Off the Record with Mikko Salovaara of Kiuas

One of the first bands that I fell in love with upon moving to Finland was Kiuas, when a friend introduced me to “To Excel and Ascend,” saying they were one of his favorite bands and that Mikko Salovaara was his guitar hero. Now, he may have ended up in a psych rock band rather than shredding, but I became so enamored with the band that they were one of the reasons I kept going to Myötätuulirock back in the early 2010s (that was a nice little festival). Ilja Jalkanen was one of my favorite metal vocalists because of the bluesy tone to his voice, as well as its beauty and power, and he was a great frontman too, with more charisma than most crowds knew what to do with. You can imagine my devastation when he quit, eventually leading to Kiuas disbanding. They had become a local favorite of mine in a very short time, with “Lustdriven” being one of my favorite albums of 2010, so I was pretty crushed. 

You can then imagine how delighted I was when the band announced a few comeback shows with their original lineup, which led to more festivals, which then ultimately led to them re-forming and releasing an awesome EP, “Samooja: Pyhiinvaellus” this year. Since my only interview with Mikko Salovaara was related to his interim band, Daimonic, this seemed like a great time to call him up to see if he had time to chat about the very obvious meaning of life, the new EP and current state of things in the band since the resurgence, the deeper layers of meaning behind Kiuas’ music (and art itself), and how Germans once mistook their name to be ‘Klaus’… at which point the conversation jumps ahead a month or so to Dark River Festival, just after Kiuas’ set. Due to technical internet goblins, the second half of the interview’s audio failed to record, so it was wrapped up at the festival by talking about having fun live, bubble mosh pits, and what’s coming next for the band. Sorry for the shift in audio quality there!

Thanks for checking it out, and please do the usual subs and shares if you want to see more of these in the future!