Simulacrum is one of the bands that Frontiers Music is betting on, thus reinforcing the progressive section of the Italian label … To get to know the band a little more, we spoke with Nicholas «Solomon» Pulkkinen, one of their guitarists, to introduce his band to our readers. and that he tells us about «Genesis» the group’s latest album among many other things …
David Aresté / Leticia Ballester
M.S: Hello, thank you for your time! it is a pleasure to have you here, we hope you are safe and ok.
Solomon: Hi! I’m delighted tpo answer your questions on behalf of Simulacrum. All the members are lucky to be safe and healthy during these difficult times.
M.S: To get to know the band a little more, tell us how the idea of creating the band , your musical style, etc…
Solomon: I guess we are to thank my older brother Christian ”The Chrism” Pulkkinen for creating the core and style of this group. The band goes way back to our teen years when Christian and his school mates started noodling around in the Puolala music high school band rehearsal room called ”Luola” which means ”The Cave” in Finnish. The first awkward steps were taken into the universe of power metal but soon our style evolved into a more progressive direction. I was four years younger than the other guys but was invited to play second guitar. It was inspiring to play with the ”big boys” and it made me practice hard.
M.S: Where does the name of the band come from?
Solomon: ”Chrism” immersed himself in fantasy worlds since a young age by reading novels and playing video games. In 1998 a legendary role playing game called Baldur’s Gate was released. It was set in the Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting. In the game a spell called Simulacrum may be cast. It creates a fully-controllable duplicate of the caster. I guess the word just sounded cool and was suitable to name our band. Our previous band names were Oblivion Ocean and Entropia but Simulacrum is the one we stuck with in the end.
M.S: From your words, what can you bring to the prog scene that other groups have not done?
Solomon: It’s not hard to hear our influences and we are not trying to invent the wheel again with our prog-metal but we have certain attributes that give our sound its own fingerprint. Most of the guitar parts are composed by Chrism. He is a keyboard player with not much experience of playing stringed instruments or knowing precisely how to write for them idiomatically. This is sometimes frustrating for the guitarists but it also makes the guitar tracks sometimes stand out and brings them ”out of the box”. On our third record we also have introduced a second vocalist Erik Kraemer and this is a feature that creates us new unique possibilities.
M.S: This album is released through Frontiers Music, we imagine that you are happy working with FM, right?
Solomon: Yes, indeed. We are very happy with the support Frontiers Music has given us. It’s the first time in our band’s history we really feel things can move forward and evolve on to the next level with the help of Frontiers.
M.S: Did the pandemic affect the recording? How was the recording process?
Solomon: The recording process of Genesis took many years and most of it was recorded before the pandemic. So the short answer is no! But of course creating an album has many work stages and the pandemic offered some extra time for post production etc. But all in all, it would have been released roughly at the same time even in the case covid hadn’t broken loose globally.
M.S: Since there are no concerts for now, have you made progress in composing new material?
Solomon: We have actually been rehearsing quite hard and trying to polish the album material to high live playing standards. But some new ideas and motifs are under construction and cooking. There will be certainly fresh cool stuff coming from Simulacrum sooner rather than later.
M.S.: Could you tell us what are your future plans about it? A new video, video lyric, some streaming set maybe…
Solomon: As soon as the clubs open up we will hit the road and play live gigs. But before that you may or may not see us play a live stream concert. Depends can we secure a kickass venue for this from our home town. Kinda hard to travel at the moment.
M.S:Thank you for your time, it has been a pleasure to have you here, we wish you good luck with your album and we hope to see you soon on stage
Solomon: Thanks! And you sure will see and hear about us in the near future!
David Aresté