In a few days, Church Of Void will be coming to the UK to play two shows – one in Camden, London on October 15 at Fiddlers Elbow and the other in Manchester on October 16 at Star & Garter. Whilst we were in Jyväskylä last week, we caught up with them for a pre-tour chat. See what happened below…
You will soon be coming to the UK for two shows – one in London and one in Manchester. How did they come about and what made you decide to want to play some UK gigs?
G. Funeral (lead guitar): Well I know a guy from the UK who plays in a band and we were just chatting a few years ago that if they were to come to Finland, we could help them out with some gigs and they could do the same with us. And then about a year later he wrote to me saying “here are the dates!” and that was fine for us! I just took it as a joke in the beginning, and I really didn’t think it would work out or anything, but he’s the kind of guy that really likes to organise things so that’s mainly the reason why we are coming to the UK – there’s someone who’s made it possible for us! To be honest there’s very little that we’ve had to do to make it happen.
That’s good, one less thing to worry about!
G. Funeral: Yeah, he’s been organising everything.
Magus Corvus (vocals): Basically all we need to do is come over and play!
G. Funeral: If we don’t want to, we don’t even have to take our guitars, or anything with us.
A.D. (lead guitar): He said everything is arranged, so just come over.
Magus Corvus: It’s the best possible situation, we just walk in and everything is set up for us!
When are you flying over?
Magus Corvus: Wednesday, so we can have a night off on the Wednesday and see London a bit, then have a terrible hangover on Thursday! Well, some of us will.
What can fans expect from the shows?
Magus Corvus: A couple of new songs, at least, and we play songs from every EP and album we have done.
G. Funeral: Magus is quite theatrical, unexpected and surprising, everything like that. There’s kind of a danger in our show, even for us the players, because we really don’t know what he’s going to do onstage!
So it’s a different show every night then?
A.D.: Yeah, absolutely.
Magus Corvus: It’s something that keeps us going and keeps things interesting. We don’t want to bore ourselves by playing the same show and the same set all over again each night.
Do you decide what songs you’re going to play before you go onstage, or do you just see where each performance takes you?
Magus Corvus: Well, some of us prefer having some sort of structure.
G. Funeral: We do have a package of songs that we rehearse.
Magus Corvus: But we’ll change the order stuff like that.
A.D.: And the songs aren’t exactly the same every evening, either.
G. Funeral: Magus might disappear from the stage, or lie around, or go sit on the tables so it’s pretty interesting every night. I’ve heard some people describe our shows as…quite scary!
A.D.: Actually, his wife said that to us!
Byron V. (drums): My friends too!
G. Funeral: “Who is this crazy man?” But it’s only onstage.
What are you most looking forward to about the upcoming shows?
Magus Corvus: Well, it’s a completely new audience and environment for us so it’s quite thrilling, and we’re looking forward to meeting new people.
G. Funeral: And England is home of doom…if you look at most of the greats, they come from England so it’s great for us to be able to play there.
Magus Corvus: We’ve done so many gigs in central/southern Finland so it’s nice to play somewhere different every once in a while.
Have you played outside of Finland before?
Magus Corvus: No, this is our first time.
Byron V.: I’m looking forward to the road-trip experience also.
Magus Corvus: We’re all just really looking forward to this a lot!
On a broader sense, what would you say the best gig you’ve ever played has been?
A.D.: A gig that was quite fascinating was our gig at Lutakko with Kuolemanlaakso, on the big stage.
Magus Corvus: That was actually only our second gig, it was such a great experience to support those guys.
Moving onto some more random questions, if there was going to be a movie released about Church Of Void, which actors would you want to play yourselves?
Magus Corvus: Alive or dead?
It can be anybody you like.
Magus Corvus: In that case, the late and great Matti Pellonpää would be my choice.
A.D.: That’s a tough one! I really don’t know for me.
Magus Corvus: Who would be the drumming man in the movie…? How about Kate Winslet?
(everyone laughs)
If Church Of Void could release their own signature product, what would it be?
G. Funeral: Beer is so last season.
Magus Corvus: So is wine, actually. So…any product…
A.D.: A sword? Or maybe armour?
Magus Corvus: Well, it has to be something made out of metal.
Well a suit of armour seems perfect then!
Magus Corvus: Or a nuclear bomb, perhaps? As long as it’s made out of metal!
And my last question – what is in store for Church Of Void for 2016?
Magus Corvus: Next year? Well, we’re desperately trying to release our latest split EP.
Is it finished?
Magus Corvus: Yeah, we did the tracks in March or April.
Byron V.: In the same session, we also finished drum tracks for upcoming songs for album number two.
Magus Corvus: Yeah. Our main quest is to release this EP as soon as possible. In the best scenario it might come out this year but we’ll see! It’s going to be a three-way split, with Acolytes Of Moros and Cardinals Folly. We also have a live album coming up, but the main focus is on that for now.
