What do you get when the craziness of System of a Down meets the electronic mayhem of Enter Shikari wrapped in the production of Bring Me The Horizon? You get Awake Again which is a four-piece alternative metal band hailing from Turku, Finland formed in 2013. Their music a distinctive mixture of metal, post-hardcore, and pop. Known for their huge and catchy songs accompanied with a live performance like a nuclear bomb Awake Again has been making a steady rise in the Finnish metal scene.

Having played over 100 shows the band has conquered smaller and bigger stages with their wildfire like energy. Most notably they won Wacken Metal Battle Finland in 2018 and got to show their alternative metal madness at the global finals in Wacken Open Air. The fall of 2020 started a new chapter in Awake Again’s career as the band released highly anticipated new music. Bigger, heavier, and more melodic than ever before Awake Again is ready to conquer the hearts of music lovers around the world. We had a conversation with the band’s bassist, Ville Loukola.

Beginnings:

Matti (vocals), Kasper (guitar) and Markus (drums) founded the band in 2013. They were friends and playing in different bands and lineups here in Turku. After all the previous bands were not going anywhere they wanted to form a serious band that aims high and doesn’t stop. First, they started as a trio since Matti was also playing bass along with lead vocals. In 2015 the band was chosen to Turku Rock Academy band coaching program. At the same time, they started to look for a separate bass player to get the vocals, bass, and live performance to the next level. That’s where I jumped in. My previous band broke up the day before the guys in Awake Again started to look for a bassist and since I knew the Awake Again guys and really liked their music it was kind of meant to be.

Behind the name:

Being ”awake again” is getting back to the mental stage of a small child where you are free of presumptions, stereotypes, or general frames of thinking and you just experience the world as it is. And the world is exciting, inspiring, and vibrant in that way.

Inspiration:

The initial main influence was Enter Shikari. Nowadays we describe ourselves as ”when the electronic mayhem of Enter Shikari meets System of a Down wrapped in the production of Bring Me The Horizon” so I guess those three bands are our main influences. All of us enjoy all kinds of music so we draw inspiration from many places.

Inspiration behind “Look Around”:

I guess we just wanted to make a very powerful but dark mid-tempo heavy hitter. It’s a little different kind of song than the rest of our catalog but that’s cool since we don’t want to repeat ourselves. This single is actually an older song. It has been a part of our live set for a long time in its previous forms and with the help of producer Lauri Hämäläinen it got its final form. As the album goes our plan is to release it in the fall of 2021 and a few singles before that.

For our first music video ”Turning Point” we spent countless hours planning and making tons of movie and other pop culture references. I believe there were 43 of them. Not sure if anyone noticed any of them, but if there is a real movie geek out there take it as a challenge to find all of them. Another could be that when we played in Ruisrock Matti ran into the ocean during one song. We were playing on a stage that was near the water and when this instrumental bridge part kicked in Matti ran like hell to the water and back. It was in a matter of milliseconds that he managed to get back in time to sing when the vocals were supposed to come back.

Fun Facts

COVID-19:

We have had some shows canceled and haven’t tried to book any new ones. So basically the gigging has been off. For us, it hasn’t been that bad because we really just wanted to release and work on new music. When we are doing shows and rehearsing and trying to keep up with the rest of the band stuff we can’t seem to find enough time to work on the music itself. So this involuntary COVID-19 break has in some way worked in our favor. I guess it’s some kind of silver lining in this terrible crisis. At least for us.

Online concert:

We have done a couple of live stream shows and in January we are doing another one. Those have been quite cool and interesting experiences but it’s nothing compared to a real crowd and the real energy between the band and the audience.

Please check out our new single Look Around from any of the major streaming platforms! If you dig it please don’t hesitate to give us a follow on Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube. We are releasing new music in the near future and all sorts of other stuff. Once this COVID-19 bullshit is behind us we hope to see all of you in the audience. Everybody be safe and take care!