Doomed Nation

Sounds For The Lost Generation

Doomed Confessionary: Ville & Iippo (Goatroach)

Goatroach is a doom/sludge metal band hailing from Kuopio, Finland. The band features current and former members of Hatefuel, Bloodgreed, Palantír, Iron Griffin, Circle Of Dawn, Obcasus & Takezo.

Formed in 2018, Goatroach consists of Ville (vocals), Iippo (bass, backing vocals, keyboards), Junnu (drums), Heikki (guitar) and Paavo (guitars).

Goatroach dropped their sophomore full-length album »Satanic Decay« on November 30th, 2024 via Sleeping Church Records and MinorobscuR. Mixed and mastered by Kalle Laanto. Cover artworks and graphic design by Iippo Irvikuva.

Can you say a few words about your band?
Ville: We are Goatroach and we do not play rock ‘n’ roll. Active since 2018. The core of the band is me, Iippo whiskey basstardism and songwriting extraordinaire and Junnu bringing the caveman beatdown.

Iippo: No, I can’t.

What was the biggest challenge for the band?
Ville: Well, I’d say this last autumn gave us our biggest challenge thus far, as there was quite a bit of guitarists coming and going: Jori joined in January for the second guitar, in October we had to part ways with Masi, Heikki joined later on in October, Jori left in November to concentrate on his noise/punk projects and Paavo joined in December. So that was a bit of a hassle, but luckily I know quite a few gifted musicians around here so there’s always a wealth of people to ask to step in.

Iippo: Pretty much everything. There REALLY is a curse upon this band.

What can you be most proud of so far?
Ville: To be able carve our own sound, which does not fit into easy genre boxes. Name one band that has a similar mixture of death/doom, sludge, black metal and crust. I’ll wait. Granted, this has proven to be somewhat difficult for some of the listeners, because we tend to do things in the “wrong way” according to genre conventions, but to us, that sounds like a “they” problem instead of an “our” problem.

What was your biggest regret?
Ville: Being born, but that happened way back in 1986 and I have been too much of a chickenshit to rectify the problem.
Seriously though. A whole bunch of them that keep me up at night, when I’m replaying reels of me behaving in a way that was less than honourable. Times when I have done bad things to good people. Or good things to bad people. I have a lifetime’s worth of regrets about stuff that happened ages ago and I can do nothing to rectify the situation.

Iippo: There’s sure a lot to regret, but I prefer keep slithering my own path towards the future instead of dwelling on them.

What was the best concert/tour so far and why?
Ville: Well, I think playing Rites of North in Oulu on January 2024 was something special. I mean, how often do you have the opportunity to play on the same event with Beherit?

What was the biggest surprise on the music scene for you?
Ville: Well, the moral puritanism that is sweeping the metal scene nowadays feels a bit odd, especially in metal. I mean, the recent Impaled Nazarene cancellation from their gigs in Effenaar is one example. Wherever came the idea that beer swilling and rabblerousing metaldudes are supposed to be some shining paragons of morality? I couldn’t care less about the personal opinions/politics/home behaviour of an artist, as long as the art itself kicks ass. I have this habit of separating the art from the artist, and people who might be total dickwads in their personal life can still put out extremely captivating material. I mean, Burzum for instance. Yes, he’s neonazi or whatever that norwegian hillbilly is up to nowadays, but that does not diminish the gloriousness of his main body of work. By which I mean the material he put out before & during his prison term, as his more recent stuff hasn’t been able to captivate me.
Heh, as I’m also a great fan of rap music, this demand of artists being good examples of morality feels hilarious. When you think of the greats,Tupac, Wu-Tang Clan, NWA, Mobb Deep, they are literally speaking of the lives they led, which included real life stories of being involved in violent crime, pimping prostitutes, slinging drugs and whatever the fuck. Hell, when you go and check out the more underground shit, the violence and vileness gets turned up a notch, because the southern state dudes from Houston for example did not really break out into the mainstream like those mentioned earlier. Nowadays, it’s also funny to see how the male rappers seem to bitching about women rappers talking about sexuality. 50 Cent for example has been seen commenting on this. Guess he forgot about Candy Shop and a plethora of other songs of his.
And yes, I do get weird looks often when I talk about my love for rap as a form of poetry. Because for some reason it’s “wrong” for a metal head to like that, as if it should something polarly opposite. I don’t care, I listen to black music and I listen to white music. In my 4000+ album collection there are reggae albums right next to RAC as well as black metal next to recordings of American indian folk songs. Music is my thing, something that kept me alive as for a long time when I was younger it was quite literally the only thing good in my life and situation, and ain’t nobody able to tell me what to listen to.
But to get back on track, at times it feels like the “scene”, whatever that means, pushes people to take a part in some sort of conflict between right and wrong, to be part of antifa or join the patriots or whatever. It all just seems very foolish to me. We are all more alike than different, we all have similar hopes, dreams and aspirations that are very comparable. Yes, our heritages are different, there’s differences of opinion, but neither of these things make us separate from one another. A very theosophic view, perhaps, but that’s my bottom line and it’s a hill I’m willing to die on. As for the shit-flinging contest going on between to extremes, I prefer to keep my hands free of shit to begin with. On our first album, Plagueborn, there’s a song called Of Guided Missiles and Misguided Men, which is a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. speech, so that probably sums up where we lie on this matter.

What is currently in your heavy musical rotation?
Ville: Minenwerfer! Their Alpenpässe was the highlight of 2020 and I recently got the Feuerwalze along with several EP’s. Probably my favorite band in black metal right now as they seem to go from triumph to triumph, carving their own sound while paying homage to their influences. Apart from that, Mournful Congregation is something that I’ve listened to a lot recently. Control, the noise/power electronics project as well. Eevil Stöö, a finnish rap artist, which probably means fuck all to foreigners, but he’s a great example of a rapper who has gotten his flow worked out so well that every inventive line he spits out sounds so effortless that it almost feels like he’s bored. Oh, And Precambrian is my latest find, a project by the Drudkh mastermind, Roman Saenko! It’s like Hate Forest on steroids and if that description doesn’t get your blood pumping, I don’t know what will.

What was the best advice you’ve ever been given as a musician?
Ville: I got my first start in bands when I was 30 or so, when Terry of Proscription/Maveth asked me to try out vocals for a demo of his that had been laying around as unfinished files on his computer for ages. Kimmo of Lantern joined to play the drums, we jammed out a few sessions and I did my best to keep up with these masters of their craft. Both are also very dear friends of mine, so it was a good setting. And as for the best advice, I’ll still go by Terry’s advice on recording vocals: “munch down some Doritos with Jack Daniels and you’re golden”. I have added another twist on it though, and that is drinking buttermilk between songs, to get that phlegmy growl perfected.

Iippo: “What? A great man? I always see merely the play-actor of his own ideal.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche. Don’t be an asshole! Rockstars etc. poseurs doesn’t mean shit in this rotting world.

What are your guilty pleasures?
Ville: Pack me a bowl and pass me a lighter and I’ll tell you.

Iippo: Candles, incence, sunglasses.

Can you say something more about current music scene in Kuopio?
Ville: Kuopio has been a powerhouse of metal for ages, but since it’s a bit removed from the hotbeds of the southern and western Finland, lying here on the eastern side, it doesn’t get as much recognition. But bands like Beherit (which was originally from Rovaniemi, yes, but was based here for a long tie), Barathrum (started in Kemijärvi in the north, but continued here when Janne moved down here), Demilich are legends, not to mention modern efforts like Lantern, Deathchain, Proscription, Mausoleum Gate, Iron Griffin and what have you. The scene is somewhat lively, and I’ll do my best to stoke flames even hotter.

Iippo: There sure is good shit going on here, but I have never wanted to be part of it. So I don’t really have much more to say about it.

Where can we see you live this year (concerts/tours)?
Ville: Kuolio Festival here in Kuopio. It’s a death metal festival I’m organizing together with a group of likeminded fanatics. The first edition’s lineup is Demilich, Undergang (DK), Lie In Ruins, Corpsessed, Messiah Paratroops, Lantern, Sepulchral Curse, Proscription, Mephitic Corpse (USA), Axeslaughter, Necropsy Odor (USA), Blight and us. Tickets are on sale. For now at least. You see, we opened the sales on 19.12.24 and half of the 250 total were gone in the first 36 hours.

What are your plans for the future as a band?
Ville: To keep on doing what we feel like. As long as Iippo is laying down the riffs for Junnu to smash the skins to, I’ll keep on growling along. It’s great fun and as we have no aspirations of getting signed to any major labels, dreams of rockstardom etc, it’s something that is fun for us to do. Obviously we are grateful from the support from minorobscuR and Sleeping Church with releasing, but should they bow out and leave us to our own devices, we would still keep hammering out the tunes.

Did you have any special plans for New Year’s Eve?
Ville: Getting drunk and hopefully lucky with the wife.

Iippo: X-Ray at KYS.

How can people best support your band?
Ville: Come to the show, pick up merch, share the music if you feel like it’s something your friends might be interested in. Should anyone reading this be a gig organizer in whatever country, we are asking only to have our expenses covered for the trip and we’ll bring you a show you won’t regret paying for.

Do you have any message for your listeners?
Ville: This one’s from the heart, which might not be something you expected: as I mentioned earlier, I’ve been a lifelong outsider, never really fitting in anywhere, before carving out my own niche with likeminded freakzoids. I have several suicide attempts in my past, have lived the low and for a long time I did not see much of a reason to stick around. But then, over the years, when I started opening up about my issues, I started to notice that I had people that cared. I just was not able to see that, as I was too deep in whatever the fuck was tormenting me on any given day. Don’t give up, keep trying and reach out to your close ones. Appreciate the good you have and get of rid the bad shit bringing you down. The music we do is by outsiders, for outsiders and if that means you, we got you.

Iippo: Sometimes it’s better to just keep quiet.

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

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