Terromania – The Offering

When a singer watches the Blade Runner movie, he can’t help but turn it into a song!

Terromania‘s new single “Dystopian Eyes” deals with modern world morals, humanity and what happens when they are put to the test.
Finnish Alternative Metal band Terromania talks about the situation in the modern world in their new song, summarizing the whole with the aesthetics of the Blade Runner movies.

“When watching the world go by, it’s impossible to find justification for all this shit and chaos. We felt it was important to approach the themes of the song empathetically and think about them from a neutral basis,” commented the band’s producer-bassist Aleks Toppari.

The band’s previous heavy metal sound experienced a renewal inspired by the band Ghost and Synthwave.
The inspiration from the music and aesthetics of the 80s still serves as the basis for Terromania’s sound, but new perspectives have also been brought in.

“Less traditional heavy-metal screams, more dynamics and down-to-earthness. However, the base is the same as on the first album, we won’t change that,” comments the band’s singer Julius Silvennoinen.

“Dystopian Eyes” is now available on all streaming services. The single was released by the US record company Ripple Music.

“Listen to it, it wasn’t done for nothing,” comments the band’s guitarist Jyri Kuntsi.

Terromania is an Alternative Metal force out of Finland, ripping through the scene with raw power and emotion. Blending influences from Ghost, Lordi, Gojira, Spiritbox and even the wild energy of Van Halen & Devin Townsend, they take it even further by fusing their Heavy Metal base with synthwave, 80s hair metal, pop, and hard rock into a sound that’s unforgettable. With their professionality & clear vision, Terromania’s star is going to shine bright in the midnight sky. The band released their debut album “Nyctophobic” in 2023 and on November 13th a new single called “Dystopian Eyes” is going to be released.
We had the chance to meet the band before their show at Monttu New Level in Pori, and talk about the origin of the band, the debut album, the upcoming music and much more.

Hey guys, how are you doing?
Antti: Very good. It’s gonna be a blast. It’s our first time in Pori. So hell yeah, we’re gonna take over Pori!

Would you mind to introduce yourself and give us some biographical hints?
Antti: Of course! My name is Antti, I play lead guitars and also sing backing vocals.
Julius: My name is Julius and I am the lead singer.
Miro: My name is Miro and I play the drums.
Alex: My name is Alex and I play the bass and keyboards.
Jyri: I am Jyri and I play guitar and backing vocals.

How did you meet each others?
Antti: It was the summer of 2018, we’ve been playing with Miro already for on and off for like maybe a year, something like that. Then we went to his parents since they have this small cabin in their backyard. We started play there. I heard from my friend that there’s a weird dude called Jyri Julius and he sings, then we hit him up and he came there, it was a match made in heaven.
Julius: He sent me a text message on Instagram and I said yes, on that same day I came to practice and check out what type of songs you were writing. The next day I came back. Rest is Terromania’s history.

Your debut album “Nyctophobic” was released in 2023, what can you tell about its genesis and lyrics?
Antti: Lyrics are pretty monster-like, they tell about monsters and parting and there’s one song called “Fight the inner Darkness”, well Julius can tell more…
Julius: There’s all kinds of different lyrical things going on in the songs. I personally like to write about horror since I’m a horror movie guy, and I am pretty much inspired by bands like Lordi, Kiss, Alice Cooper, and Ghost. So I pretty much like to write in that horror themed way, but of course, there are also some real life like human stuff as well, like in “Fight the inner Darkness”, which is about fighting our inner demons our own battles, and then there’s one song called “In a broken mirror”, which is basically about space and traveling around the universe. Antti asked can you please write a space song and I said okay.
Antti: And it turned out be shit. We don’t play it live because it’s a fun song, but we just don’t like to play live at least I don’t. I don’t know, it’s just doesn’t feel right.You know, we got the bangers like “The pain makes you feel alive” and The desolation witness” and we just don’t think it’s on the same level as them.

Where was the album record?
Antti: We recorded it in my home, I have an apartment and I got a studio set up there so I recorded the guitars there.We used Alex’s dad’s rehearsals place for basically everything else and then Alex recorded all of the bass in his home and he can tell more about that…
Alex: Yeah, so the drums and the guitars were recorded in on Antti’s room, vocals were recorded at my dad’s practice room, and keys and bass I recorded at home where I also did the mixing and producing and all that so really DIY. But I think it worked quite well.
Antti: Yeah, DIY all the way we like to do stuff on our own.

Last year you also signed a record deal, am I right?
Antti: No, it was in 2021.
Julius: 2022
Antti: Yes, 2022 something like that. It took a while to record the album because of course it’s a lot of working especially when you’re doing it like on your own DIY. So I guess it was 2022.
Julius: We made a deal in like April 2022 if I remember correctly, we recorded the album in the summer of 2022, and then we announced the record deal in 2023, well at the same time when we also announced our debut album.
Antti: Actually, I think like the record deal announcement was in the same day we announced the first single release for the album. It was something like that. It’s all a fuss in my brain, I just cannot remember anything.

Now you are working on new music and you are going to release pretty soon a new song, what can you tell about it?
Antti: We’re gonna release on November 13th, and it’s gonna be a kick-ass song. It’s a bit different, many people say that our music is like Lordi for example, and that’s not Lordi if it doesn’t sound like Lordi at all. It sounds more mature in my opinion and also there are more alternative elements, and we thought that we were gonna switch up our main genre from heavy metal to alternative metal. The song is called dystopian eyes, Julius is gonna take this.
Julius: What the song is about I’ll try to remember… Well, once again, I was inspired by movies, by Blade Runner and the Blade Runner 2049, the themes in that movie are basically humanity, morals and what happens when you are put in the in the situations where you are asking what is morally right and wrong for yourself. So basically dystopian eyes talks about that, this time very normal normal stuff.

So you are big on movie, what is your favorite movie, the one people need to watch?
Julius: That’s so difficult to answer because there are so many great movies but the first one that comes immediately on my mind is Bride of Frankenstein. What else? Suspiria remake from 2018 and maybe let’s pick another one from different genre, Inglourious Basterds and Pulp Fiction. What about you Alex?
Alex: Those are great.
Antti: I’ll just say one The Wolf of Wall Street. That’s a great one in my opinion and interest.
Jyri: Kummeli Kultakuume.
Alex: Okay, I’ll add one also Her from 2013 with Phoenix.
Antti: Yeah, and Interstellar that’s also a good one and Kummeli Kultakuume.

Last summer you played in Tuska, how was that?
Antti: That was fucking awesome, it was the biggest stage we’ve ever played in it was the biggest crowd we’ve ever played to and it was just awesome. The Tuska crew were really nice and cool, we met a lot of interesting people. I’d say interesting people, there were good ones and then there were interesting ones. Then obviously playing under the name of Tuska is just awesome.
Julius: And also it was probably the hottest show that we did.

Yes, the Kvalt stage was inside a building and it was super hot inside and outside too…
Julius: Yeah, it was the hottest show that we did. It was almost like playing in a sauna.
Antti: It was horrible.

Horrible and amazing at the same time!
Antti: Yes, absolutely.

How do you get ready before the show?
Antti: I eat chips, I don’t know, I take a piss and drink water.
Julius: I get ready putting the makeup and the stage outfit, for it takes like one hour to put everything ready. I do a little bit of stretching, open up my vocals, drink a lot of water and listen some of my favorite metal songs.
Miro: Warm up shit like this (shows drums warm-up).
Alex: I usually try to make sure that all the technological stuff is working and ready to go and it can be brought in and out of stage in the time that is given to us and I get a beer.
Jyri: I just warm up my guitar, do my makeup and drink some beer.

And what do you do when you get off stage?
Antti: Crack open a beer, obviously getting a proper hydration. I guess just chill out. Sometimes if we have time we watch the other bands. We make it like a thing, we absolutely try to watch all the bands we’re playing with but it’s not always possible because we have to load in all of the equipment and then we have to sell merch, we have to talk to fans and stuff like that. So it’s it’s not always possible, but we keep that as a priority and then we either head home or head to the bar.
Julius: I go to the merch table to sell t-shirts and all kinds of different merchandise that we have.
Miro: Fuck up the hotel room (laughs).
Alex: Same.
Jyri: Same.

You are going on tour in January, how many show ae you going to play?
Antti: That’s not public information yet, but a good amount of shows in january. Really we haven’t booked all of the shows yet, but definitely we are gonna. It’s a bit hard, it’s been hard because like the venues nowadays are really strict about who’s gonna get to play there, but we’re gonna book a lot of shows, like a shit ton of shows.

Have you booked any summer festival?
Antti: When the new single is out we’re gonna use that basically to promote us to the festival promoters and then through that we’re probably gonna get a couple of slots. But yeah, we’re gonna use the new single just as a gateway to get slots.

Talking about music. What are you listening nowadays?
Antti: I’d say The Cult. It’s a great one, like 80s hard rock, that’s like my favorite at the moment. I have this autistic traits that if I hear one song and I like it, I don’t listen to anything else than that and then I ruin the song for myself, then I move to the next one. That’s how I listen to music and I I don’t know if that’s healthy but I just I just do it.

I think is common for many people…
Antti: I ruin it for myself by listening too much it, putting it on the queue for like 20 times and then I hate the song afterwards, then I find the song again like in maybe a year and then I love it again. It’s the same cycle that goes around.
Julius: A good amount of Lordi, Alice Cooper, Twisted Sister, U.D.O., Udo Dirkschneider, some Pantera, a little bit of Megadeth, and then some 80s synthpop, Duran Duran, Tears for Fears, some newer bands as wel, and also some Whitesnake.
Miro: Same.
Alex: At the moment I’m big into Leprous and Periphery, but I’ve also tried to find like this weird modern kind of jazz artists that aren’t stuck in jazz standards, to name one that I really like that is even more electronic The Comet Is Coming, maybe people could check out that’s kind of an interesting blend of stuff.
Jyri: My all-time favorite Ghost and some finnish band Mokoma and Stoned Statues.
Antti: I gotta say Eddie Van Halen and Van Halen, my all-time favorite guitarist and band.
Julius: And also I have to add one more band; Haloo Helsinki, Anssi Kela and some Vesa-Matti Loiri.
Antti: Heikki Silvennoinen.
Julius: I’m related.

A wide range. It’s important to listen to different kind of music because you cannot find your your way otherwise or you can get stuck on one style…
Antti: Yes, the only thing I really hate about music is if it’s boring. You get out of the boring square if you listen to different kinds of artists. For example for a metalhead that wants to form a band and he only listens to Children of Bodom, the band is going to sound like Children of Bodom. But if he adds to that spectrum of songs he listens to or the artists he listens to, for example jazz or blues, it’s going to be like a wider range, he’s going to be able to do and he can switch things up and get things sounding interesting.

I am agree. But we are at the end of this interview, thank you so much for your time, would you like to say something to our readers?
Antti: Pre-save our new single Dystopian eyes, nothing else and thank you.
Julius: Thank you from the bottoms of our heart.
All: Thank you!
Julius: See you on the gigs!