Doomed Confessionary: Aarne, Ville, Petri & Amir (Wizards Of Hazards)

Wizards Of Hazards are a traditional doom metal band hailing from Laukaa, Finland. Sharing the same interest for vintage instruments and heavy music composing, their musical influences come from the recordings of the analog aeons, mostly 70’s and 80’s heavy metal, and their lyrics are inspired by bygone times, supernatural phenomenons and old tales & beliefs. After decades of jamming and performing as a trio, they shifted their shapes into a four-piece and changed their name to Wizards Of Hazards.

Wizards Of Hazards dropped their latest single »Too Late« on July 9th, 2025. Available now on all major streaming services.

Can you please say a few words about your band?
We are a traditional doom/heavy metal band from Middle Finland. We we’re originally called Black Wizard (from 1989), but around 2014 we changed our name to Wizards Of Hazards, because there were already so many bands called Black Wizard.

Current members are: Aarne Ylipiha (guitar), Ville Willman (vocals), Petri Pakarinen (drums) and Amir Bitar (bass).

What was the biggest challenge for the band?
Time and distance: since we don’t have time enough like ever, and we live quite far apart, so some things aren’t so smooth to make happen.

What can you be most proud of so far?
It’s got to be the timeline we’ve achieved, most band won’t last for deacades. And after all these years we’re still talking to each others, so that’s something, right? 😀

What was your biggest regret?
Got to say we have no regrets, everything has gone as planned. There has been times when the band wasn’t this active, but it’s nobodys fault, things happen for a reason.

What was the best concert/tour so far and why?
Got to be the KISS reunion tour in Helsinki 1997!! But seriously what comes to the Wizards Of Hazards gigs, it was pretty cool to perform this summer right after the mighty Graham Bonnet band in our little home town Laukaa, who would have imagined that!

What was the biggest surprise on the music scene for you?
It’s how the music culture has changed, and not in a good way. It’s too much when you notice, that you’ve been fooled by an AI-composed music and a non-existing band, it makes sad and furious when you realise what a faceless world we living in…

What is currently in your heavy musical rotation?
Lots of different bands and not only heavy metal ones. Our guitarist enjoys retro-type heavy rock like Kadavar, Wolfmother and Orchid as well as old school 70’s masterpieces Zeppelin and Sabbath. Our vocalist has the most different scenes going on as he’s studied a degree in music that includes jobs from jazz to traditional Finnish dance music. Our basist digs Cream and Zappa besides bands like Mastodon, and our drummer has a crush on more darker metal bands. So we mix all that into one cauldron when it comes to Wizards Of Hazards music.

What was the best advice you’ve ever been given as a musician?
Must be that one when we were in studio for our first album recordings. We wanted to add some churchbell toll, but as it was an all analog studio, we couldn’t use samples. So the owner showed us a trick made by late Alexi Laiho of Children Of Bodom where you do with guitar strings a sound of a churchbell. It was fucking amazing, we still can’t believe how it happened, but the bell is there immortalyzed in our first albums name song called »End Of Time«.

What are your guilty pleasures?
We have a weird habit to take one or ten Unicum shots as we get together, for the medicin purposes of course, and we use some old medieval style tin cups, not the ones you could get a lead poisoning thou…

Can you say something more about the current music scene in Laukaa / Finland?
We’ve been blessed with bunch of bands from Finnish doom and stoner genres to tour with in the recent years. Lately we’ve been throwing some doom/stoner nights under the name of Fuzzmass in Helsinki, Tampere and of course our home city Jyväskylä, and we’ve got like 20 bands in a Fuzzmass circle to tour with. The Finnish doom/stoner scene is vast and there’s always a good vibe when it comes to making gigs, always good shows and good laughs too.

Where can we see you live this year (concerts/tours)?
In the last half of year 2025 we are all in on our new album recording, but we have a couple of gigs coming too, next one is at Bar Kotelo Tampere in October 2025.

What are your plans for the future as a band?
We are aiming to have the new album out in the near future, it’s going to be an awesome one with some whole new hooks: our vocalist takes the second guitar, and our guitarist makes his debut in keybords. And then obviously do some touring. But as always we’ve been taking it step by step focusing in on delivering good vibes through our music for those about to rock!

How can people best support your band?
Just show up for Fuzzmass events: we always strive to invest in our stage performance, so you won’t just get an earful of Wizards Of Hazards but the visual experience to remember too!

Do you have any message for your listeners?
Be good and behave – you’ll know when it’s TOO LATE!

Cheers from all the WIZARDS!

Links:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube

Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well