IE: Let us start off by asking who is M.O.R.A. and give a brief description about yourselves and the music you play aimed at someone who has never even heard of you guys yet…..

Rurik: Sunvisor moshpit karate hardcore from Helsinki, or however the guy in Maximum Rock ‘N Roll described us...since pretty early on M.O.R.A. has consisted of Piia & Suvi on vocals, Yaki on drums, Katja on bass and myself on guitar. I would describe our sound as hardcore with metal and punk influences.

IE: You were telling me that the name M.O.R.A. comes from a popular knife that is used in your area. Why did you decide to choose this name?

Yaki: The name was invented by our first singer Turo (Ratface, St.Hood) or Rurik so I don’t know the true origin of this story but the name describes us well…sharp, simple and short just like the knife. Harsh name, harsh music. My favorite acronyms are Me Ollaan Rikollisten Armoille (“we’re on the mercy of criminals”) or Me Ollaan Rurikin Apureita (“we are Ruriks sidekicks”).

Piia: Our guitarist Rurik is a gypsy at heart and Mora-knives are the weapon of choice for them. M.O.R.A. is how our name is supposed to be spelled but anyone can make it into whatever he/she wants. Being a sentimental lassie my favorite version is “Me Olemme Rakkauden Asialla” which roughly translates as “We’re in favor of love”.

Rurik: Yeah I’ve heard all about this knife business, and it is purely a coincidence that the initials of “Monta Ottajaa, Runsaasti Annettavaa” (roughly translates as “many takers, plenty to give”) form the word for the infamous blade. The knife is (at the moment) way more famous than our band but you never know... Through generations Mora has been a pivotal part of life here, acting as a middleman in disagreements, divorces, family feuds...adding the finishing touch to many unsuccessful relationships.

IE: How big off a knife can you legally carry in Finland?

Piia: We abide by the rules of the jungle; the longer your blade, the higher your status. We all carry sabers.

Rurik: Legally you can carry a two inch blade. If you wish to go bigger it’s okay as long as you look like Bob The Builder while doing so.

IE: Having a female band member in a hardcore band is a rarity and having 2 female singers and a female bass player is something I can’t remember ever seeing. What are some people’s reactions that you can recall when coming to see you play for the first time?

Piia: Sometimes amazed people come up after a show wondering about this, so far in a positive way. Generally speaking female musicians still seem to be an odd sight and women’s playing abilities tend to get scrutinized a bit. Some people seem to think that women don’t belong to the ultra-masculine world of hardcore but you know how it is, every village has its idiot.

Rurik: We’ve gotten pretty positive feedback and of course it’s an advantage to have women in the band, but for me it’s not such a big deal...there have always been women involved in punk bands without it being an abnormality.

Yaki: Sometimes dudes kinda flip out and boast shirtless in front of the stage in order to impress the girls...must be a good lookin’ bunch of ladies we have in this band haha

IE: Any good stories to go along with the previous question where people may have been shocked at your sound?

Piia: Well me and Suvi are both relatively small in stature, so the noise coming out of us tends to surprise people. There has also been recurring speculations about us being lesbians… haha

Rurik: I recall the time we were playing a show with Rytmihäiriö, they have a more metal sound or what to call it...Surmacore? Anyway there were way more metal people there and some not so polite comments could be heard from the audience before we started to play, but after the show people came up and talked about our music having influences from Slayer and even bought some shirts and records. If someone can hear Slayer in our music I for one don’t consider that a bad thing at all. Sound engineers usually try to work up a thin punk sound for us at shows before they hear us play, which is irritating.

IE: There are not many hardcore bands with two singers. When you first tried it was it something that came easy to the band or was it something more that was hard to work into the songs?

Piia: When this final brethren got together there were no doubts as to what role each of us should take. Having two singers opens up more possibilities. On the upcoming album there’ll be more of us singing on top of one another etc because we’ve learned more about our strengths as vocalists.

IE: Can you describe the two vocal styles?

Piia: Suvi’s style of screaming is closer to rap, low and hoarse. My sound is more lucid and punk.

Rurik: Croak-style!

IE: What about your lyrics? Who generally writes them and what kinds of topics do you like to write about?

Piia: Me and Suvi write all the lyrics. Generally Suvi acts as the arranger and after that we just refine the material until it  suits our styles.

Suvi: The lyrics are mostly about the drawbacks of society and personal grievances. Let it be noted that I’d very much like to write about positive stuff too if it wasn’t so damn hard! I enjoy our gigs immensely and smile all the time when I’m on stage. That in itself contradicts quite a lot with our lyrics.

Piia: I’ll admit that I have a strong urge to make a difference by making the right choices in life, so if I can make someone realize the importance of, well, anything through my lyrics I’ll consider it a success.

Suvi: One great moment for me was when the best indie radio station “Radio Helsinki” had just found out it was going to be shut down. They played our song “Liika on liikaa”, which is about the big and strong surviving by eating the small, of things always turning out the same and people making the same mistakes over and over again.

Rurik: This is Piia’s and Suvi’s turf, but I mostly try to apply a healthy dose of censorship to stuff I find less appealing. Lately I haven’t even seen the damn lyrics to any of our new songs so I haven’t got a clue what they’re up to! If you have any idea please send me the lyrics via Torrent so Suvi won’t be able to interfere with the transfer haha.

IE: Can you talk about M.O.R.A.’s sound and how you think you came up with this extremely heavy yet unique sound that you have? What kind of bands did you grow up listening to and what do you like to listen to these days to get you in the mood to write music?

Piia: I used to listen to Roxette, Bon Jovi, Finnish Schlager, King Diamond, Dr Alban, Slayer and Twisted Sister. Shitty music versus awesome music. At Junior High I discovered punk and hardcore. There began my musically aware state of being. To this day bands like Minor Threat and Gorilla Biscuits succeed in rising my spirits every time I listen to them.

Rurik: For me it all started before I even went to school...I used to listen to my sisters old cassettes that had Finnish new wave and punk in ‘em. Then the heavy thing came along but pretty quickly proceeded to thrash metal. I was already listening to some pretty heavy stuff in elementary school…bands like Venom, Slayer, Vendetta, Testament... At my teenage years punk really started hitting hard. I used to go to a lot of death-and black metal shows when I was around 13. Around this time my sister was (and still is for all I know) involved in the Khrishna movement and started sending me all these Khrishna hardcore magazines. They featured bands like Youth Of Today and Cro-Mags and I ended up buying the Cro-Mags “Best Wishes” album...and from there it went.

Yaki: My fondness for music technically began when Vesa-Matti Hellsten (Hell’s Tone Records) moved to Lappeenranta from Pietarsaari and joined me in the same class in third grade. I remember when Vesa brough Accepts “Burning” to the record panel in school and the whole class went apeshit over it. Before that I was more or less listening to some goddamn fairy tale cassettes by this Finnish children’s character (a gnome to be precise) called Rölli. Through Vesku I started to dig all kinds of metal music. In 1993 I saw my first hardcore show (a band called Lotta Svärd played at a youth center in Sammonlahti, Lappeenranta) and listened to Bad Religions then newly released “Recipe For Hate” for the first time. The same year I started junior high and ended up in the same class with people who knew more about these things so they kind of guided me towards the right way musically. Since then I’ve been listening to all kinds of punk and hardcore. For me the best bands still seem to be the ones I listened to when I was a kid. The same applies when I think about music that most inspires me. Sometimes I feel so caught up in the nineties... Our sound forms from the fact that we’ve all liked a lot of different styles of rough music through the years and have always kept an open mind. We’re definitely not reinventing the wheel here but when it comes to making songs I don’t want us to have any style related restrictions. I mean sometimes when we rehearse Rurik may play a riff for which he has gotten inspiration from a pop/reggae/Indian folk music song...and first I think “what the bloody fuckin’ hell?!” but after some fiddling we’re able to make a decent song out of it. With Rurik listening to a lot of thrash metal when he was a kid and seeing hundreds of crust shows, me and Suvi sharing a love for rap and all of us diggin’ punk rock...throw in some good old hardcore and there you have it; the recipe for M.O.R.A.

IE: What is the hardcore scene like in Finland? Can you tell us about how often there are shows, what are some good record stores are and how the scene is in general?

Piia: The hardcore scene here is going strong at the moment. Somewhere around Y2K there was a downwards bend but now things are well off here. New bands are coming up, the new generation of kids are coming to shows and forcing us to dodge roundhouse kicks like back in the day! The scene consists of machos, punks and straight edge kids all coexisting peacefully. At some point we had more gigs with both punk and hardcore bands playing but that’s more of a rarity now days. Shows are held every week, mostly in Helsinki but also in smaller cities such as Tampere, Lahti, Lappeenranta and Turku. All of the afore mentioned towns host very active scenes. We haven’t got many good record stores here, but Combat Rock Shop (a record shop that specializes in punk) will take you a long way.

Rurik: The scene is at its best right now, every week there's something going on and plenty of people to attend. People see bands that they're interested in but also go to shows that feature music which might not really be their thing...all in all the scene has way less puritanity than before.

IE: For hardcore tours passing through Europe Finland is not always a country that the bigger tours pass through. Do you or the other people into hardcore in Finland ever feel disrespected because the bigger tours don’t stop there?

Piia: Of course... it’s annoying that a lot of bands skip Finland on their tours, but we’re used to it. Actually we’ve had a few good foreign bands here this year like Bulldoze and Title Fight. And 100 Demons are coming to town in October...! Finland is not ideally located so it takes a few more dollars to get here. It’s understandable because naturally you try to make a reasonable route for a tour and aim  to save every penny while on the road in order to cut your losses. But here’s a tip anyway…it’s cheap to take a ferry to Helsinki from Stockholm and then on to Tallinn from here.

Yaki: I don’t think anyone finds this disrespectful, I mean who knows whether or not this is all about bands not wanting to show up or us having no one with balls big enough to take a chance and organize a show here you know? Whenever a big band is supposed to come here I refuse to believe it before I see it, because unfortunately many shows end up being cancelled. It would be really nice to see more bands play in Finland but like Piia said we’re not exactly ideally situated. I also understand that naturally bands prefer playing to larger audiences and selling more merch while at it. Everyone has to eat and all.

IE: Where do you have to go usually to catch bigger shows and how long does it take to travel there?

Piia: People usually go to Sweden, Denmark, Germany and England to see shows. It’ll take you about three days to see one show.

Rurik: I don't feel the need to go abroad to see shows, we have gigs here every week so why bother.

Yaki: I’ve gone to Germany and England a few times. Thinking about it afterwards I really can’t tell whether it was more about seeing bands or just getting wasted to tell you the truth. I do prefer to see 3 or 4 bands in one evening compared to an event that has 20 or more bands performing on a single day. Feels like a lot of big events feature too many bands that sound alike...when the sixth band in a row starts playing generic beatdown I start to keel, either out of boredom or due to excessive substance abuse, who knows...

IE: Last August M.O.R.A. packed up the van for a 2 week tour of Europe. How was the reaction to you guys outside of Finland? What are your favorite scenes or cities to play in Europe?

Piia: The reception on our tour was out of sight! We’re kind of a crossover band so we got to play all sorts of places, such as crust lairs, clubs, bigger arenas and in an underpass! One club got tear gassed before our show and the locals were really chill about it ‘cause according to them that kind of thing happens every now and then. It was an adventure. We had a really great time and people seemed to dig our stuff sincerely. The show in Tallinn was unreal! After the first few notes the whole place went berserk and stayed that way till the end. I got few chances to grab my mic but spent most of the time crowd surfing. On tour the bands female presence seemed to draw more attention than back home (it may also be that I’ve forgotten how it was here in Finland when we first started). Many girls came up and told me about how they’ve always dreamed of being in a band but never thought it possible until they saw M.O.R.A. I don’t have a favorite town or place in mind...every place is a good one until proven otherwise. What stuck in my mind from the last tour was Tallinn with its small but voracious crowd.

Rurik:  If I remember correctly we played 14 shows, most of them alright, a couple exceptionally great and one or two that were not all that good...well I guess that's how it usually goes. It's a shame when you're on a short tour such as this because just when you feel the band going into high gear it ends. I liked Poland the best but on the other hand I've never been for example to Spain or Portugal and would very much like to check them out.

IE: Can you tell us a little more about the show that got tear gassed and the underpass show? Sounds kinda crazy.

Yaki: The tear gas episode was somewhat confusing. First thing that came to mind for me was that we're under attack by some bonehead crew but this wasn't the case. We never found out what really happened. Maybe some local guy heard our sound check and decided that the morbid noise coming out of the bar was too much to bear. Our gig at the underpass was by far the weirdest show I've ever played. We knew in advance about the location but still kinda expected something different... We arrived there on time and once we found the tunnel in question it was hard to believe we we're really at the right place. It was a big ass tunnel covered in glass rubble, up to our ankles! Anyhow we didn't see anyone else there so we headed back into town and hung around for a while. When we got back the organizer had showed up and started to broom the place, saying he's been a bit busy lately...hmm…we were the only band that night, the crowd consisted of about 20 people and the whole wretched deal was sealed after a bass and a guitar string broke. Not the best show we've played but definitely the most memorable. No bad feelings towards the organizer, he was a decent guy but maybe both parties could have done things better. One more blunder concerning the tour comes to mind…we we're driving to Olsztyn from Vilnius and our driver managed to insert the wrong town to our navigator...surprise surprise… there's also a city called Olstyn in Poland for fucks sake! You can imagine how we felt when we arrived at Olstyn only to find out we were supposed to be in Olsztyn, 200 miles northwest. And 200 miles is a long bloody way to go in Poland let me tell you! At this point I would've given my right arm for a Valium...but miraculously we made it to the right place alive, even though Rurik had to piss in a plastic bottle while our driver Pekka was defying death, speeding alongside trucks on a gloriously shitty trail that passes for a highway in Poland. At night time...no light posts in rural Poland... That day consisted of 12 hours in the van, shot nerves and a good gig. We ran to the stage straight from the car, played, ate and got wasted within an hour of our arrival. After that it felt like we owned the world, we fucking did it, anything's possible!

IE: For years American punk and hardcore bands have been traveling to Europe and playing tours to crowds usually bigger than the ones they would draw at home. Can you see a day when Euro bands start making regular trips to the US for similar tours?

Piia: Well hasn’t that day already come, in some sense? There are active Finnish bands that do a tour in the States every year, such as Hero Dishonest and Ydinperhe. It’s pretty hard or downright impossible to organize a tour to the US without any local connections. But we’ll show up as soon as the opportunity presents itself! Last year I was hanging out in New York for a month, going to shows and so forth, and I’d love for us to play there. The Black ‘N Blue Bowl was a great experience for me even though, in accordance with Finnish custom, I repelled my shyness by getting shitfaced. I gave our record to people I talked with (or more probably spluttered in my drunken impossilble-to-comprehend English). Anyhow I had a great time, sorry if I  annoyed anyone! South and Central America interest me as well. A couple of years ago I ended up on a Mexican tour with Billy The Kid (a Costa Rican hardcore band) and it was an awesome experience. Scary as hell but fascinating at the same time. The lay of the land  is so completely different there compared to the safety of Finland. Every place oozes violence which is probably why the gigs there are insanely intense.

Rurik: Well a prophet is not without honor save in his own country...American bands usually put up a good show and really take command of the stage, so I have to admit that even though some bands aren't all that good musically they turn out to be really entertaining live. There's a lot of great music coming from Europe and from here as well so I don't see why bands couldn't tour the US regularly.

Yaki: That would be really cool but I don’t see it happening... The US is such a huge country full of great bands, so my guess is people don’t necessarily feel the need to listen or follow up on European bands. I know many small bands do tour there on a yearly basis but to my understanding these are quite small shows set up at a garage or at someone’s home or at tiny clubs. I have no idea though what kind of crowds bigger European bands like No Turning Back draw.

IE: This band has had the same lineup since 2008 which is over 5 years now. How close is everyone in the band to one another?

Piia: We know each other well. Some of us have been friends since the 90’s. We laugh a lot and, at times, act out like overgrown babies. These days we don’t hang out as much except for gigs and such, but luckily we have plenty of shows to do!

Rurik: It's somewhere between a family and a regress to high school...you tangle with one and complain about it to the other. A week later you're having a row with the other and whining about it to the one you were fighting the week before. We do clash pretty intensely but usually it doesn't get physical. Sometimes I'm so fucking pissed I feel like calling it quits, but I guess it's a part of the equation. M.O.R.A. hasn't done any long tours so we haven't properly taken a stab at surviving each other! But anyway we go to the same shows, get smashed with the same people and rehearse twice a week so we do spend plenty of time together.

Yaki: I’ve known Suvi since we were teenagers dwelling near the Russian border in Lappeenranta and we’ve practically even lived under the same roof at one point. She used to date one of my best friends and thinking of it now I must have spent more nights at their place than I did at home back then...at least every weekend I ended up passing out on their floor. Anyone else in the band I didn’t know until we started playing.

IE: Finland is known more for its black metal bands rather than hardcore bands. Are the bands and scenes close to each other or are things more separate?

Piia: Both scenes are going strong but completely separately. We played Tuska (a big metal festival in Finland) and that’s as close as M.O.R.A. has ever gotten to black metal.

Rurik: Those two scenes have nothing in common...basically we could play with any kind of music since we are doing the crossover thing but I'd like to see the day we're invited to play at a black metal show!

Yaki: Like Rurik says these scenes and bands have nothing in common. Some of the black metal crowd are such seemingly inbred, closed minded and utterly demented fucks that I prefer to have nothing to do with them. But death metal groups do share the stage with punk and hardcore bands from time to time.

IE: Not knowing a lot about Finland myself what kinds of things or activities would you suggest to people to check out if they were passing through your country? 

Piia: Finland is an incredibly clean country full of lakes. Jumping into one from a cliff is highly recommendable. Helsinki is a good city for skateboarding and there are all kinds of shows to check out. You can drink outside so having a few beers in a park is a nice way to pass time. Santa hails from Finland...need I say more?

Yaki: Depends a lot on where you’re coming from and what culture you represent…for example Asians like Finnish design while Russians and Germans appreciate our nature and peaceful atmosphere so they tend to rent cabins and spend time in the country side. Finland is a big country considering the amount of people living in the surface area (5 million people / 338 thousand square kilometers). Most of the population lives in the southern parts so there’s plenty of room to roam around the north where the sun never sets in summer and refuses to rise at winter. Some people find this quite exotic.

IE: What kind of regular jobs does everyone in the band have?

Piia: I’m an entrepreneur; I work as an illustrator and design clothes for my brand Kaksitvå.

Rurik: I suffer from an obsession to buy and sell all kinds of shit that crosses my path. So I've made my money at parking lots hahah but officially I'm an entrepreneur like Piia, I rent cars and act as a remover. I've previously worked at factories and shipyards, doing the nine to five thing and hating it passionately. A man needs to have some variety you know?

Yaki: I work at an printing house, prepress apartment to be exact. No point in explaining further, the ones who know about these things will understand what I’m talking about. My mom still constantly asks me what it is that I do for a living and my ex-girlfriend still thinks (after 12 years together) I’m a printer. So there you have it. Suvi does the nine-to-five routine at an office cubicle and is also a board member in Syvä ry which is an association that promotes underground music in Finland by organizing shows and a festival called Lawatanssit once a year. Lately Katja has been studying and doing social services related work.

IE: It has been 2 years since you released your self titled EP. When can we expect some new material to be released and can you tell us at all about new songs you may have already written?

Piia: Songs of the future release are almost ready to be recorded. We’ve been on a hiatus of some sort for the past summer, trying to avoid playing shows and concentrating on the new material. We’re probably going to hit the studio this fall, and if everything works out a new M.O.R.A. record will be released next spring! The new songs consist of the typical metal-oriented riffs flavored with punk – rich with diversity as always. All in all good stuff!

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