show regardless of size.  

What did you think about winning some Metal Hammer awards? 

MN - Well obviously it’s flattering, it’s a great honour to be picked by the readers of Metal Hammer as it’s an actual vote by fans. It’s not a single critic’s opinion which in the end is just their opinion. Fans voting is much more, worth something in a way, so it was flattering to see us listed as, what was it? Hero of metal second only to Rob Flynn of Machine Head. 

What do you think about being labelled as Battle Metal as I have heard you don’t really like to be labelled. 

MN - Well that’s something as a songwriter or musician you don’t really  think about that much. The label might change, it might evolve from battle metal to The Varangian Way and I hope that this band doesn’t become like AC/DC doing the same thing for years.

Don’t get me wrong I like AC/DC but you know we'd rather be a band that moves on and is constantly evolving. That of course means that sometimes some people who liked one thing that we did in the past may think the new stuff is not as good or whatever, but it's more interesting to us in a way that, on every record, we do we try to come up with something new rather than just the same as the previous record. So whatever Battle Metal is as such I don’t really care that much. 

What made you cover Rasputin? 

MN - Well first of all it gave us the chance to take on a song and make it our own, not like Manowar, you know it’s too close. I think y’know you have to take something from a totally different world and change it so it sounds like your own. Our version sounds like Turisas not Boney M and that’s what makes it work. The actual reason was that when we started playing it live a few years back it kind of become a hit in the live set so after that we decided to record it and release it as a single. 

We heard you wanted to tour in a Viking long boat, is there any truth to that rumour? 

MN - Way before releasing this album we had the idea of doing a concept tour that went hand and hand with the album so playing shows would include some interesting live things. But right now we’ve just been too fucking busy! You know something like that requires a lot of effort, we'd have had to set too much time aside so we're doing this tour and then coming back at some point. Then we practically jump into Paganfest then hit the summer festivals, so it will be early autumn when this touring cycle finishes, might be in September we do another run. 

So I guess that means no new album for a while then? 

MN - No, to me its kind of, there are a number of bands who can do the tour and write songs on the tour bus and then go right back out touring again. I think, personally, I defiantly need the time off to put it aside and concentrate on an album rather than have twenty minutes to sort it out between this and that. It’s a quality I'm jealous of, but then again there are a lot of albums done that way which would have benefited from some extra time. 

What’s the strangest thing that’s happened to you as a band? 

MN - I don’t really know. I mean a lot of stuff happens and a lot of shit stuff happens, hmmm. When you're touring like we are, on a bus from place to place it's very easy cos you can get a good nights sleep on the bus, but the summer festivals are crazy. You know you do a fest and you may be in another country the next day so it's insane. Drive to airport, fly, wait for the luggage. You never get more than the twenty minutes to yourself then it's another hour on the plane. Last year we did a fest in Austria which was fuckin’ chaos, then on a bus to Munich or something, and then a bus from Germany to Belgium to play Grasspop the same day, back to Brussels and then it was another plane to Italy, so it becomes a bit stressful 'cos you're just broke after three days. 

Given that, is it worth the hassle? 

MN - Yes, but you can’t do that many shows for too long 

One more question, if you could go anywhere in time where would it be and why? 

MN - Anywhere in time? Well of course it would be interesting to go back in time but then again to go forward… you know go in that direction to kind of see what the world would become. 

Thank's to Warlord for talking to us, you can find out more about the band by visiting their website @ www.turisas.com