Writer MATTI RIEKKI is se to release a biography for Finland based melodic death doom metal warriors SWALLOW THE SUN , due to be unleashed 1/2024 (release date, and more info T.B.A.).
SWALLOW THE SUN unleashed "MOONFLOWERS", 11/19/2021 via CENTURY MEDIA RECORDS.
SWALLOW THE SUN unleashed (LIVE release) e "20 YEARS OF GLOOM, BEAUTY AND DESPAIR", unleashed 7/30/2021 via CENTURY MEDIA RECORDS.
JUHA RAIVO (SWALLOW THE SUN):
Dear all. As some of you might already know there will be a book “Swallow the Sun” written by Matti Riekki. Matti was traveling with the band and talking with the past and present members for about a year for this book. I hope the English translation will be published sooner than later, but first it will be out in Finnish.
When I was asked about this book my first thought was absolutely no. I been asked about my own book years back and my answer was so big NO that I didn’t even answer back to the publishing house to be honest. I’m not ready for that, if I ever will. But with the band it felt a bit different. You all know by now that I am quite private person and well.. I also still naively think that the music should always be enough. But when I started to think about this more closely I didn’t want to stand in a way of letting this story to be written down either as this band is so much more than just me, as it always have been.
Doing this book was truly a painful road for many heavy personal reasons that most of you already know, and I don’t need to go in it now. So this book really isn’t a very easy Sunday morning reading. Everyone made a promise not to hold back if we are going to do this, and especially as there is so much behind the veil of this band that people have no idea about. But the process also included endless amount of laughter remembering all the absolute insanity during the years around the world.
Everyone who knows me closer know well that I always go with absolute BS and big laughs first, and that actually comes as a surprise to many. But they also know that I absolutely hate the question “how are you doing?”. So one thing I hoped this book might do, was that it might help me to bring myself back to the land of the living a bit more in the future. Hopefully making it easier to talk about music and doing media after 7 years again. But lets see.. I don’t think you will get me posting duck lip pictures 10 times a day ever..
Personally I have always wanted to work the weight and the pain of this existence through the music and give it my all. And I’m still not quite sure about it, but I hope that maybe this book worked even as a kind of a therapy that I as a “stubborn idiot Finnish man from the woods” have always refuse to have or to go.
So, thank you Matti Riekki for walking this hard road to write this book, and thank you all my brothers in the band that somehow we are still here, and stronger than ever. I could not be more proud of this band and the music. All my love goes to people and animals close, and all of you out there who have taken this music deep into your hearts and still walk with us. Some of you since 20 years back, some since the Moonflowers album, all as important. Music is holy.
Take care all.
-j-
FROM SWALLOW THE SUN:
The book Swallow the Sun, published in January 2024, offers an in-depth look at one of Finland's most important metal bands. For the first time, the band is publicly talking about the band's internal conflicts, the stiff twists and turns of the music business, and the pain that covers everything underneath, but also about friendship and the solid willpower that drives through the walls. The straightforward story of the messengers of grief has been written by, among others. Matti Riekki, familiar from the Sentenced biography.
Swallow the Sun's heavy metal music, founded in 2000, has been successful on domestic charts and on tours around the world. The beginning is also in the band's own story, as many of its compositions have emerged from the deep sadness of real life. The leading character in the band's historian Juha Raivio speaks for the first time about insurmountable difficult things, the most grinding death of his spouse.
- When I first heard about the letter, my answer was a hundred percent NO. I've always wished music could speak for itself. However, the band has had to sink in an endless deep Mariani grave and climb a mountain wall that seems endless, and that story deserves to be told. Pohjola's songs are now on these covers, in laughter and sadness, and my own seven year silence is over, says Raivio.
While Raivio is the heart and soul of Swallow the Sun, it's not a solo player. All the other influential characters in the band, who have brought their own contribution to the chorus and made Swallow the Sun a truly unique band.
- The band is old enough that they started to have stories like a book. And this was quite a therapeutic session for the band to talk through old things. It wasn't an easy task for a Finnish man! Couldn't avoid laughter - and tears - either, states the lead singer Mikko Kotamäki.
Recording the story of the band was also meaningful to writer Matti Riek:
- Writing the Swallow story was the same calling and honorary task for me as working on the Sentenced biography nine years earlier. An offer you couldn't or couldn't refuse. Even though I've followed the band before, sometimes even close, many things along the process really surprised me. So even a hardcore fan gets to see things that they have certainly not read yet. It alone goes a long way that Raivio, who has been silent in public for a long time, is now speaking without covering anything up, but a good story - funny and definitely less funny - is pushing across the board, says Riekki.
Swallow the Sun is a death doom band founded in 2000 in Jyväskylä, who has released eight studio albums during their career and has been nominated twice for the Emma award. The band's albums have risen to the top of Finland's official list and are enjoying international popularity elsewhere in Europe and the United States.
Matt Riekki (s. 1974) is a music editor specializing in heavier rock, who is known for example as the presenter of the late Metalliliitto radio show on Yleisradio and as the long time editor of Inferno magazine. He has written for example before. The history of the band Sentenced...
Thanks-Stay Metal, Stay Brutal-\m/ -l-
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