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In discussing your staples of heavy metal listening, the name Brother Firetribe is not likely one you’d mention. But as these melodic metalheads continue to break ground on a global scale, they’ll soon become an essential element in your heavy listening routine. Already 15 years into a successful career centred predominantly in Europe, the embers of Brother Firetribe are spreading like wildfire out from their native Finland to conquer the metal forests of the world. With their latest release “Sunbound”, Brother Firetribe generates a warm buzz of music that borders on glam, heavy rock, and strong Nordic metal.
“Sunbound” is the release set to put Brother Firetribe on the global map as it dips into elements of all the best of metal’s subgenres. But, as vocalist Pekka Ansio Heino explains, from a production perspective the band has done nothing differently with “Sunbound” compared with their previous three studio albums. “It’s always gone the same route in a way,” Heino says. “Me or Emppu [guitarist Erno “Emppu” Vuorinen] write the songs – it’s really spontaneous how it all starts. Either one of us comes up with a chord or melody and we start sparring.”
With “Sunbound”, it’s that aura of positive energy surrounding the band’s musicianship and each aspect of the album that is surely putting an ‘X’ on the Brother Firetribe map. From conception to promotion to their fantastic new production team, Heino asserts that this release is centred on happiness and good vibes. “All in all, as to the title itself, it’s all about the vibe and mood of the band ever since we sat down and started throwing around ideas – every time we sat down to come up with a song, it sounded so good it led us to write the next one.
“It went on until the day we got the mastered version in our hands and everything was rolling along really nicely. We have people now who are making things happen for the very first time in the band’s career. We have the new mixer guy putting down. The guy who had mixed the previous album couldn’t make it so we had to find a new one and thank God we did! We ended up using Mikko Karmila, an old friend and a huge name. He has done Rammstein, Dreamboat; we know him because he’s from the same small city we are from – he got the hang of it pretty quickly and came up with the sound for the album. You know, Brother Firetribe has never sounded this good! We really felt like we were walking toward the light, so that really is what the title is about.”
The subtle hints at big things happening for Brother Firetribe don’t go unnoticed and as Heino elaborates on his hints, the news should have Viking-metal fans knocking together their many tankards in celebration.
A little probing into Heino’s subtle nods of big things happening for Brother Firetribe and he reveals the true rate at which things are finally speeding along for the band, unveiling yet more possibilities for their newfound infamy. “Basically, we have a manager, plain and simple. Our songs have been put out everywhere, tours have been put together and that has never happened for us before.
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“We’ve always suffered from us being the only ones doing anything and this time it seems a bit different – I wouldn’t be talking to you if it wasn’t for our manager arranging stuff, it’s great!”
Melodic metal of the calibre of Brother Tribe is extremely successful in Europe and, indeed, Finland, but with nothing but the influence of original rock seeping through their sound, Heino is loath to go with the categorization assigned to his band by his peers. “I do understand you have to categorise music and people need to know what they’re talking about,” says Heino, “but I don’t really consider us a metal band, quite far from it, in fact. But we do get dropped on that box quite easily and that’s fine.
“Metal in general here in Finland is huge. I think Finland is probably one of the leading countries for it, but the kind of music that we do—the melodic rock thing—it’s pretty much marginal music. You have your power metal which is pretty big in central Europe but people call us AOR, and that’s fine with me.
“Melodic rock is not really big in the sense that we do it – it’s based on the late ’70s and early ’80s where keyboard and guitar are equal in the mix.”
With those heavy ’70s and ’80s glam influences so prominent within Brother Firetribe’s sound and the band avoiding a pigeonhole, when writing new material the band will shy away from anything going on in current times; preferring instead to draw on the past and honing in on rock music of old. “I can only speak for myself but it’s in my DNA,” says Heino. “Everything I know about creating a melody comes from that period of time, but everything else, we never sit down or talk about influences or whether we should take a certain direction or whether we should sound a bit modern. All we do is come up with a song and when it sounds good to our ears, we put it out. And for some reason, the kind of stuff that sounds good to our ears is the music you hear on the Brother Firetribe album.”
“I’m not against modern music, not against modern rock, I just don’t follow it that much.”
Brother Firetribe certainly does have a uniqueness in its melodic rock route, addressing a small niche in the market that could certainly use bands such as this to inject a dose of imagination into an—at times—repetitive industry. Perhaps there’s something to be said for the classicism of the ’70s and ’80s that seep through this band. That being said, disappointingly, the greatness of Brother Firetribe is not yet great enough for the group to shake up our shores… yet. “Obviously, we’d love to, no question,” exclaims Heino. “But first of all, I didn’t even know our records were being released in Australia and the fact I’m sitting here talking to you is unbelievable. It’s great.”
“I can imagine that if we were to come down there, say, tomorrow, there’d be an audience of you and, maybe, a couple of friends I know there – I don’t know, it could be a riot!”
Written by Anna Rose
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