Stalker magazine conducted an extensive interview with J. Ahola (TERÄSBETONI, NORTHERN KINGS) in Zurich before Teräsbetoni's show at True As Steel Festival on October 15th. The topics discussed included for example the upcoming fourth Teräsbetoni album, the BIG BAND GOES HEAVY cover album released a week ago, J’s other projects NORTHERN KINGS and RASKASTA JOULUA Christmas tour, and other topics ranging from Teräsbetoni’s experiences at the Eurovision song contest to J’s solo material, his influences such as Ronnie James Dio and MANOWAR and his thoughts about touring and being a musician. Some excerpts from the chat:

On the upcoming fourth Teräsbetoni-album Maailma Tarvitsee Sankareita:

“We‘ve grown and our lyrics have matured a bit, you know, it’s pretty much deeper and the music, I think it has more substance, but yes of course there has to be the good old Teräsbetoni feel there and it sure is there still.”

On the Big Band Goes Heavy project together with OULU ALL STAR BIG BAND:

”When they recorded the official tracks of the album and I sang it, I heard that they had done everything as it should, no more super long solos and no messing around, just cool stuff. The album sounds good. It’s pretty organic. Nowadays when you do an album, it’s full of effects, you know, you can do so much with the tracks afterwards. But I’m just singing there, there is nothing under my voice just a little bit of delay and reverb, nothing more. For the ear of people who listen to the radio stations, this may sound pretty thin and even dull, but if you know music, you will hear it’s good - this is great! I like it, anyway.”

On touring:

“I don’t like to do too many gigs, since it’s killing the music. In some point you get to see it’s not about music anymore, it’s all about gigging and I don’t like that. I like singing and performing. It’s very energy consuming to give your best, and you can’t give you best every fucking day, no one can do that. I think so. Of course you can give your best “that” day but it’s not your best ever. And when you are on stage you have to give your best ever.”

On forming Teräsbetoni and choosing to play bass:

"I said I wanna play the bass and sing. You know, I thought, “I’ve been playing bass in these cover bands many years, so why not” and I felt I had this pretty unique style of playing with the plectrum. We were doing this heroic metal in Finnish and I thought I handled the style already and the guys where like “Ok, you do it!” And that’s how it started. I’ve been concentrating on bass ever since and after the record sold enough I had the money to buy a bass for myself and some amps. When I was doing cover-gigs I had Ville’s (Ville Terämä, the author of J’s site) bass. I loaned it for 2-3 years since he is my best friend and he said “ok, keep it, I have another bass - I don’t need the bass anyway”. I was a very poor boy. Now he has one of my guitars as long as he wants to use it!"

On plans for the rest of 2010:

"I think I have enough of the project for this year. RASKASTA JOULUA is coming up and it’s taking my time in the last month of the year and Teräsbetoni is doing few gigs. Not as many as I would like to do, but you know, we are changing the agent, so it’ll take some time to make things running. I feel that the gigging will start fully next year, on the crest of the wave our new album will create."

The entire interview can be read here.

Maailma Tarvitsee Sankareita will be released November 24th via Sakara Records. The recordings of the album were done together with Juha Heininen and Hiili Hiilesmaa (H.I.M, SENTENCED, APOCALYPTICA) both at HIP Studios in Helsinki and at Hiili Hiilesmaa's studio in Hämeenlinna.

Maailma Tarvitsee Sankareita tracklist:

'Myrsky Nousee'

'Metalliolut'

'Maailma Tarvitsee Sankareita'

'Jumalten Usva'

'Mies'

'Tunnemme 'Sinut'

'Uudestisyntynyt'

'Thanatos'

'Konstantinopoli'

'Eteenpäin'

'Gloria'

Maailma Tarvitsee Sankareita (translated: The World Needs Heroes) is streaming on YouTube below:

(Thanks Night Elves)