DIABLO was interviewed for Source Webzine and the band released the interview on their official Myspace blog:
"SOURCEWEBZINE - One of the highlights in Diablo's career so far was supporting Metallica at their Helsinki Olympic Stadium concert. Please tell us about it.
Marko Utriainen (G) - Well, first of all I have to say that finally we got a bit of luck in our career. You know, originally it was planned that HIM and Apocalyptica would be the warm up acts for the Metallica show. But Apocalyptica couldn't make it due to one of the band members being injured. So, Metallica asked our booking agency Welldone, who were also arranging the concert, whether they have any idea for Apocalyptica replacement. And they suggested Diablo and a couple of other acts. Obviously Diablo suited best ? As far as I know, it actually was Mr. Hetfield himself choosing us to the task. Before Metallica we hadn't got any warm up slots for any of the big metal acts playing in Finland. Nowadays big metal bands play quite often also in Finland but for some reason we didn't manage to get the slots. But when we finally did it couldn't have been better! For me and Rainer, Metallica was a big influence when we were teenagers. So it was really a dream come true to play on the same stage.
I got the information early June (the gig was in July) when our agent called me and started by asking "Do you want to play with Metallica on the Helsinki Olympic Stadium?" It took like half a second to answer "Are you out of our mind?! Of course we want!" After the call I started immediately feeling butterflies in my stomach even though the gig was still one and a half months away. But when the day finally came I was actually pretty calm. I didn't feel any more nervous about playing than before a "normal" gig. And the gig went perfectly. It was almost as if we had played on the stadium many times. And it was so much fun! Mr. Hetfield looking at it in the side of the stage and thousands of people in front of us. Although we had played before many times for thousands of people in the Finnish rock festivals that gig was still something unique.
After the show we enjoyed the Metallica gig. For me it was the second time to see them live. Fortunately they played mostly those good old songs from the eighties. The only sad thing is that we didn't meet the Metallica guys. Our technicians said that Hetfield had visited our dressing room before the start of their gig asking for us. But at that time we were already elsewhere drinking beer and waiting for Metallica to climb on the stage. Better luck next time, I hope ?
SOURCEWEBZINE - The new record is the first one you will be releasing through Sakara Records. How has the cooperation with you and the label been so far?
Marko Utriainen (G) - We already knew Sakara guys from the past so it was very easy to start working with them. Everything has gone as expected so far. But the future will tell what the guys can achieve when it comes to making us known abroad which is the main goal for us.
SOURCEWEBZINE - A little bit about internet. What's your opinion about the big web communities such as Facebook, MySpace etc? Do you consider them as a good or a bad thing?
Marko Utriainen (G) - Personally I don't follow that much what is going on in the web communities. I think that Myspace is a great way of making your band available to everybody. 20 years ago you really didn't have as good channels to try to market yourself if you hadn't a rich record company behind you. On the other hand, the competition is now quite a lot harder because there are so many bands out there trying to break out into public.
SOURCEWEBZINE - Do you think that the record sales will continue dropping? How do you see as the future of music and recording industry?
Marko Utriainen (G) - It's definitely harder to make your living out of music because record sales is dropping all the time. I think a record is nowadays more like a business card. You don't expect anybody to pay much for it but if you can make an impact on the listener with your killer record then you know they'll come to see you live. And that's where you can earn some money for your effort. Of course that doesn't help your record company. So in order for them to stay in the business they will need some additional sources of income like a share of your merchandise for example.
SOURCEWEBZINE - A little bit about your music taste. What kind of stuff do you normally listen to?
Marko Utriainen (G) - When I'm writing new songs for the band I usually don't have much time to listen to anything else. So it's basically listening to your own riffs and thinking how you could combine them together and with what kind of drumming and vocals you should combine the riffs to create a whole song. But when it's a period of not composing actively, like right now, I usually ask for my friends to recommend me some new metal bands and records that I should check in order to know what is going on in the metal space. My wife is not a metal fan so she forces me to listen to many other styles of music all the time.
SOURCEWEBZINE - You recently filmed a video for the track "Icaros". Could you tell us a little bit about the video. Whose came up with the idea to it?
Marko Utriainen (G) - We wanted to keep it very simple after the "Mimic47″ video, in which there was some additional stuff in it. A simple video with the band playing was in our minds. As far as I know the idea about the place came from Vesa-Matti Vainio who is the director in that video. The video was shot in the beginning of April. And, you know, Finland is still pretty cold at that time of the year. We needed to postpone the shooting a couple of times because of the rain. Then we finally had a 'decent' day for it. The temperature was around zero that day and it was VERY windy (15 m/s) which actually made it feel even worse, like -10 celcius degrees. After a couple of seconds when I started to play my parts I didn't feel the index finger of my left hand at all. And then you play your guitar solos… If you look at our faces very carefully you can see from the colour of our skin that it was VERY COLD. Occasionally we got even some snow and water during the day but we luckily finished the shooting in time before it was too dark in the evening. Now afterwards I think that the cold environment suits actually pretty well to the song because the chorus melody in Icaros sounds very 'cold' itself.
SOURCEWEBZINE - A lot of bands are more respected in other countries than their homeland. How is Diablo received in Finland ?
Marko Utriainen (G) - For us it's actually the other way round. In Finland we're extremely popular and we've reached the top of the albums chart already three times (Eternium 2004 3, Mimic47 2006 1and Icaros 2008 2). Unfortunately outside Finland our success hasn't been that great so far. I think it is mostly due to the fact that we still haven't been able to make a decent tour outside Finland as a warm up act for some better known metal band. We did a German tour in Feb 07 with Tarot but Tarot is also fairly unknown abroad so it didn't help us a lot. And our promotion for that tour went wrong big time. We didn't even have our own band name in the flyers but it was only Tarot mentioned in them… Now we hope that all this will change with the release of "Icaros" because we think that it's truly our strongest album so far. Actually there are negotiations going on about European tours of certain well-known metal bands where we would be warming up them. But there isn't really anything to report yet.
SOURCEWEBZINE - Was there something specific that was going on in your life at the time?
Marko Utriainen (G) - You mean during the time we wrote material for "Icaros"? Well, my first son was born late 2006. Naturally I've tried to spend a lot of time with him. And at the same time I composed new material for "Icaros". So my playing was a lullaby for my son every now and then. I don't know yet what mental disorders he's got from listening to my new guitar riffs at the age of 6 months! Fortunately he seems to be quite a normal child ?
SOURCEWEBZINE - Thank you again for your time, and if you would like to add something more, please do.
Marko Utriainen (G) - Thanks for all support and attention."
Source: www.myspace.com/diablometal
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