INTERVIEW WITH NUMENTO | darkzendragon

Numento!

The Interview!

By Darkzen

01/05/2024

Official Info

Founded originally in 2004, Numento is a modern melodic death metal band from Helsinki. In their music, extreme metal styles are combined with a phenomenal and versatile female voice, ranging from operatic heights to deep growls. The band has released two albums so far, "The Cataclysm" (2019) and "The Vile Entity" (2022), the third album is going to be released in summer of 2024. Numento always leaves the audience in awe with their aggressive sound, ethereal atmosphere and an energetic live show. The versatile songs are adorned with the eerie sound of the Finnish national instrument, kantele. One of their most important merits is winning the toughest metal band competition in Finland, Tuska-Torstai in 2022 and playing at the main Tuska festival in the same year. In addition, they have warmed up the stage for Aephanemer and Smackbound at On the Rocks Helsinki.

Hello band! Thank you so much! For the interview!

Numento:

Hello Darkzen Thanks for inviting us!

How are you all?

Numento:

We are great. Currently, we are preparing for our round of gigs this spring and summer. Can’t wait to play our new songs live and to have a big party to celebrate our album release!

Tell us about your musical proposal?

Numento:

This is a good question because we find it quite difficult defining our music with the normal metal subgenre terminology. We are not one of those bands more or less strictly following guidelines provided by a certain subgenre of music. We believe the core of our sound is a sort of melodic metal with a focus on crushing riffs and versatile vocals. All band members come from different musical backgrounds, so you will hear a diverse mix of influences in our music. The most prominent influences may be death metal and other extreme metal, but there may be hints of folk music, jazz or classical here and there. We often like to describe our music progressive - but it’s not the unusual time signatures or long instrumental parts that you should expect - rather it’s the artistic freedom chosen in many of our arrangements. Our music is always evolving and on our 3rd album we aimed for a little more modern sound than on our previous releases. Also the Finnish national instrument kantele is more present on this record than before.

What does the name of the band Numento mean?

Numento:

To our knowledge the word itself doesn't have a general meaning. Why did we choose that name then? Back in our childhood our former guitarist’s father used to call all villains or antagonists in plays and movies “Numento”. This originated from an old play where the Finnish actor Esa Pakarinen played a character named Numento, who apparently was a sort of antagonist in the plot. So in a crooked way, you could translate Numento as “Antagonist”.

Members! Tell us a little about yourself! Musical influences? Hobbies? Is it your first band for some of you?

Numento:

Atte:

I started playing guitar when I was 12 years old. My father is a professional guitarist, so he helped me to get started at the very beginning, but other than that, I’m a self-taught player. At that age I got interested in heavy music, so naturally it was mostly Metallica riffs and solos I learned at first, also some Finnish metal such as Amorphis, Nightwish and Children of Bodom. My world was blown away when I got hands on Joe Satriani’s 2010 album “Black Holes and Wormhole Wizards” on my 15th birthday. I attended a music high school where I played in a variety of bands and projects of different styles of music. That’s where I also got into progressive music and prog metal. Karnivool, Tesseract and Periphery were a huge influence. After high school I played in three different bands before joining Numento in 2016. I finished my MA degree in Phonetics in 2021. My current hobbies besides music are board games and a mix of physical activities including running and calisthenics.

Katri:

My musical influences are pretty wide. I enjoy djent, progressive metal and death metal styles the most but I’m also a fan of classical music, operas and many folk music acts. Besides singing I play acoustic, classical guitar and kantele. I have a PhD in speech sciences and linguistics so I’m very passionate about different kinds of speech sounds, vocal techniques, the anatomy of singing, exotic languages, pronunciation etc. I work as a professional nerd in speech technology which is also quite an inspiring topic and I have written a few lyrics about AI and the effects of technology on our society. In my free time I really enjoy doing crafts, especially knitting. Numento is not my first band and I have been in several bands also simultaneously with Numento but at some point I realized I just want to fully focus on Numento since I really love this particular style of metal music. Also the band dynamics we have in Numento is something really exceptional. Everyone is just so committed to this band and our goals we have together and we always have a lot of fun!

Simo:

Like many other bass players, I started off playing guitar when I was 9 years old. As a teenager I played in many different bands ranging from punk to progressive metal trying to find myself as a musician. I found myself playing bass in a band basically by accident and I fell in love with the instrument, after finding bands like Korn and Primus. My biggest influences however have always been my bandmates. For me, playing music has always been a social thing and I try to match my playing to the other members of the band. Outside of music I’m into mostly nerdy stuff like video games and D&D.

Aleksi:

I remember when I was kid and I was in a car with my father and “Whole Lotta Love“ started playing from the radio. My father turned up the volume and said “this is a good song”. I was sold. After that I sneaked in to listen to his records and started to listen to more Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Rush, Neil Young, The Doors, CCR etc. However the slightly heavier and more progressive stuff really connected with me. Eventually I started to play guitar myself at the age 13 and pretty much exactly at the same time Numento was founded. Back then the band’s name was “Northfire” and we played shitty covers from the bands that we liked. So for me Numento is the first band that I’ve played in. I’ve had few side projects on the side as I’ve wanted to try different kinds of music but Numento has always been the nearest and dearest to me. It's hard to name a specific influence but lately I’ve been listening to Kiuas again which was also pretty much the first band that I ever liked which had some “extreme metal” influences. Therefore their music opened me up to the idea that maybe Numento could also have some death metal sound, which is now pretty dominant in our music.

Mikko:

I’m not sure if I was 13 or 14 years old when I properly started with the drums. The first band (a punk band) was started before we all even had instruments. Little by little we changed to metal music. I’ve probably had approximately ten bands before Numento, playing different genres from rock to metal. I have many influences, the most important of which are Nofx, Kreator, Nile, Rotten Sound, W.A.S.P – but this is just a small part of them. I don’t have any specific genre limitations either. After I got dystonia I haven’t had much time for other hobbies than playing drums.

Darkzen:

Wow! You are a very complete band musically! Very studied and experienced! Katri! Excellent with that PhD in Linguistics!

Katri, the powerful voice of Numento! How did you get started in Metal?

Katri:

Hehe, thank you! I guess I started my metal career in a very typical way. I have loved singing since I was a little kid but I think I was in sixth grade when I got blown away by bands like Evanescence and Nightwish. I would often come home after school and sing along to their songs. A bit later I started playing guitar, too, and I think when I was 15-16 I started band activities with my friends. Evanescence covers were a big thing first, but at 18 I was in my first melodic metal band where I eventually was the lead singer and rhythm guitar player. I learned growling by accident when I was at a Stam1na concert and I was very excited and tried to sing along with their music. Somehow I figured out how to do it without hurting myself. That opened up so many cool possibilities again. When my first band stopped after a few years, I ended up going to a Numento vocal audition and well, here we are.

Do you have favorite vocalists? Which are?

Katri:

I admire so many great vocalists. I think the biggest influence on my singing technique has been Simone Simons from Epica. Her voice is just so powerful yet she makes it sound effortless and full of emotion. I also love vocalists like Courtney LaPlante from Spiritbox, Tatiana Shmayluk from Jinjer, Alissa White-Gluz from Arch Enemy and so many more.

Vocal Training?

Katri:

I started pop/jazz singing lessons when I was 14 years old. It was a good start but at the same time I didn’t feel that I had enough range to sing what I wanted to sing. I was “labeled” an alto and told that I should just transpose all the songs with a higher tessitura to a lower key. Well, that didn’t suit me because I wanted to sing with a bigger range so after I heard Epica for the first time when I was maybe 18 years old, I decided to start classical singing lessons. I found a private teacher to start with and later I applied to study classical singing at the Helsinki Conservatory. I had absolutely amazing teachers there and I think I acquired so much more potential and range with my voice. The classical singing technique also generally helps with all singing styles and also improved my growls a lot. At the moment I am eager to learn even more about growling/screaming techniques and I’m working with a very inspiring vocal coach!

Katri tell us about Timetrap's single (Official music video), it sounds brutal! And you have a great scream! Composition and melody, how was the process?

Katri:

Thanks a lot – glad to hear you liked it! We usually work on songs by improvising and jamming at our headquarters together. I think this song started differently. Atte prepared an instrumental demo version of this by himself, sent it to the others to learn their parts and I think I had the lyrics already waiting for a suitable song so I quickly arranged them while practicing the song together. Of course before the actual recordings, we worked together with Atte to improve the vocal lines and lyrics even more.

This single is part of some EP or album, I suppose it is in the process of being composed?

Numento:

Yes, “Timetrap” will be part of our third album, “The Antimatter Fantasy” that is going to be out on 13th of June this year. So everything is already composed and mixed, the album is currently being mastered.

Do you have any dates for new concert performances?

Numento:

Yes! There will be a few gigs that are confirmed for this spring and summer. Mostly in Finland but also one in Estonia. In Finland we have a gig on 4th of May at Nirvana, Turku, 11th of May in Nuijamies, Lappeenranta and our album release show on 13th of June at On the Rocks. Then, we are going to be a part of the Bloodstained Metal fest on 6th of July at Tapper, Tallinn, Estonia.

There will be another new single?

Numento:

Yes. There will be altogether 4 singles out before the album release. One at the end of each month before the album release so stay tuned for another one very soon!

News! What can we share with your fans? What will Numento band do in these months?

Numento:

During the next months we are mostly preparing for our mini-tour to promote our album release by practicing together a lot and planning the best possible show we can. Additionally we are going to start jamming some new music and generally trying to get our music out there for as many metal fans as possible!

Anything else you would like to share with us?

Numento:

In addition to the actual songs we have released for the upcoming album, “The Solipsist” and “Timetrap”, we have prepared music videos for each song by ourselves. Our guitar player Aleksi and our camera crew Kai Lukander have worked really hard on the videos so please go and check the videos out on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Numentoband

Thank you very much for your time for this interview for Darkzen Dragon Metal Angels!

Numento:

Thank you so much for inviting us! We wish all the best for you and your readers!

Info

https://www.facebook.com/numentofin/

https://www.instagram.com/numentoband/

https://numento.bandcamp.com/track/timetrap

https://www.youtube.com/@Numentoband