Solos, extras, R'nR and some nudity...

So, yeah. Time to give you somekind of an update again. First of all, I have to say that I have really enjoyed myself at the training place during recording. Not having an internet access around is more refreshing than I expected it to be. On this album I tried to keep my focus on playing, not writing about it or waving a video camera around all the time or surfing some stupid websites for killing time.

I won't or even couldn't remember the exact order of events and I'm not so sure that it would even be that interesting for anyone to read, so I thought that I'd let the photos we took do the most of the storytelling.

After we had our rhythm guitars played in, we thought that we needed somekind of a "break" or transition, if you will. So we decided that before we move on to the solos and guitar extras, we would go and take a nice warm swim at the nearby pond of Mytäjäinen. After that we got shitfaced and played the cover song that we're doing as rock and roll is meant to be played: wasted, loud, standing up and nude.
This was a lot of fun and it gave us some new found focus for the solos and stuff.
It took the load of the passed days in the basement off our backs, so to speak.

Playing the solos was so much easier in this environment too, and even the fact that I left myself quite a lot of room for improvisation didn't stall the recording. I honestly think that working this way has made me a better and more soulful player than on any of the previous recordings. Is it that way or not, I leave for you guys to decide sometime in the fall, when this masterpiece is released. ;)
There's this one solo on this album, that I think will be one of those things that I will be proud of until the end of days. Nothing fancy or shit like that. It's just that it still gives me the chills to play it. After all the times I've already played it. And the song that has this solo might just have the last lyrics I will write for Profane Omen. So, there are a lot of personal emotions on this album too.

As extras we used some banjo, Ebow and some melody doubles, but we tried to keep it simple and I think that we managed to reach our objective. Not too much shit, just the good ones. ;)

The songs in themselves seem very Profane Omen, but there's a new twist to our sound. Hearing this now, when we have most of the instruments played in, is exciting and also rewarding. I myself am convinced that we have definitely grown musically and as a band that plays together.

Having Mikko checking our solos that we played in when he was not around made me a bit nervous at first, but since he didn't make me play anything over again, it was easy to let go and just trust the shit. Mikko has been really an awesome producer and I think that if he had not been such a cool dude with so much knowledge and just the right words to say at the right time, this album would have never sounded as good as it does now. Not to mention how good it will sound when it's finished.

After we had our parts done, there was only one thing left to do: Getting rid of the studio beard. I can't describe how annoying it was for me to see my own moustache for weeks. So, we headed to our friends' hair salon/tattoo studio The Place and got ourselves some nice mafia-style shaves with a razor. I was surprised to see myself in the mirror looking years younger instead of a caveman.

At the moment I feel empty. But in a good way. I feel like we gave so much of ourselves to this album with Antti, that you guys are going to hear it on the album.
I guess Antti will also have a say of his points of view, but for the time being you have to settle for my blabbering, since he's got no computer even at his place.

Thank you Antti, Mikko, Ville, AnttiKakkonen, Panu, Jaakko and of course my lovely wife Mira for feeding us during the session.
You guys made this session the best one I've had so far.

Edit:
The photos are in a backward order, so if you want to see them in chronological order, just start from the bottom. I don't know how to put them the right way, and to be honest, I'm not too willing to learn just now. ;)