Having been one of the opening bands on last year's Paganfest USA tour, ELUVEITIE went from being an excellent, if not very well known Folk Metal band to being one of the biggest and brightest in the genre. After releasing their acoustic album, "Evocation I: The Arcane Dominion" on Nuclear Blast, ELUVEITIE came back to North American shores headlining the Heathenfest tour to large, rabid crowds. With the release of their next full-length, "Everything Remains As It Never Was", who can tell where this talented Swiss band will go next?

Tell us a bit about "Everything Remains...".

"Well, what can I say? I heard that there were some rumors or misunderstandings or whatever that it would be 'Evocation' part two or something, but that's not the case. We actually never said so, so I don't know, (but) I know there were some rumors about that, so it's not. We will do 'Evocation' part two as an acoustic thing, but we'll do it somewhen - we'll take our time for that. So 'Everything Remains' is just a regular new album, Metal album again. I think we just went on where we ended with 'Slania' and of course, music did develop in a way, but it's just like what you got on 'Slania'. With how it came out, we are really, really satisfied. Actually, at first, the whole production process was kind of new for us and it was the first time we were working together with Tommy Vetterli engineering the album. I don't know if you're familiar with him."

I have one of CORONER's albums.

"Yeah, so here we go and I don't know why, but he's not actually famous at all as an engineer. I cannot understand it. It was actually our manager who hooked us up together because back then, he was also manager for CORONER, so they're good friends and stuff and he came, 'don't you want to try it with Tommy?' 'What does he do?' All he does today is release small Swiss Pop bands and stuff ad we were like 'what?' Well, but we did try that and it was just mind blowing. Now I would say he's one of the best engineers ever. I mean his work's incredible, brilliant - he should get way more attention, I think. He is really incredible. And as well, the whole mixing we did with Colin Richardson, which is also an amazing producer. I don't know if you know him; he did many American bands like SLIPKNOT, MACHINE HEAD."

BEHEMOTH, too, right?

"Yeah, that was one of the few European bands he did, KREATOR and stuff, so the whole mixing process was also really amazing. Colin is cool, he's like a freak. When I went to England to his studios to attend the mixing sessions, I actually expected huge hardware installations... his productions, like SLIPKNOT, they really sound fat as hell, you know. But I was really surprised - it was a fucking small studio with literally nothing inside. It was like, 'what?' His secret weapon is basically just his ears. He's just pure fucking genius. Amazing, his work's really amazing. Also, the mixing, we were totally satisfied. I think it's the first time and the first album, actually, for us... which is really transparent. He did what no one else could do. It is difficult, for example, in some songs we have more than ninety tracks, which is a hell of a lot and with all these different instruments going on, it's really difficult to break everything out and have everything heard and he really managed to do that, so the production of everything is really crystal clear and you can hear everything. We're extremely happy about that."

Excellent! What was the song writing process like?

"Basically, it was the same like always. It was kind of a last minute thing. (laughs) Which is kind of normal for us - I think I need some pressure to work. I don't know. It's always like that. What is new on that album - well, basically, the song writing was always done by myself and this one, Ivo, our guitar player, and myself were working together more and three songs were completely written by him, so that's new. And I think you can also hear that and I'm happy about that."

What would be your favorite tracks off the album?

"Well, it's hard to say since you don't know the songs, but my favorites are 'Kingdom Come Undone', which is like a pretty hard song in the way of maybe 'Blood Stained Ground', but it's a little harsher than that one and probably 'Quoth The Raven', which is like a mid-tempo song, but with a really dark and melancholic atmosphere."

How has the reaction been to the "Evocation" album?

"Well, actually pretty good. And of course, not everybody did like it, there were many fans that we kind of pissed off with that album because they just wanted Metal. We were aware of that fact; it was kind of a risk to release an album like that - it is completely different from what we normally do. We knew that there would be fans that would be pissed off or something. But that's what we want to do, so just do it. Overall, I think we were positively surprised. I mean, also at shows, like everywhere we're playing, we'll ask 'do you want to hear some acoustic stuff?' Most people are really excited about it, so I think it's good."

You can't worry about what people think about - I mean, you're the artist, not them.

"Well, that's the point. Of course, in a way, to some extent you have to worry about that. I mean, it's the music fans that give you the opportunity to do what you do, but as you said, I think you have to follow your own intentions and we wanted to do it and we liked it. If people don't, what can you do?"

Can we expect a live ELUVEITIE DVD in the future?

"Yeah, sure. (laughs) We don't know anything really concrete. I mean, that's something we've wanted to do quite awhile, actually. We already had some talks with Nuclear Blast about that. Maybe we'll do some tour thing. I mean, there's nothing fixed right now, but we will do that."

What is your opinion on the increasing popularity of Folk and Pagan Metal?

"I'm happy about that. (laughter) Of course. I don't know - for here in the States, it was just something that we in a way expected, but of course, you can never know. In Europe, it really grew up in the last seven, eight years or something. I mean, it's really huge in Europe, especially in countries like Germany or something, like it's probably as big as Metal's been at all, it's really huge. Two years ago it looked liked it could sweep over to the States, as well, but we didn't know yet, of course. As we can see today, or as it feels today, that's what is happening. And of course we're happy about that."

Recommend a book for our readers and explain your choice.

"Oh Christ... well, the book I would recommend is probably not available here; it's just available in German. Let's think that it would be translated in English, then it would be 'An Roth Mor', which is an Irish sentence for 'The Great Wheel'. It's a book about the meaning of that symbol, which stands for the Celtic calendar, the four seasons and the four great seasons. And of course it's basically just like the seasons and the four feasts, but it means much more than that, about the whole way of life and it's about living together with nature and living with nature's rhythms and stuff like that. Yeah - it's a book about that and I would really recommend that to everybody."

Just one last question - what's your favorite European festival to play?

"Oohh... there's a lot of them. Probably Graspop in Belgium. We'll play that next year again and looking forward to it a lot. I mean, it's a huge festival, though, but it's still really neat and cool bands, cool stages. We really like to play there." [FIN]

ELUVEITIE will be opening up for AMON AMARTH on April 12 at the Richshaw in Vancouver, BC. Get your tickets!