With the recent release of their album Lifestyles Of The Sick And Dangerous, Backseat Mafia caught up with front man Nice Moilanen of Finlands Blind Channel.
Give us a potted history of Blind Channel
We started the band back in music high school in 2013 with one goal in mind: to make an international career in music. Right now, we’re releasing our fourth album, our major label debut. This year we’re playing over 150 shows. We started in the USA, headed to Europe and now we’re having a festival summer in Finland. A busy year with a lot of dreams coming true;: our song Dark Side reaching the Spotify Global Top 100; and our band on the cover of Rock Sound magazine.
Who inspired you to start making music
Linkin Park is what brought us together. I (Niko) was producing beats for local rappers, while the other guys had their first bands playing local bars. The two worlds collided in a high school house party, where the DJ was playing Linkin Park and I started rapping the verses of In The End. The guys asked me to a band practice and the rest is history. Right now, we’re inspired by all kinds of different music, ranging from Billie Eilish and Post Malone to Slipknot and Korn.
And the one or maybe two records that inspired you artistically
Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory is still playing in our tour bus. We loved their way of destroying genre boundaries and creating something fresh. With that said, we never aimed to be a second Linkin Park, but rather to follow their example of combining our favorite elements from today’s mainstream music into something completely new.
If you’re trying to explain who you sound like to someone that’s never heard you, what do you say
Three words: Violent Pop Music.
Tell us about your new album
Our new album, Lifestyles of the Sick and Dangerous, is released via Century Media Records. We started writing the album back in 2020 when we hit the rock bottom of our career. The pandemic took away our chances of pursuing our dreams – or that’s what we thought. However, a new member, Aleksi Kaunisvesi, joined the band and we decided to fight the windmill once again. We wrote a song, Dark Side, as a new beginning for us. The next thing we knew, it was the most streamed song in Finland in 2021. We decided to write and produce the album like we wrote Dark Side, just by ourselves, without a producer. On that album, we tell a journey from the rock bottom to being one of the biggest rock bands in Finland.
Where can we get hold of it
The album is out pretty much everywhere, so just go to your nearest record store or to your preferred streaming service and check it out.
Tell us how you write
We write the songs as a band, but of course everyone has a different role to play. I’m in charge of the lyrics, while Aleksi handles the production. Our guitarist Joonas focuses on the arrangements, while Joel is concentrated on the melodies.
Tell us about your live show and how much have you been missing it recently
Live shows have a sense of therapy for us. We go on stage and scream out any bad feelings we have. We wouldn’t survive without them. During the pandemic, we were one of the lucky ones, being able to play at least some shows in Finland. This year we get to play more than ever before, and we are grateful for that. Our shows are intense and energetic, and anything can happen. Come check us out and see for yourself.
What can we expect from you in the near future
After releasing our new album, we’re heading out on our first European headline tour, coming to the UK in September, and 2022 finishes in Helsinki Ice Hall, which will be the biggest show of our career so far.
Tell us your favourite records that’s rocking your headphones / tour bus / stereo?
Lately we’ve been listening to a lot of Korn, after seeing them live a week ago. We’ve also been listening to I Prevail’s Trauma and Post Malone’s Twelve Carat Toothache.
Check out the video for the band’s Track Bad Idea, below:
Find out more via the band’s Website or Facebook
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