The Bloodline Interview

Room Thirteen: Firstly, Kemi, with female fronted bands/female vocalists collaborating in bands becoming increasingly popular at the moment, do you ever come up against comparisons with other iconic women such as Within Temptation's Sharon Den Adel or the ex-frontwoman of Nightwish Tarja Turunen? How might your voice and attitude towards the work you do differ from these women?
Kemi: Well this happens frequently however, the majority of these comparisons come from people that don't know the work I have done throughout the years. I have the advantage that I get recognition from people who know The Dreamside, and my early beginnings at my first label Nuclear Blast.
My voice and the way I express myself in my music and lyrics is more emotional and personal, with all due respect for the marvellous voices of Tarja and Sharon. Furthermore my attitude towards the work is totally different. I write, arrange, produce and design everything together with Roman and we share the responsibilities in The Bloodline equally. I am involved and actually at the playground from A to Z.

Room Thirteen:You write very enchanting and ambient music that is at times almost hypnotic. What inspired you to write metal in this kind of mood?
Roman: The music of The Bloodline is very personal and the mood can be described as "life itself at its worst". The compositions come from deep within and Kemi and I are very honest and open on "Where Lost Souls Dwell". I believe that this made this album special although it also made us very vulnerable, because from the first day of creating the music until the day you read the first reviews you reveal yourself from a very personal side.

Room Thirteen: As a duo, you naturally work with a lot of session musicians to help you complete your albums. How do you find such collaboration, and do you find that the people you work with often have ideas which you then incorporate into your own music?
Roman: No, Kemi and I did everything ourselves and worked very closely during the entire production process. When playing instruments and singing we recorded and produced with each other. The creation of "Where Lost Souls Dwell" was probably the most intense recording we ever did and both of us are so full of ideas and inspirations that input from another musician would have been more of a disturbance to the process. We hired a studio drummer, a friend of ours played some leads on "Abandon All Hope" and "Ocean in Flames" and two other friends had guest roles as narrators.

Room Thirteen: The lyrics you create are incredibly poetic and often seem to reflect on past times and lives. Have there been any particularly memorable moments or insightful dreams in your life that might have helped inspire these lyrics or are they all purely the product of a creative imagination?
Roman: There were indeed insightful dreams and memorable moments. Personal experiences and hard times we have had in our lives have been a bitter but useful source for many of our words.
Kemi: Some very nasty deaths happened to close friends, and we both have had, let's say a bad start in life. On the whole we turned our sorrows and pain into a creative process and "Where Lost Souls Dwell" is a result of that. To go more into our personal lives is not appropriate here and now but one can listen to the album. I am convinced that these feelings are quite universal and to recognise these elements in life can be somewhat liberating.

Room Thirteen:You have had one other release previous to 'Where Lost Souls Dwell'. How does this new album differ from 'Opium Hearts' and out of the two, which is your favourite and why?
Roman: "Where Lost Souls Dwell" is much better through and through and is more personal then its predecessor. I like this album more because of its diversity and the production in general which is much better than the last. Nevertheless "Opium Hearts" was recorded 9 years ago and was a good start. I still enjoy listening to it.

Room Thirteen:'Where Lost Souls Dwell' is pretty intense and well written, very developed and unique among other metal albums of the same genre out at the moment. Do you think you could improve on your sound even further and what are your plans for a next release, if any?
Kemi: Of course we believe we can improve our sound or else we would not be real musicians! We always aim to do better, to grow and develop ourselves. We have to believe this so we can set the standards higher and strive to get there. We are working on the new album already and our plans are to release the next Bloodline album in spring 2007. But first let's focus on our offspring "Where Lost Souls Dwell".

Room Thirteen:What of your other band 'The Dreamside'? Is that still continuing and what similarities would you draw up regarding the sound between 'The Dreamside' and 'The Bloodline'. What differences would you say there were between the two releases?
Kemi: The Dreamside released its fifth album "Spin Moon Magic" September 2005 on Ferret records, an American label. The album is very successful, especially in America and Germany. The music is more focused on my vocals and more melodic then the music of The Bloodline. We consider The Bloodline as metal with gothic influences and The Dreamside as gothic with metal influences. Both bands have in common that they are very diverse, eclectic, emotional and atmospheric in their sound.

Room Thirteen: Who are your main influences when it comes to the sound and structure of 'The Bloodline'?  What would you say is good about the music of these influences and what changes/improvements might you suggest or even take into consideration for your own music, if any?
Both: When it comes down to inspiration there are many musicians and bands as well as soundscapes, several art and music styles that influenced us. These include Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, The Fields of the Nephilim, My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil, Amorphis, Entombed and Rammstein. We were also inspired by soundtracks from artists such as Hans Zimmer and John Carpenter.

Room Thirteen:In closing, the UK is in need of a bit more exposure to Gothic Metal and its spectacular sound. Any plans to take your work on tour over here in the UK or, indeed, anywhere at all in the near future?
Both:We are open for what the future may bring. We see "Where Lost Souls Dwell" as an event and know how it must come across on stage. We will probably not play often as we set quite high standards for a show of The Bloodline. However we certainly love to play live and the UK is very high on our "we want to play there!" – list. We know very well the treasures the British music scene has brought to us.