Finland’s craziest thrashers (as shown on “Fast Loud Death” and “Terror Hungry”) have taken a turn in their career, showing a more mature image as individual musicians but also as a whole. Metalpaths caught up with the band’s frontman Samy Elbanna to discuss various issues concerning the bands’ popularity, the tours that came along with it and much more.
Good afternoon Samy! Your new album “Braindead” will be out February 12th. I got the chance to listen to the whole album and from what I’ve heard it’s probably your most mature album to date. What do you think about it now that it’s done and what kind of feedback have you received from your first video called “I Am The Antidote”?
Well, you know, I’m so stoked that the album is going to be released in a month! We really poured our blood, sweat and tears into this album, and I think the outcome is just amazing. We really worked worked hard in the studio to get everything to sound as good as possible. And I think the material is much more mature, I agree on that. And for the “I Am The Antidote” music video, we chose that song to be the first single just because of the fact that you get a lot of the new elements we’ve been incorporating into the music. It has the slower tempo, the melodic stuff, it has the cleaner vocals, so of course we expected that the fans would take it in a little more hard, they might be offended. But at the end of the day, the positive feedback has been really good. And then, of course, there’s some negative feedback, but I think that’s only a good thing because at least now we know we’ve tried something new and people are taking it very well.
Have you played songs off “Braindead” yet? And if so, what were the fans’ reactions towards the new material?
You know, we started playing new songs from this album like six months ago. We started with a couple of tracks and now we’ve been bringing in some new stuff. And definitely you can see from the crowds’ reaction to the new songs, especially with “I Am The Antidote” before it was released we played a couple of times. And it was really cool to see. You know, when we play the fast stuff and people going insane, but for this one, they were all just looking, looking and listening and taking it all in. And we’ve been getting great feedback every time we play that song live, so I think the fans are really eager to hear the new stuff too!
Back to the “I Am The Antidote” video. It was the most different song for your standards. Was it a strategic move to put out your most different song: slower tempo and cleaner vocals?
Yeah, because every time we select a song we’re gonna release first, we wanna think about a song that really gives people kind of an idea of what to expect on a full album. And I think on “I Am The Antidote”, you get so much of the new stuff, but of course you can hear, the Lost Society stuff. And I think that song, it’s the most Lost Society song we’ve built so far, that’s what we’re all about. And it’s also, kind of like a way to show people that we’re capable of doing more than just the fast stuff. We can also slow down, and do lots of melodies and harmonies and cool stuff like that.
Like I said a different face Lost Society is seen on your new video and on your new record as well. What inspired you to change so drastically from the “full-speed ahead” motif of the first 2 records?
You know, there wasn’t something clear with us. When we started writing we didn’t say to each other that “now we gotta do something different because we have two fast albums”. It was a very natural thing for us when we started writing songs, it just so happens that the things we came up with were a bit more dark, a bit more slow and stuff like that. So it wasn’t something that we thought about necessarily, but when we listened to the whole album from start to finish, we thought “OK, this has a bit more of the elements incorporated from different styles of music”. This is the album where we show people that we can try new things. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll work out but we think they worked out, so hopefully the fans will agree with that.
You’ve toured with great bands of thrash metal, both young (like SUICIDAL ANGELS) and old (like DESTRUCTION). What are your memories from all those tours, and which tour taught you the most?
I think one of the coolest things we’ve done so far was of course, last year when we were touring with Suicidal Angels, because it was the first European tour for us, like full length. And it was hardcore for us, there’s 31 gigs in 31 days, so it was great for us, we had to work our asses off for that tour, we had such a great feeling after the tour, we really felt that we delivered. We’ve been around Europe in countries we’ve never been before, so it was cool to see that there were people in those countries who came to see us, wearing Lost Society t-shirts and stuff. And after that we did a couple of mini-tours, like around Finland with Children Of Bodom. Which I think for me is one of the highlights of this career so far, because Children Of Bodom has been such a huge influence for me from the beginning of playing guitar, and of course this was a really cool experience too. And it was so great that when we met the guys first time, how down to earth they were and it was just so much fun to hang out with them.
Which is your dream band to tour with and which is the band (or bands) you’d love to tour again?
From the ones we’ve already toured with, it has to be Children Of Bodom. And we hope that at some point we can do a full length European tour, maybe even go outside of Europe with the guys, that would be definitely really cool. And my dream band to tour with, I have to say it’s probably Iron Maiden, cause this band has been to me the biggest influence of all time. That’d be a real dream come true to do that.
Back to the “Braindead” album. You said that “braindead” is an inside joke between you and the rest of the band, and with your fans if I’m not mistaken. What does it mean though as an album title for you, could you tell us more about it?
Well, basically it started as a joke between us, but it’s become more of a way of saying “Lost Society”, kind of a slogan maybe. We have the “Braindead” crew and the “Braindead” everything basically. So we wanted to name this album “Braindead” cause we feel this is the album that really shows the people what this band is all about. And I mean at the end of the day, of course, braindead also applies to a lot of things nowadays, about people following blindly orders and not thinking for themselves.
Your lyrics have always been about alcohol, street/bad-boy attitude and partying. What changed this time around and the lyrical themes got darker? What influenced you in that direction?
I always write the lyrics after we’re done with the songs, or that’s how it usually went. But this time around there were a couple of songs that I actually based the songs on, like a lyric that I had made previously. And I mean of course it was just the overall thing that when the music was done, I had a lot of stuff in my head I wanted to talk about. I started writing the lyrics for the songs and I noticed that “OK there’s actually some ideas in here, some interesting points for the fans to read about”. There’s lyrics for a lot of themes, of course there’s the lyrics about riot, about rebellion against everything, but then there’s also the other side with some fictional/horror themes and stuff like that.
As one of the newer bands of the Thrash revival movement, what are your thoughts on the scene almost a decade after its revival?
I think the scene is doing great! I mean now in the 21st century, many sub-genres have started. I remember at some point it was all about the folk metal, then there’s the metalcore stuff, but I think that Thrash metal has evenly been out there. But yeah, during the last few years, it has been coming out. There’s so many bands, even in Finland you know, lot of up-and-coming Thrash metal bands. A genre like Thrash metal is never going to disappear completely, there’s a lot of dedicated fans and kids out there who wanna play all the time.
What are you guys listening to lately?
The past 6 months there’s been a lot of different stuff that I’m listening to, cause I like to broaden my musical taste and take everything in, because at the end of the day, you never know what kind of sound or what kind of band is going to inspire you to do something new. So, for the past 6 months, there’s been a lot of old school Thrash, lot of melodic metal, lot of punk songs, lot of pop bands, rap groups and stuff like that. And of course I like getting into the hardcore stuff like Terror, Comeback Kid. So I mean there are a lot of bands I’m listening to right now.
(c) Iiro Palva-aho Photography
What are the future plans for LOST SOCIETY?
After a month when the album comes out, we’re gonna be starting a tour supporting Exodus around the UK, Scandinavia and Europe, that’s gonna be killer! And it’s gonna be on for almost 5 weeks, so that’s the beginning of this year for us. And after that we’re going back to Finland to do weekend shows, that’ll go on for a couple of months. Then there’s gonna be the festival season of course. Nothing has been planned till the end, we hope we’ll get a couple of tours for this year, spread the word that the new albums’ out and we’re here to stay.
Since you toured with them, have you talked with SUICIDAL ANGELS or EXARSIS for a possibility of playing in Greece in the near future?
While we were on tour we were talking a lot about it, the scene I guess is really good there in many ways. It would be really cool to come out, and we hope we can plan something very soon.
That was about it Samy. Thanks a lot for the interview and your time. The final words are yours.
Awesome dude! I just wanna give a shout out to our fans who have been supporting us throughout the years. Hope you enjoy the new album and hopefully we’ll be playing at a town near you very soon! Hell yeah!