Exclusive Interview: Kaamos Warriors talk writing and recording “Spirit Of The Void”!

Black Metal inspired Finnish Dark Metal project Kaamos Warriors have been creating some incredible music together over the recent times with third album “Spirit Of The Void” their darkest and most diverse yet. Perhaps the boundaries are pushed further by Mikko Ojala reactivating Dark The Suns (and if you want to know more about that, check out the first of this pair of interviews!). Once the shroud of darkness had lifted, we spoke to Jani Moilanen (guitars, acoustic guitars, solo guitars) about what went in behind the scenes and the conversation went something like this…

What have you learned from recording previous albums like 2020’s “Kirous” or 2019’s “Shadows Of Northern Chaos” which helped the process of creating “Spirit From The Void“? “In every album we have brought something new into the building process of the entity while trying to maintain the basic and simple idea behind the whole music of Kaamos Warriors. I think that with ”Spirit from the Void” we got to the point where the atmosphere we wanted was brought together with the bigger sound we also wanted. The previous albums helped a lot to achieve this”

How does the writing process of a new track start? Melody, riff or rhythm first? How does it evolve from there before you consider it the finished article? “As with other albums also the songs in ”Spirit From The Void” are typically constructed around the one main idea created by Mikko or me. Mikko has a unique gift of creating entities from these ideas in his mind and soon the first demo versions are ready. If the demo version has something special in it and appeals to both of us, we continue to complete it to its final form”

What has brought about the decision to use both Finnish and English in your lyrics and song titles? “This one is kind of a circle trip or going back where we started if one could say so. I mean that we did the same with the first album It turned out to have the right atmosphere in it, and in my opinion, we did not catch the same during the next two albums. And with ”Spirit from the Void” it is back again”

If you had the opportunity to have a guest musician or vocalist work with you on a future recording, who would you like to work with? “This one is a bit hard while we have had so balanced team with Mikko when it comes to creating music. But if this was the case and this kind of possibility appeared I would shake thing up a bit and collaborate with an old school legend like Billy Gibbons. Would it make an interesting combo?”

For us gear nerds out there, can you tell us what you’re using gear wise (pedals, strings, drums etc) to get your sound? “I’ve been fascinated by different guitars since I was five and that has never stopped. The biggest love for me is the Jackson rr and even though it is not the main tool for me it can be heard in tracks 3 and 5. Mainly I used the Raato custom 8-string because it offers a huge scale. The limits of this guitar are tested in the the tracks 4, 7 and 9. I also used my 7-string baritone Amfisound with the first two singles (tracks 1 and 2). Mikko has played rhythm guitars with ESP LTD Black Metal 7strings baritone guitar. For the sound work Neural DSP (Gojira, Parallax) plugins has been used. The true master mind behind the sound of Kaamos Warriors is our mixing master Teemu Liekkala”

What difference would it make to you as a band if you could land an endorsement from a gear manufacturer? “That is propably easier for Mikko to answer, I have a constant hunger for testing new different guitars :D. Mikko actually has played almost 15 years ESP LTD guitars and got all his guitar within this period of time from Musamaailma Helsinki”

“Spirit From The Void” by Kaamos Warriors is out 8th April 2022 via Inverse Records and is available over at bandcamp.