Mikael Stanne of Cemetery Skyline checks in from Rockmaraton!

At the beginning of the month, we set up on a journey to discover the Hungarian metal festival Rockmaraton in Dunaújváros, a city a couple hours south of Budapest. One of our goals was to witness the first and only show of Cemetery Skyline in Central Europe as the band was their first summer tour out of Scandinavia.

And we were not disappointed. The day of their set, the temperature raised to 38 degrees with clear skies. We wished their set would have happened late at night, but there we were in the inclement heat waiting for a gothic metal band from Scandinavia.

It was strange to see a different light on the members of Cemetery Skyline as we have seen them already with their other bands (Dark Tranquility, Insomnium, Amorphis, Sentenced & Dimmu Borgir). This time they were playing their very own brew of gothic metal.

Their set was chef kiss from beginning to end with songs like: The Darkest Night, Anomalie, The Coldest Heart, Never Look Back, When Silence Speaks, I Drove All Night (Roy Orbison cover), In Darkness and Violent Storm. A real sonic truffle.

After their set, we had the chance to speak with Mikael Stanne vocalist of Cemetery Skyline about their summer tour, the challenge at the time to schedule everything, their upcoming USA premiere at ProgPower USA and more.

Miguel-Metal Heart Radio: Mikael, you guys just played the first show in Central Eastern Europe. How do you think it went?

Mikael Stanne: It felt fantastic. Because we've only pretty much played in Finland. And we've done two shows outside of Finland, that's it. And it's hard to know. We know that sure, in Finland things are going to go fine.

People know who we are, and they know of course who Markus and Santeri and Vesa are.

So that was maybe not expected, but we knew it was fine. But here we don't know, so that's the exciting part.

It's basically like introducing ourselves to an audience that doesn't know us. Even though of course the metal crowd may know us. But it's also really fun to play at festivals and places where normal metalheads are not.

So that's kind of the plan going forward. But for us this was awesome, just getting to play our songs and put it out there. Even though I wish we would play in the middle of the night, so we could create some kind of gothic mood. Which was pretty difficult today. But I think it sounded good, everybody played crazy well, and it was really fun happening.

MHR: Scheduling seems like a nightmare. Because you guys played yesterday at RockHartz, and Markus was playing there last night as well. And I think last week you were with The Halo Effect somewhere else. And then Markus also was last weekend with Omnium Gatherum in the Czech Republic. How did this happen?

MS: The good thing is that we have really good people and friends and people who work with us. That take care of the scheduling. Markus is pretty good with that too, I'm not. And Santeri is pretty good with that too.

But we have our guy who books everything for Dark Tranquility. He's in contact with everybody who books everything for The Halo Effect and Cemetery Skyline so they work together, and it's great actually. In the beginning it was a little bit messy, but now it works well.

Which means, DT was yesterday, today is this, and tomorrow we do Cemetery Skyline as well. And then I go to Turkey and we play with Dark Tranquility there, and then the next day Cemetery Skyline. So yeah, it's kind of crazy, but it works. But it's thanks to people who really know how to do this and likes to do it as well. If I was left to booking all that stuff, nothing would happen.

MHR: Do you ever get confused?

MS: I get confused when I talk about it sometimes. You go like, oh where are you going next? I don't know, I have a schedule, I can look it up. But sometimes it's easy not to think about it.

Especially this weekend, it's two weekends, and it's ten shows in eleven days. With two days off, because one day was two shows. So yeah, it's kind of intense.

MHR: Do you feel that when you play with Cemetery Skyline, your voice gets a little bit of rest from Dark Tranquillity and The Halo Effect by not doing harsh vocals?

MS: I honestly don't need rest that much. But it's very different, of course. It's a more relaxed feeling.

You're on stage and you can't exert yourself, which is something I like to do when I'm screaming. I want to push as hard as I possibly can. Whereas this is quite the opposite, so it's nice. In normal cases you do a show and you walk off stage, you hardly broke a sweat. Whereas DT is very physical and it's very intense.

So, I really like that. It was hard getting used to it. It felt kind of strange in the beginning, because I've never done that before. So, we did a tour in Finland. And I was like, how is this going to work? It took some time to get into it. I'm still not there, but it's getting there.

MHR: I remember seeing the dates of that tour in Finland. Will it be something that could be repeated in mainland Europe? Or is it definitely a monster to plan?

MS: It's not easy. Because this year it's super busy, next year it's going to be that too. We'll see. If we can make it happen, it would be great. We talk about it all the time, but it's just a matter of finding schedules. Amorphis is going to be very busy next year. DT, of course, is the same with Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum, and Dimmu Borgir as well. It's just a matter of finding the right time. So whenever there is time, we go like, fuck it, let's do it.

MHR: Which reminds me, 2/5 of Cemetery Skyline will be at 70,000 tons. You are going with Dark Tranquility and Santeri is going with Amorphis. Any chance that maybe...?

MS: Very big chance. Very big, very big chance. We don't want to spoil anything.

MHR: So, I Drove All Night was recently released this year. Is this a teaser for a new Cemetery Skyline album? Or was it something that was left over from last year?

MS: It was left over. We recorded a few more songs as well. Because the writing process for the album was so long and kind of drawn out. We didn't really know what it was. It was just something that we like to do in between other stuff. So yeah, we recorded way more than we needed for the album.

We decided to have the album kind of focused. These are the best songs. But I know Markus has written some stuff and Santeri as well. Whenever there is time, I'm looking forward to it. Going back into writing again. Let's see. We're not really in a rush. This album felt great and we worked on it for such a long time.

We can let it sit there for a while and do some shows whenever we can. Or as much as we can. We'll see. It's going to be fun. Because the hard part writing the first album was finding the balance or the tone of what this band is. What are we presenting? What are we doing? When we got that, then it was kind of easier. So next album is going to be easier.

MHR: What's your favorite song to perform live?

MS: It's probably The Darkest Night. I really like it because it was the last song that we wrote. So, it kind of feels still fresh because the other songs were written two or three years before the recording. That's fun. All of them are really fun.

MHR: What is the most challenging?

MS: I was dreading Violent Storm. Violent Storm was so hard to sing in the studio. I was like, ‘let's hope we never play this live’. When I recorded it at home and I sent it to the guys, since we're never going to play it live, it's fine to do it like this. Then, fuck…We have to play it every night. But it's okay. I'm getting used to it, that was the hardest one.

MHR: For all the inspiration that Cemetery Skyline has mentioned before, what band would you love to play, to tour, if you're given a chance?

MS: From the inspiration. It would probably be... My favorite band from that kind of 80s, goth era is The Mission. So that would be super cool. Just to do any one show or whatever, something like that with them. I think what was cool about them, Sister Mercy had a look and a vibe and a style and all that stuff. Fields of the Nephilim that I also love, they also have that.

Whereas The Mission, I think, more than anything, they have fantastic songs. And then they look cool and they have the vibe and the 12-string guitar sound and all that stuff.

But I think they have some incredible songs. And that was one of the guidelines for this as well, to make sure that it's songs first and then we can add... We can put our spin on it. It has to be good songs, first of all. And that's also great about Marcus and Santeri. They know that already. We don't have to talk about it.

MHR: It seems ProgPower USA will see the premiere of Cemetery Skyline in the US. And we know that the festival is the first experience for many bands that come from Europe to the United States. What are your expectations from the festival show there?

MS: I don't know, but it's going to be my third year in a row. We played there with The Halo Effect two years ago and DT the last year. But it's such a cool festival because I've always admired it because they booked so many cool proggy bands that I love. So I always wanted to go and then they invited us. And we were like, really?

It seems odd. We're not that proggy. But the festival has changed over the years. But it's still so cool. It's a small festival, really small. One location, one stage. Beautiful, kind of nice venues. It used to be a TV studio and stuff. And it's fucking great. And downtown Atlanta in September is not pleasant. It's fucking incredibly fucking hot.

So you just want to go in there. And you just want to go into that venue and just hang out with the festival. And it's great. I'm super excited. I have a lot of friends there. It's going to be great. And it feels like it's a separate thing from all of America. Just like once, like two days of festival, three, whatever it is. But yeah, that's it. I had a blast the last two years there. So, I look forward to it.

MHR: Closing up, what is next for Cemetery Skyline in general?

MS: We're going to do shows around. We're doing South America after.

MHR: How do you feel about South America? Knowing how wild we are.

MS: Yeah, I'm curious. Again, I had no idea. We'll see. I know kind of goth rock and gothic metal is kind of big in South America. So maybe we have a chance.

I don't know. I really don't know. And that's what's fun about this. Because it's not like, you know, this doesn't work at all. If nobody shows up, that's fine too. Because this is just fun.

We didn't do this to make it bigger. It's just a matter of we love doing this together. We have a fantastic time writing and recording and playing.

But we want to find our audience in a good way. Not just through the metal crowd, but hopefully somewhere else.

So I'm really curious if we can break through somehow to people in different areas of the world. Because obviously it's very different from all the bands that we have. So it would be fun if it's not just Dimmu Borgir and Amorphis and DT fans come up. But somewhere else.

I think that's the most exciting part about this. So let's see.

MHR: So, what else is going to happen after South America?

MS: Then next year we have some plans. We have some cool booking agency that really want us to tour a lot. And we're struggling with finding the right time. So, who knows. But it's going to happen. We're going to probably start writing next year somehow. But just try to do as much shows as our schedules allow. And see where it takes us.

Because I never thought we were going to do shows at all. We talked about not doing it ever. But then one promoter in Finland said, at least play my festival. And he's such a nice guy. We love him so much. But then nothing more.

And now here we are.

MHR: Well, we're grateful that we got to see you. We're grateful that we have the experience, which it definitely was an amazing experience. Because seeing you guys from different backgrounds. And seeing you guys in different bands. It's different how it hits when we get to see Cemetery Skyline. Thank you, Mikael, for the time

MS: Thank you so much.

Text: Miguel Rozo