A Q&A with Free Carmen

Finnish alt-rock explores light, darkness and seasonal cycles…

What’s the title of your latest release, and what does it mean to you?
Solstice II is the second part of our double album concept. If you listen to them one after another, the concept becomes clearer. Solstice I starts from the moment of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. The feeling gets darker song by song, bringing us closer to the darkest day of the year. Solstice II starts where Solstice I left us, from the moment of the winter solstice. The first album has a song called ‘I’, and the second has a song called ‘II’. Those songs represent the moments of the autumn equinox and spring equinox when the sun shifts from one hemisphere to the other. These themes are very present for us because we live in Finland. During midsummer, the sun doesn’t set at all, whereas in the winter it rarely comes out. For example, between the first nine days of December last year, there was only six minutes of sunshine.

What was the hardest part about putting this release together, and why?
Getting the money for it, of course. We worked and saved money for five years to pay for the Solstice albums. Two albums as a first release wasn’t maybe the most logical economic decision, but it was totally worth it.

Who produced the release – what did they bring to it? If you produced it yourselves what do you enjoy most about producing your own material?
We produced it by ourselves. I love being in the studio and it really feels like a place where I can use the full capacity of my brain. There’s nothing that I don’t like about the process. Väinö Karjalainen recorded and co-produced the albums. He came up with amazing overdub ideas and had great ways to make the songs shorter. He also played various instruments on many of the tracks. Vocals were produced and recorded by Mathias Hermasson. He really brought the best out of me as a singer and helped a lot with pronunciation.

What do you want the listener to take away from listening to your music?
I will always remember the first time I listened to Jeff Buckley’s album Grace. After that, I wasn’t sure what I had just heard or whether I even liked it. I only knew that I had to listen to it again. If someone can get that kind of experience from our albums, I’d be happy. There’s nothing like the feeling of starting to fall in love with something you don’t necessarily understand, or maybe didn’t even like that much at first.

How does a track normally come together? Can you tell us something about the process?
There is no specific way we write a song. Sometimes one person comes up with the whole song, other times someone might only have an idea for a part and then we finish the song together. For the Solstice albums, about half of the songs were written before I even met the guys, and the other half were written together. Most of the time a song is mainly done by two members of the band, but every time we go to rehearsals and actually try it out, it changes through everyone’s input. These are the moments when the songs truly become Free Carmen songs.

What band/artists have influenced you the most since you started this project, and why?
For the last two years, I’ve had an intense Pearl Jam phase. That band has something so real and pure in the way they do things that it has become an example for me to follow. Especially No Code and Yield are two albums which have something so unique that no other band has.

What countries would you like to tour? Are there any standout venues you’d like to play in?
There’s not many places I wouldn’t like to tour. Of course, there are some countries that are not so compelling at the moment, such as Russia or Israel. There are many legendary venues and festivals I’d love to play, such as Wembley, Red Rocks, Rock Am Ring and Glastonbury. But I’m also very excited about our upcoming record store tour in Finland. If the place is okay and people have come to listen to our music, it doesn’t matter to me where it is.

If you could pick one track for our readers to listen to in order to get a taste of your music, what would you pick, and why?
‘One Step Behind’ is the song that I think portrays us the best. It is also the first song we ever wrote together as a band, and for that reason it holds a special place in my heart. Writing that song made me realise that these are the guys I want to be in a band with for the rest of my life.

What ambitions do you have for the band/your career?
To play at Wembley Stadium and stay true to myself. To me, that sounds almost paradoxical, and maybe that’s why I like it so much.

Finally, as you leave the stage, what are your parting words?
Peace.

Find out more about Free Carmen at linktr.ee/FreeCarmen