Interview with Sami Hinkka of Ensiferum: “Folk Metal’s Boundaries Are Meant to Be Pushed”

First, thanks for taking the time to chat with us at Music Anvil! Readers can check out our review of your latest album Ensiferum – Winter Storm, but here are a few questions to dive into.

It’s my pleasure!

What drew you to use the nyckelharpa specifically on Winter Storm?

We have used many folk instruments, including nickelharpa on all of our albums. We are very lucky that one of the world’s best folk violinist Lassi Logren could play also on “Winter Storm”.
But we want to check out every song individually, that will they need or benefit from folk instruments instead of adding them just because we happen to play “folk metal”. All choices need to serve the music.

What inspired you to bring Madeleine Liljestam onboard for “Scars in My Heart”?

When we were composing the song, we knew that it would become one of the most beautiful song Ensiferum has ever written but we also knew that vocals would be a challenge.

We recorded demo versions with Pekka’s clean vocals and even with Pete’s harsh vocals but it was quite obvious from the beginning that this song needs female vocals. As a lyric writer this helped me a lot to choose the moment from the book and the angle.

We were thinking about alternatives but none of the options felt like 100% right. We had a tour coming with Pain, Eleine and Ryujin so we decided that let’s continue the search after the tour.

I think it was the second show when we went to dig other bands’ gigs and we were astonished about Madeleine’s voice. The whole band agreed immediately that we should ask her to sing the song. So we talked with her, listened the demo together and she liked what she heard. She flew to Helsinki for one day and nailed the song. Amazing person and a world class singer!

How do you balance staying true to folk metal while experimenting with new sounds?

To be completely honest, we don’t stress about staying true or honest to anything. The band started as a folk metal band because of love to these elements so I’d say there is no danger that Ensiferum will step astray from folk metal. But at the same time, we all change and grow as individuals and as a band so it’s natural to find new ways to create our music.
We are very democratic band and we have a policy that every idea needs to be tried at least once. So if someone brings a reggae part to the rehearsal room, we jam it through and make decisions.

Can you tell us more about the “Winter Storm Vigilantes” characters in the album’s storyline?

Heh, I’d prefer not to. I can tell that the part of the book, that is presented in “Winter Storm” is just a small fraction of the whole story. The end battle of the album “Victorious” is not the end battle of the book.

What challenges do you face when incorporating both clean and harsh vocals into your songs?

As a composer I love to have more options also with vocal styles. I mean, guitar tones can vary a lot during an album and vocals are the first thing that a listener usually pays attention to. So it’s a huge advantage to have more possibilities.
Things get hard when you don’t know which style to choose because both versions sound good and fit the song. But I have to say that there aren’t many song parts on our albums that I would have arranged differently so usually you can hear and feel what is the best option for each song/part.

How do you keep the energy fresh in songs with long runtimes, like “From Order to Chaos”?

That is a good question. To be honest, I have no idea! Hah!

When we compose, we don’t think that “this needs to be a long song”. A song is ready when it feels like it’s ready but of course we try to add some interesting details in every song, some of them are propably so small that most listeners don’t even notice them but if one starts to practice them , they will notice that there are subtle changes everywhere. I guess that helps to keep up the attention even on longer songs.

Are there any folk instruments you haven’t used yet but want to explore in the future?

I’d actually want to use more different kind of percussions but let’s see, as I said earlier, every instrument choice needs to benefit the song. The point is not just to add a layer of folk instruments on top of a metal song.

How has your chemistry as a band evolved since returning to post-pandemic touring?

I’d say the spirit is better than ever. I guess we were all so frustrated to miss all touring with “Thalassic”, which was our most successful album by then (hopefully “Winter Storm” will make even better, heh). Finns are not famous about being the most keen talkers but I feel that during the pandemic years and while composing “Winter Storm” we talked more than ever. I think is really good thing for a band that has been around as long as we have.

Looking back at your earlier albums like Victory Songs or From Afar, how do you feel your approach to blending folk and metal has evolved?

Hard to say because we never compose “intentionally”. I mean, we never think that we need to compose more or less music in this or that style. We still work as we always have, if something sounds good to us, we’ll keep it. I’d say that since “From Afar” we started to use more orchestral elements so let’s see if there will be the saturation point and we’ll start to get back to more “band plus folk instruments” -style. But to be honest, there haven’t been any conversations about this kind of stuff, because it’s stupid to limit your creativity.

Lastly, we’d love for you to share any final thoughts or messages with our readers at Music Anvil—anything you want to say, the floor is yours!

Thank you for your support! I hope have had time to listen to “Winter Storm” and most of all, I can’t wait to see you all on the upcoming tours around the world!