By Mark Gromen

When life hands you lemons, turn them into lemonade, goes the platitude about making something sweet from sour circumstances. It wasn't citrus drinks that CHILDREN OF BODOM keyboardist and WARMEN mastermind Janne Wirman and I sipped on the patio, one August afternoon in Cleveland. Actually, we shared a $5 pitcher of Golden Mullet (kid you not!) beer, as he took the cancellation of their gig, due to frontman Alexi Laiho's hospitalization, to talk about fifth studio album from WARMEN. We joke that the title, The First Of The Five Elements is tailor made for subsequent releases: The Second..., The Third... at least saving time when it comes to selecting a name. “You never know,” he laughs, “I didn't even think of that when we picked the title. This time is the first time we had a couple of extras. We recorded some covers, but we had so many originals that we didn't need to use all the covers. I can't remember if the main album has eleven or twelve tracks.” Those that don't appear on that CD will be bonus tracks.

Who is putting the disc out, however, remains in question.“The record is mastered. They've taken the photos and I've got someone working on the cover art, as we speak. So, it's ready to be released, but I don't have a record label,” says Wirman. “I'm looking at a couple of options, but it will be out this year. It only takes a month or so for (label) promotion.” Don't mess with a winning formula, the keyboardist reaffirms the line-up, “Compared to the last album, not much (change). Even the singers are pretty much the same. I've got Pasi Rantanen (ex-THUNDERSTONE) doing most of the vocals. It's always great working with him. I've got Jonna Kosonen, a female singer on two songs and Alexi on one.”

“I think there's only one cover on the main album. We wrote more songs with Pasi on vocals this time. Me and my brother (Antti, guitars) always write together, but this time, we wrote with the bass player (Jyri Helko) too. Actually he wrote one song entirely by himself. This is the first time I've mixed the album. We tried that last time, but I had to go on tour (with Bodom) and we ran out of time, so Mikko (Karmila, various production credits with NIGHTWISH, EDGUY, STRATOVARIUS, SONATA ARCTICA, etc.) did it. Finally we can say that we mixed one album by ourselves.” The studio is a real love for Wirman, who foresees a career behind the scenes, once his playing days are over. “That's something I'm looking into already. I have the gear in my home studio. I would love to get projects that bands would send me files. You can record anywhere in the world, but I could mix them at my place. It's easily doable these days, with modern technology. I'm such a studio geek. One of the reasons I do this project is just so I can go in the studio and use all the gear. Musically, it's a weird project too. We can do anything we like, from power metal to modern American LAMB OF GOD kind of stuff, like Alexi sang on, on the last record ('High Heels On Cobblestones', off. Japanese Hospitality). It's fun to be able to do whatever you want.”

True, as this must be the world's best known band for only playing three gigs, thus far (and I've seen one of them!). “We're really hoping to play an album release gig. If the album is released towards the end of this year, I'm thinking we could play a gig in December or January, as I'm free from COB then. It's highly unlikely that we would get a (big enough) offer to tour that we could all drop what we're doing right now and do that. Unfortunately, that's how it is right now.” That doesn't mean he wasn't thought about doing double duty on the road, having WARMEN open for his day job. “I definitely would. Back in the day we had discussions about possibly doing that in Japan. It is really difficult to arrange something like that.”

Although not in promotional junket mode, Wirman gave a hint about the album, between bites of his sandwich.”The title track is an instrumental, but 'The Race' is something I'm really looking forward to people hearing. To me, it's the best thing we've ever done. It's got Pasi Rantanen on vocals and it's a combination of old school YNGWIE and RACER X, with modern power metal. It's more YNGWIE than RACER X, but you know what I mean about that style. It all comes together in an awesome fucking mix. I can't wait for people to hear that song. It's amazing!When it came together (early in the writing process), we were like, 'This is something good. We've done it this time.' It has a lot to do with the vocals and the chorus, which is amazing.”

Sounds good, can't wait to hear it!

Warmen are streaming their cover of the hit duet from PHIL COLLINS and PHILIP BAILEY, 'Easy Lover'.

Listen to the track below:

Updates to follow. More on Warmen at this location.