Apocalyptica: The Raw Beauty of The Cello

Just like in other areas of art, whether it be music, film or painting, music has a strong cross appeal but also an inherent integration with other genres. Rock music has a strong historical backstory when it comes to combining the orchestra mixed with the staple bass, drums, guitar and vocals. Whether it be DEEP PURPLE in the 60s with the classic Concerto for Group and Orchestra, AEROSMITH on the Dream On single in the 70s and METALLICA and their S&M series in 1999 and their shows this year. Finland’s own APOCALYPTICA have strong connections to the boys from the Bay Area after covering their songs back in the 90s and putting their own flavour into the classics played across only four cellos.

Distorted Sound chat to Paavo Lotjonen as he travels across his native Finland to talk all about the group’s new album Cell-0 (released January 10th) and their reasons for returning to their roots with nine purely instrumental tracks.

As we open our conversation we find Paavo travelling across Finland and we dive into what the band have been up to in the last four years since the release of their last record. “We have been really active and busy in the four gap between releases, since Shadow Maker we had our 20th anniversary of the first record and we released a new version of that with a few extra tracks on that. Then we were supposed to play 30 gigs for that, we actually ended up playing about 230 shows as it was billed as us celebrating the connection with METALLICA from the record where we covered their songs. We played a show of two halves, one with just the cellos and no drummer and then the next half with a drummer. That tour took 32 months so here we are.”

As with anything in the world of creativity, a seed of inspiration has to come from somewhere, we find out how and who came up with the burst of inspiration to start the cycle of creating Cell-0. “We recorded the new record in January and February of this year in the middle of that tour. We all really had a feeling that we wanted to record this for our hardcore fans. Our recent albums had vocals on it and it can get complicated trying to compose instrumental songs and then adding the vocals on top. So we went into this one knowing it was instrumental. Our hardcore fans love the mindscapes and mental freedom we supply when we strip our music back to just cellos, it was incredibly challenging at times. On the other hand at the moment we are spread around the world putting the finishing touches to other songs that have vocals on them for other projects, it never ends!”

In the nearly 25 year period that APOCALYPTICA have been around each album has come with a different plan and a angle of attack. Some have been soaked in guest vocalists, a smattering of others on other collections while others have had strong singles and other songs that have been lost to the sands of time. Having had a sneak peak listen to the album, Cell-0 has a overall package of sound with no songs sounding like stand out singles, it coming across like a compositional collection. We ask Paavo if this was intentional or not. “It was easier this time to fit the songs together because the lack of vocals. It wasn’t necessarily composed as one line of symphony but it all comes from the same pen and paper so there is a through line. Compositions was what we were going for rather than ‘songs’.”

Having cellos be the main instrument within the APOCALYPTICA sound we find out from Paavo if there are any areas in using the instruments that took them out of their comfort zone. “Already from the first album we had a strong vision to use the electronic version of the cello. Some of the sounds sound like a distortion pedal because of the way we play them. Guitars and cellos have strings but with guitars you pick at the strings for the most part but with the cello you have the bow and there is a different connection to the instrument and the strings, its sometimes a primal feeling and we kept to that.”

Classical music is mainly used across the medium of films for the majority of people who listen to it, we discuss if the band have ever as a whole thought about scoring any films or TV and if they have had any offers in the past. “Yeah we would love to do something like that but as with most things we need the time and energy to commit to something like that. With us and our albums we collaborate amongst ourselves and know what each of us like and don’t like, with a film or TV show we would be immersed into a world where we would be collaborating with a director and have to find a happy medium between the two worlds. Watch this space you never know!”

Cell-0 is out now via Silver Lining Music.

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