With:	Matthieu Kleiber [Vocals]
Conducted by:	Jeff (phone)
Published:	17.12.2008
Band profile:	Karelia

- To begin, let me just remind you that Metal Storm is an international webzine so you'll talk to people from all around the world who might not know your band yet, so please can you give a little introduction of Karelia?

Yeah I will try to! Karelia was formed in 2001. The harder part of our formation was to build a line-up which was enough solid to support our ambitions. We first had a deal with BGM Germany in 2003 and the first album was released in 2004 through their sub-label Drakkar. Nightwish had left them some months before and they wanted to sign some new Symphonic Power Metal bands. The second album was released in 2005 and it was already a real turn over for us because even if we still had some symphonic arrangements, it was also a lot more electronic. Now with the new album, I can tell you that we are a real different band, without anything Power, we're a lot more Electro and Pop but still metal.


- Yes definitely you're a new band but even at the beginning when you were labeled as a "Power Symphonic Metal" band, you always avoided the clichés of the genre. I wanted to ask you, how you did that and how you came to this new musical orientation?

Well, back in time? now it's different to the reason of bands like Gojira? the French Metal was like dead because it was too conventional?


- Yeah I remember that bands like Manigance were trendy, they were not bad but probably too conventional? It's different now?

Definitely? I'm not saying that I don't like them, quite the contrary but "something" was missing in my opinion and we wanted to be different. We were not revolutionary either but we tried to have a difference and a real identity. Why did we change our music? Well that's simple actually, Symphonic Power Metal is fun and it was great for us to work with a symphony orchestra and everything but when you have done it, there is nothing new to do. This is really strict and in the end the compositions are all basic. We wanted to do something new so we started to do some mid-tempo songs. For example, our lyrics talked a lot more about society topics and not about fantasy. While we've never done it, we tried to write lyrics with more of a message. In the end we play something that's maybe Pop and Electro but at least that's our own sound and our lyrics are a lot more modern too.


- So yeah can you talk a bit about the new album? In the past I remember that you did concept albums. Is it still the same or is it different?

Are you talking about the lyrics?


- Yes, do we have a unique story from the beginning to the end of the album?

Well for the lyrics? hum? everything talks about conjugal violence. We don't give lessons we just try to be the little mouse in the corner of the room that watches everything and tries to "understand" what's happening with the guilty guy, what is this deviance. We try to talk about the loss of innocence and such things. We try to talk about real topics, we don't want to talk about antichrist or the fact that we want to use the emerald sword? [laughs]


- I understand what you mean [laughs]. But then we can say that without being lesson givers, you have a message to give to your audience.

That's right! Well you know we're not a big band so it's hard to get exposure but at least we say what we want to say and we talk about the things that we want to defend. In the next album we will talk about sex-equality or animal causes even though it's perhaps weird for a metal band to talk about such topics?


- Well more and more metal bands used to do that? Like Gojira?

True, but? well we love Gojira, but we don't want to become a political band nor an ecologist one. This is not our main goal?


- Ho, well it's cool to be an apolitical band too?

We try to stay away of political topics?


- You use to work with the same producer, Renaud. Why do you like to work with him? He worked with big bands like Machine Head?

Well, we're lucky. Next to our hometown we have a guy who worked with big big bands so this is a big opportunity for us. On the third album it's is me who did all the artistic work but for the production, I can only say good things about him. I cannot imagine something better really.


- So you work with him because you like his final product?

Definitely. And he is really helpful; he always tries to give something else to the music. He is a great technician and he understands music.






- At the beginning, you were signed to Drakkar Productions and now you're signed to a French label (Season Of Mist). What are the differences between the labels?

Well back in time, BMG was bought by Sony and the way to act like the big majors was to fire the bands which sell less than 100 000 albums? We sold something like 18 000, it was not bad for a metal band but? "unluckily" Lordi won Eurovision and they put all their financial means into the band? We thought that it was maybe the good time to change our label and we tried to find a French label who wanted to produce us but without only thinking about the fact that we are a metal band. There is maybe something else to do? I don't think that someone could be chocked if he could hear our music on the radio.


- Yeah actually, there is a question that I will ask about French bands in general. What do you think about the fact that nobody plays, or just rarely play metal on radio and TV here. The other day I saw in the afternoon on TV a video clip of a French Rap singer with naked women and violent stuff and when a TV shows metal it's always after 10pm and with the little sign which says "forbidden for kids under 12". I have nothing against Hip Hop but that's weird for me?

Well I agree with you. I think that Hip Hop can be a lot more violent than Black Metal bands which pretend to fuck dead people? And that's weird because it's not something commercial. I mean, when they release a new Rammstein album, there is something bigger than for anything else? So there is a real interest for them to produce metal. But even with that they don't play us on TV and radio even, for money that's weird?


- That's weird yes? Have a look at Hellfest, nobody talks about it or only ten seconds to follow with some images about some problems in graveyards I don't know where. That's even weirder because all those festivals are clean, there are no problems there so what's the problem really? I don't understand?

I've read a good thesis about it. Some people say that the problem maybe comes from the French past during World War II. A lot of people did bad things there and today it seems that we're ashamed of it and try to only do "positive discrimination". Only minorities have the right to talk and they don't care about us. That's stupid of course; everybody should have the right to exist?


- This is sad but maybe that it's changing a bit now?

A good thing could be to come back to the status at the beginning of the 90's. There it was possible to listen to rock on the radio with bands like Metallica, Ugly Kid Joe, etc?

- Yeah I remember that. Maybe that it comes from trends too... whatever?

One of our main goals was to help the scene to come back to this status. Not us alone of course but to be one of the bands who could do something. If you want to know, we tried to propose "Restless" to some major people and we got this answer: "it's cool guys but the guitars are too heavy, change it and we will have a deal". What can we answer to such statement? It's a bit like if you say to Picasso, "your blue painting is cool but please do it in red?" It's just impossible [laughs].


- True [laughs]. Let's come back to Karelia now. Last year your keyboardist left the band. What will you do now? Will you replace him? Will you use samples?

No quite the opposite. If he is not with us anymore this is just because his presence was just not necessary. He played with keyboards and I can start the electronic sequences with simple little samplers. First this is easier for us to work like that and second we can have sounds that it was impossible to do with real keyboards. Plus we want that the guitars become the real leading instruments.


- I understand. But even if keyboards don't mean electronic sounds, is it not maybe a paradox to become more electronic and to replace the keyboardist by a new guitarist?

Well you know in the previous albums there were a lot of things to play with keyboards; little melodies here and there? With the new electronic sequences it wouldn't be fun to play and useless really? A seven string guitar will be a lot more helpful.


- To follow my questions about your electronic sounds, why did you choose to cover Moby? I know this is not an original question but still, that's surprising for a metal band.

Well the goal was to surprise you! We don't have a lot of promotional means so it can be good to do original things to attract people. Don't worry we will not show our balls on stage but try to do original covers.






- But are you not afraid of the metalheads who are always whining because we never play their music on the radio but who are not so open-minded and could say "what the hell is that electronic sound?!"

You know, if the close-minded metalheads don't like us, this is a good thing. I know that some people who used to listen to our music at the beginning are disappointed now. We're sorry for them and we have nothing against them of course but we want to do other things. We're not better we're just doing something else.


- You played with a lot of bands, especially Scorpions. Do you have any good or bad anecdotes to tell?

Ho well, the bad things were not with big bands like Scorpions but more with little unknown bands. We played with Kamelot, The Gathering, Vanden Plas and it was cool but Scorpions are even more surprising because they're real stars and they're really curious actually. When we were with them we didn't try to be boring by asking for autographs and everything. We were not pretentious or anything but we just wanted to respect them and be cool. And the funny thing is that they came to meet us saying that they like what we do and I can tell you that it was weird [laughs].


- Yeah it's cool, and I suppose that you listened to these kinds of bands when you was young?

Yeah we touched our first asses during parties dancing to "Still Loving You" [laughs]


- I read on your bio that Lionel who was one of the original members is still working with you. Is that right?

Yes, he still works as a producer, especially for the symphonic arrangements. But he is more into symphonic music, doing trailers for video games and stuff like that. If you have a look at Karelia, you'll see that I drive the band but there are a lot of other people who work with us (Renaud the producer, Lionel, etc). It's a good group; the more we are the better we are.


- You wrote the last albums entirely right? How does it work? Are the other musicians simply not into compositions, or is it just your baby as the leader of the band?

For the next album I will work a lot more with Jack. But the other musicians are simply not composers. We don't think that we can do a composition together, it doesn't work. Sure everybody can do arrangements but it's better when one or two people as a maximum write a song.


- Any tours in the future? In France or Europe?

We will be back in studio in February and we will play with Uli John Rot in March. In April we will play again with Scorpions, in France it should be us again and maybe, if all is ok, also in Europe.


- Hoo that's good news!

Well they seem to be happy with our opening act performance so they wanted to play with us again. After that we will do some other dates until Hellfest?






- I suppose that you want to play there, every French band wants to play there now?

Yeah! At the first we didn't have the good relations to play there but now that we have a new promotional structure it will be easier. Some people start to believe in our project so we really hope that we will be able to show it live. After that maybe that we will play in the other summer festivals, especially in Germany.


- Do you have any places where you'd like to play?

Hoo yeah, USA and Japan. We sold 8000 copies of our first album and it was good number to play there but we never did it. It's one of our big frustrations. Let's hope that it will change now.


- Before we finish this interview, I have a last question. Do you have any special questions that you would like people to ask of you?

Hoo I don't know. I've never thought about it? Well maybe people could ask us what we want to prove. Because we're always changing our music and nobody wants to know that apparently?


- Good question, you're a good interviewer so please answer yourself! [laughs]

Honestly, at the beginning we wanted to change things in metal. I mean that it's a musical genre with a lot of labels, it's really strict actually and when you try to be different you're commercial, like Korn or Evanescence. We won't change it, we don't have this pretention but hey we're all in the same family: Rock N Roll! From Rammstein to the Beatles, Mayhem and Gojira, people must understand that it's just rock! If we can do that we will be happy [laughs].


- I hope that you'll do it then! So now if you have anything to say to the readers? Remember they're not essentially French and come from all around the world.

A big hail to everybody. Be curious and open-minded, that's the most important. Two words is enough to describe what I think [laughs].

Thx to Matt and Karelia ant to Roger for this interview!