Kivimetsän Druidi

DarkArt: When and how was born your band?
KD: Okay, well... Our band was founded in 2002 by me (Joni Koskinen) and my brother (Antti Koskinen). We were like playing some tunes at our home garage and we came up with the
first song of our band. At that time it was a sort of like project, not a band yet and we didn't have a name for it. Later on we decided to take part in to a band contest in our home city, Kouvola, and we gathered players for other instruments something like three months before our first gig. Well... that's how it all started.


DarkArt: Why have you choose this name?
KD: The name Kivimetsän Druidi ("Druid of the Stoneforest" in english) was chosen a bit like in a hurry, when we uploaded our first song in to free finnish mp3-site. We had to come up with some name for our project that would fit the music we were making, so I just throw it out and there it is still.


DarkArt: What are you major musical and artistic influences?
KD: There's a finnish band called Moonsorrow by which we were heavily influenced when we came up with the idea to begin to play this kind of music. Along the six-year-journey of our band we've been influenced by bands like Turisas, Ensiferum, Finntroll, Battlelore and so on. Still we do not try to copy any of these bands, but instead we try to make music that sounds no one but us. For musical influences I could say that we mix celtic melodies, blackmetal atmosphere, headbanging thrash riffs, operatic vocal parts and some melodic guitar harmonies in our music.


DarkArt: What are the subjects that you prefer to talk about in your lyrics?
KD: Our lyrics are kind of stories and tales. Many of our songs tell about some fantasy world and the recent ones have been sort of middle-aged influenced fantasy stories. With two sentence I could describe it this way: Tales of battle, deception and victory. Stories of fallen warriors and enchanted weapons.


DarkArt: If you must to choice one of your songs who could be the most representative of your band, which one do you choice?
KD: I can only speak on my behalf, but I would say the new song called "Jäässä Varttunut" describes the best what we are today. That one is not yet listenable in the internet, but it might be soon. It has some catchy guitar harmonies, crushing blastbeat chorus and epic melodies.


DarkArt: Have you a cd that we can buy (for France)?
KD: We're in the middle of nagotiations for a record deal at the moment, so there's not yet any full-length album available. We've recorded two demos and one EP so far, which we have been selling through our website and myspace site, but unfortunately those are all quite sold out. There will be more information about the matter at our websites soon, so stay tuned.

DarkArt: What are your plans for the future?
KD: As I already told above, we're in the middle of the record deal nagotiations and we're planning to make our debyt album this year. Then we're ofcourse trying to play as much gigs as possible everywhere where they're willing to let us play. ^^ Plan is to entertain you people all around as best as we can.


DarkArt: One word for our readers?
KD: Check out our website www.kivimetsandruidi.com and our myspace site www.myspace.com/kivimetsandruidi for more info and some mp3's. Cheers and Rock'n'Troll!!


- Joni Koskinen, Vocals and Guitar.

Article by Melliarine.