Today, the Finnish metal duo Rabbit Cult released their new single Pink Rifle, which blends playful irony with a world of dark menace. The captivating combination of electronic pop metal and kantele continues the soundscape familiar from the band’s first single Cute AF. The song’s lyrics explore themes of power, predation and innocence. The production was carried out in close collaboration with Markus Kaarlonen (Poets of the Fall).
“This song was the result of a long process of refining – it was rewritten about ten times before it found its final form. The arrangement was thoroughly thought out, and in the end the entire structure was renewed by increasing the tempo and adding new lyrics,” says the band’s multi-instrumentalist Marianne Heikkinen (drums, percussion, guitar, bass, keyboards, backing vocals).
“The original composition was really progressive and complex, and full of time signature changes. I was already sure it was ready, but then Markus, who we produced this with, suggested that we could even just keep the chorus to four. The next night I woke up playing a new guitar riff for this – even though I don’t even know how to play guitar. In the end, only a few lines of the chorus and half of the original riff in the intro remained,” recalls Salla-Marja Hätinen, who is responsible for lead vocals and kantele.
“I was also involved in writing the lyrics for the first time. We sought inspiration from texts written by men in the last millennium, which sound questionable at best in this day and age. An example of this is Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire, originally written for Elvis, which directly talks about his desire for a little girl. Fortunately, times have changed a little!”, Marianne comments.
The pop metal duo formerly known as Saruru changed their name last year. At the same time, the band’s visual side was also updated. The band, which declared itself Rabbit Cult, weaves together the matriarchal roots of Kalevala mythology and the recognizable sound of the Finnish national instrument, the kantele.
Rabbit Cult is not just a band, but also a story. A story that began in a time when modern-day states were not was still there, and explorers wrote on their maps Terra Feminarum (=Land of Women), which centuries later became an independent country called Finland. The Rabbit Cult continues the tradition of this female-led, secret society.
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