Arched Fire/Ari, Janne, Kristian, Assu

Interview by Andrew Stanton.

Interview with Ari , Janne, Kristian and Assu.

Hello and welcome to Inside the Darkness.

- Can you tell our readers a bit about your history, please?

Ari: We’ve only been together for three years, but there was a thirty-year gap in between. We started the band as 14-15-year-olds in Finnish Lapland. We were all excited about the speed/ thrash wave of the late 80s, and also about the metal and rock bands before that. Arched Fire was our first real band, and although we didn’t really know what we were doing, we played ten gigs and wrote a lot of songs before we called it a day in the summer of 1990. Thirty years later we decided to finish what we started. We found the perfect singer, re-created our old songs, wrote some new stuff, got signed by Wormholedeath Records and released our first album ”Remote Control”. Basically, this is everything we wanted to happen in 1989.

- Who are your band members?

Ari: Kristian Herkman (vocals), Janne Särkelä (lead guitar), Ari Väntänen (rhythm guitar), Mika Rytilahti (bass), Aslak Purojärvi (drums). Mika, Aslak and Ari formed the band inthe spring of 1989, and Janne joined them in October the same year. Kristian stepped in ”a bit” later, in 2019.

- What bands did you like growing up?

When the band got back together, everything actually happened really fast. Ari: I got into music when I was ten, I liked 80s heavy rock like WASP, Twisted Sister and many others. Five years later I got into speed/thrash but also rock’n’roll like 70s Alice Cooper and Hanoi Rocks, and punk rock bands as well. Janne: I have always liked many kinds of music and styles. My C-cassette collection included bands like Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Rainbow, King Diamond, Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Stone, Megadeth, Kate Bush etc.

- Why has it taken you so long to release your first album?

Ari: It really didn’t take that long. Back in 1989-90 releasing a real record was more like a dream than a realistic option. We were so young and from the middle of nowhere with no contacts to record labels. When the band got back together, everything actually happened really fast. It’s just that the band was hibernating for thirty years. Some of us didn’t even see each other during those three decades. But when we started the band again, it worked like a dream.

- What are your lyrics and themes about?

Kristian: They are about different aspects of power and about controlling people. Back on Track is about substance abuse and addiction. Remote-Controlled End is about social media. Crawling Down is about lust. ...And Ride Away is about freedom. A.T.W. is about uniting people for revolution. Wormhole is about raising children. Escape is about the effect that power may have on those who get it. Futile is about burnout and self-esteem. From Dust to Dust is about death.

- Do you believe Remote Control was worth the wait?

Assu: Yes. There was a great Fire burning back in ’89, but I’m very pleased of what we have done for those songs of ours. Arched Fire is now what I think it should have been then. Getting better with time like good wine.

- Sometimes you remind me of Accept. Were they a big influence?

Janne: I’ve never listened to Accept. Ari: Accept certainly was one of the bands I liked as a kid in the 80s. As ten year-olds we argued about whether the band’s name should be pronounced ”Assept” or ”Akkept” because we didn’t know any better. I actually told this to Accept’s Wolf Hoffmann a few years ago and he thought it was hilarious. I never really saw them as a direct influence, but recently when I came up with a new riff, Mika said it sounded like Accept, so there you go. There’s a lot of classic heavy metal in our music, and that’s Accept, among others. Assu: I was very young when I got my first Accept tape. But Metallica and W.A.S.P. were my first touches to metal.

- How do you describe your sound?

Ari: Back in 1989 when we had our first radio interview, the DJ called us ”hevispiidi”, which is ”heavy speed” in Finnish. We thought it was a silly word and it still made us smile 30 years later… But it was true as well. We’re a heavy metal meets speed metal band. With some thrash influences to boot.

- Do you have a message for our readers?

Ari: If you like good old-school metal, do yourself a favor and check Arched Fire out! We have some cool videos in Youtube, and the album ”Remote Control” is available for streaming everywhere. For those who dig cd’s, go and find our music in Record Shop X and Aural Music Store. Assu: Never stop dreaming. Sometimes you just happen to be in a wrong place at a wrong time, sometimes not, and that’s it. That’s just what happened to us.

Thank you for your time.