Impaled Nazarene – “If your opinions don´t change at all in ten years, then you are fucking sad piece of shit”

Of course the most provoking and extreme band from Finland. Ten years of madness celebrated with the release of ‘Decade of Decadence’, full of 7″s and unreleased songs. Time to look back on these ten years. And with whom could we have done it better than with mr. Mika Luttinen.

Not all the 7″ you released are on ‘Decade of Decadence’. Why not?
I left out ‘Satanic Masowhore’ as it was just released on ‘Ugra-Karma’ reprint and the split with Driller Killer is still on sale plus we don´t own the rights for it.

How do you look back on ten years of Impaled Nazarene? The albums, 7″-es, demo’s you released, your provoking behaviour, especially during the ‘Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz’ and ‘Urga-Karma’ times, an album such as ‘Tol Cormpt…’ which, I read in underground zines then, was received as one of the most violent releases ’till then, the way everything turned out from the beginning of Impaled Nazarene ’till now? Please explain it all…
What can I say?? We never thought we could get a deal with any label, we were just thrashing out the shit we felt was right. ‘Tol…’ is a crazy album, I had just gotten out of the army and was pretty fucking pissed off person. It was total alcoholocaust session, as was ‘Ugra-Karma’. My bro was in the army at that time. There has been line-up changes and of course things like that affect your sound plus the fact that we are older now.

What do you think of the early Impaled Nazarene material when you listen to it nowadays?
I stand behind it 100%. Some of it is not so great but you have to start somewhere.

What’s your personal favourite Impaled Nazarene album?
‘Nihil’ definitely as everything finally clicked on it. Production, songs, artwork etc.

What is the reason you’ve recently moved back to Finland?
Personal reasons.

Are you satisfied with the still growing quality of the albums after the rather disappointing “Suomi Finland Perkele”?
We do what we want to and if people like it, good, if not, whatever. ‘Suomi Finland Perkele’ still remains our biggest selling album to date.

Is there any new material written? What can we expect from the new material?
We have five new songs written. Three of them are typical, fast Impaled Nazarene shit. One slow and moody song and one total Heavy Metal track that we have never tried before.

Are there any tours/gigs coming up?
No, we are concentrating on the next album. We did pretty much nothing with ‘Nihil’ as the tour offer we got from Metalysee was fucking insulting one.

Why did Alexi Laiho join Impaled Nazarene and not a guitar player who didn’t have any other occupations yet?
He joined the us because he likes Impaled Nazarene a lot, BUT he won´t be on our next cd. We made the decision a couple of weeks ago, he is replaced with Somnium from Finntroll. Our bassist Jani Lehtosaari isn´t member anymore either, he left to concentrate on his record company. We are checking out a new bassist in January.

Are the ex-Impaled Nazarene members still active in music? What are they doing at the moment?
Taneli Jarva and my bro play in The Black League and have an album out on Spinefarm records. My bro still has Legenda as well. Laiho has Children of Bodom and Sinergy. The rest… one of them is fire chief in a small Finnish town, the others I have no idea. I know that they all have kids and shit and don’t play music any more.

As being one of Osmose’s ‘oldest’ bands (if not thé oldest still under contract) have you always had good contact with each other? Never have you thought of changing from label?
Of course there has been times when some things didn’t really work the way we wanted but 99% of the time they have been really supportive. We have a special relationship with Osmose as we are more friends than business partners. I really cannot imagine other company for us. We are rather a top priority on a small company than just a small band in a big one.

Whatever happened to the labelling of your music as “Industrial Cyberpunk Sadometal”?
Or whatever happened calling our music Satanic Death Metal, Black Metal, Sodomatic Sadometal, Suomi Finland Perkele Metal etc. Nothing happened.

You state on your website that a lot of your earlier quotes and exclamations are no longer valid. Do you still know what you’ve all said back then? I got some interviews in which you really ‘went for it’… 8 Years or no 8 years…(hate against Norway, Poland and other Eastern countries…)
How the fuck could I stand behind some of those statements??? We have been on tour with Norwegian bands (and we had a good laugh about those idiotic “We are true, you are not” times). I cannot believe that we still get questions like these. If your opinions don´t change at all in ten years, then you are fucking sad piece of shit. We went to Russia and after talking with the local fans, it was clear they share the same hatred for communism as I do. I don´t hate Russians, I hate communists and most definitely they are not all commies there. That Poland statement was our own inside joke and we have explained it in every fucking Polish interview we have done. Metallion of Slayer mag said it to me the best: Nothing made sense in 1993. I apologized for him some shit I have said and his reply was that. I can see that this kind of attitude is now “in” in USA, they are always 10 years behind us.

First Impaled Nazarene would almost never tour, and now, we see a lot (well, not really a lot) of you, even with Morbid Angel. What happened concerning touring? You now get a bigger budget, or want to go abroad more? Please tell us.
Simple; My brother did not like touring and once he was gone, we started touring much more. Touring is the best part of the whole business, we have been to fucking places where I normally couldn’t afford to go… and even get paid to do it.

What do you think of your ‘labelmates’, such as Dementor, Demoniac, Cirith Gorgor and so on? Do you see changes compared to bands which were under Osmose several years ago (e.g. less Black Metal)?
Dementor I have not heard, Demoniac rules totally. Cirith Gorgor I don’t like. For me the best Osmose band is Driller Killer. Of course there has been changes on Osmose but I don´t run the label so I see no point of commenting this one.