Could you introduce your band with a short history as DIABLO is not well known in France ?
MARKO: I try to make it short then. We've met with Rainer when we were teenagers in 1987. We were living in a small town in northern Finland at that time. There weren't too many musicians there let alone musicians playing metal… So it was a very natural step to start play together. My big brother was playing drums and Rainer's younger brother played bass. We played some kind of ultra fast trash-metal at that time. Then I moved to Helsinki and Rainer moved to Tampere (located 200 kilometers north from Helsinki) in 1994. We tried to find own bands at that time but decided then that we like to play with each other. We first played with the assistance of a drum machine and did one demo tape. We called the project Diablo Brothers. Then we finally found skilful enough players and after a couple of demo tapes we change the name to Diablo. Diablo has released four albums: Elegance in Black (2000), Renaissance (2002), Eternium (2004) and our latest Mimic47. Our current line-up is: Rainer Nygard vocals & rhythm guitar, Heikki Malmberg drums, Aadolf Virtanen bass and Marko Utriainen solo guitar.

Who would you classify as your band 's influences, both musically and lyrically? I suppose, these are not metal acts only?
MARKO: Well, I¡¦m mostly responsible for Diablo¡¦s music and for me the most influential bands have been old-school American thrash & death metal acts like Testament, Slayer, Death, Metallica etc. Also some newer stuff has made an influence. There I would mention bands like Meshuggah, Pantera, Paradise Lost etc. Nowadays I don¡¦t have much time to listen to music. I always try to use every free moment to sit down with my guitar and do something of my own. I can listen to all kinds of music but metal still gives me the greatest kicks ƒº Rainer is responsible for lyrics. I don¡¦t actually know whether he¡¦s been influenced by anybody too much. I¡¦ve got the impression that he wants to write lyrics that can be interpreted in many different ways.

Which bands would you compare DIABLO with?
MARKO: I woudn't compare it directly to any bands. But if I'm forced to do it I would say that Diablo plays metal which combines modern guitar sound and riffs from Meshuggah and Pantera to melodies from Metallica, Iron Maiden and Paradise Lost. Weird enough…?

Could you present your new release ? Can you tell us more about it, the recordings sessions, the songs etc ?
MARKO: Well, our latest release Mimic47 is definitely Diablo's strongest album for the time being. There are 10 songs and one instrumental on it. It really shows all the strengths of Diablo: hard-hitting monster riffs, ultra-harmonic lead guitar parts, clean and crunchy vocals, first-class drumming… There are no leftover songs on it (which, by the way, applies to our earlier releases as well) but all the songs are equally carefully built from the beginning to the end.

We worked the same way as before meaning that we didn't have a single band rehearsal before the recordings. So all the other band members have rehearsed alone and recorded their parts after demo cd's that are created in our small home studios (I'm mostly responsible for music and Rainer is for the lyrics). Samu Oittinen is responsible for recording and mixing the album.

What does "Mimic 47" mean ?
MARKO: I actually don't know exactly… Anyway, the idea is from a scandal that happened a few years ago in Lahti cross-country skiing World Cup where a couple of Finnish cross-country skiers got caught from using doping. That's what Rainer told me. So cross-country skiing and heavy metal. Rainer is a weird person…

Your cd entered at first place in the charts from Finland ? Is Diablo so famous in Finland ?
MARKO: Well, our second album Renaissance went on the 14th position in the albums chart. Then our previous album Eternium went on the third position. So, of course, we were expecting that Mimic47 would be on the charts as well. But I was certainly surprised when I heard that Mimic47 single went on the first place on the single chart in the end of November because there were big pop artists like Madonna on the top of the chart before our release. After the success in the single chart we were waiting anxiously for the album release. And it went to the pole position as well ƒº I guess we¡¦re now more famous than ever. Already after Eternium we played some sold out gigs in Finland so we can hardly wait for the upcoming Finnish tour¡K

I've heard that there is a lot of guests musicians on your cd, could you give us more infos ?
MARKO: here is a list of the guests:
Kuisma & Tuomo / Mokoma, Make / Pain Confessor, Q / Rotten Sound and Frank / Crystalic
Jytt / Pornorphans, Paivi Lepisto and Piritta Vartola / Lumous & Manzana
You can find links and more info about the guests from our web-site www.diablo1.net

What is the best finish band in your mind ?
MARKO: There are nowadays lots of quality metal acts in Finland. I don't actually have any favorite but I would say that the latest one that really has impressed me is Machine Men.

Your record label is not Spinefarm which is rare for a finish act. Are you happy being signed with Drakkar ?
MARKO: Naturally we send our demo tape to Spinefarm when we were not signed yet. But they weren't interested… I guess it had something to do with our style, because you really can't define it with saying that it belongs purely to one of the metal genres. Poko-records, which is a big Finnish label, was interested and wanted to sign us. I don't know whether that is the reason why we didn't get the distribution outside Finland already after the first or second album. But now things seem to be on the right track even though I would, of course, like too see that we would get a world-wide distribution for Mimic47… At least it deserves it because it is a very strong metal album.

You recorded the DURAN DURAN cover "A View To A Kill", are you fans of Duran Duran or james band ?
MARKO: All of us like Bond movies, of course. But we're not any big fans. At least I'm not… Anyway, I've always liked the Duran Duran song "A View To A Kill". So when we were discussing with Rainer that we'd like to do a cover for the album I then suggested the Duran Duran song. Rainer didn't have anything against it so we then decided to do it. And in my opinion it works well when played it the Diablo way

Is any members of the band involved in other projects/bands?
MARKO: Heikki is the only one having another band. It's called Manzana (http://www.kolumbus.fi/willy/). But Heikki is also the only one from the band who hasn't got a normal job which probably explains why he has time to play in another band…

Thanks for the interview !
MARKO: Many thanks for you. I just want to say that if you ever have the chance to come to see us live you definitely won't be disappointed. Diablo is at it's best when playing live.