Getting to Know… Atomic Agent | Interview 🎤

In the 403^rd Q&A in our Getting to Know… series, we get the inside scoop from the Finnish, one-man metal band, Atomic Agent. 

“Even if I tried to imitate something else, it ends up sounding like Atomic Agent.” Awesome, Atomic Agent! Being true to self is the stuff! In response to our first burning question, Al Aston expounds, “Atomic Agent’s songs have a lot of memorable melodies and chorus parts, lots of groove and tons of emotion.” Rad! We get the inside scoop on the Finnish, one-man metal project’s genesis, goals, musical influences, and current, and future musical endeavors. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into Getting to Know… Atomic Agent: Interview No. 403!

For those who may not be familiar with you, what would you say makes Atomic Agent distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

I’d say the overall sound and the combination of different influences make this unique. Even if I tried to imitate something else, it ends up sounding like Atomic Agent. I remember once trying to deliberately write a song in the Ghost do, but the end result was far from it, and to me it’s a good thing to be unique.

Not having a live lineup, I can only say that Atomic Agent’s songs have a lot of memorable melodies and chorus parts, lots of groove and tons of emotion. You can bang your head, dance, jump up and down and play air guitar or just close your eyes and lie down while listening to it, whatever rocks your boat. And I can assure you, whenever the live possibility materializes, it will kick ass, it will be intense and visual.

Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did Atomic Agent form and what were some of the goals or visions you had early on?

Not much juice in this one, I’m afraid. I’ve been doing metal for many years, but I also listen to a lot of different stuff, and this one day I just came with an idea for a classic Goth Rock song. I took my iPad and just laid the basics for it. The thing was, I had never sung before, but the urge to try it out myself was so strong, I had to do it. It turned out very nicely, and before I knew it, I had like a dozen more songs. I had no goal other than just creating something new and learning to sing at first. Soon I brought more and more of the natural instruments into the songs, and it grew and grew.

As I played those songs to my close ones and some people, I was strongly encouraged to continue making more. Fast forward a few years, and in the end of last year Atomic Agent released the first official single, “Breathe Fire”, and the debut album, Secret Society.

I’ve played all the instruments myself so far, as my vision of this is so strong, I really did not want anyone else involved until now.

Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

I think they have changed. In the beginning this was just something fun to do for myself, but as I gradually got better doing this and the songs turned out to be really good, I knew I needed to take this further.

The next important goal is to improve my sound production skills as I think the songs would stand out even better with a punchier production. I’ve also been offered a collaboration with a professional sound engineer, so there will be improvement anyway.

I want to get the name of Atomic Agent on everybody’s lips and take this thing as far is as it can go. And knowing what I’m capable of when it comes to songwriting, it can go very far, actually.

At the moment I’m looking for musicians to bring this thing onstage, I honestly can’t wait for that to materialize someday.

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Whom would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

The Sisters Of Mercy was the first spark – perhaps not that unique of an influence when it comes to the Goth Rock scene, but Atomic Agent is a whole lot more than just another TSOM clone – and they are still one of the stone pillars for me. Another huge name is the German Love Like Blood, who’s An Irony of Fate album took the guitar-oriented side of Goth Rock into a whole new sphere. Other mentionable names are Rosetta Stone, Billy Idol, Nick Cave, Paradise Lost, Danzig, Fields Of The Nephilim, Smack and so on.

Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative.

No stories of that kind with Atomic Agent, but there is one crazy event that took place with my metal band. I do not remember if it was live-related or related to some studio session, but we had this cabin for the weekend. One evening this local young woman came in to spend time with us, because she heard we we’re having a band party. We had tons of food, beer, listened to music, the sauna was on (you know, us being Finns) and we just had a good time talking shit, mostly about music.

So, there we were sitting around the table eating and drinking, as this woman suddenly stormed in from the sauna, jumped up on top of the dining table butt-naked and started dancing to the music. We were like “umm, okay then…” but that’s when she really went crazy. Before we knew it, she snatched one of the sausages from the table and started inserting it in her crotch while continuing the dance. We had never encouraged her to do something like that, we never expected for her than just to hang around with us, so we were astonished how things had taken such a surprising twist, but boy was our second guitarist stunned as he had never ever seen something like that. We were all pretty decent boys, but he was so innocuous then, not even sure if he’d seen a naked woman before that, not to mention doing such crazy stuff. To this day I don’t know, why she behaved like that, at least I didn’t see her taking any drugs, just drinking beer. And she didn’t even seem ashamed at all the next day, so maybe she did things like that more often.

So, if today I hear the phrase “having a sausage fest”, it gives me a whole another mental image than what you might think. 😀

Wow 😮! Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

Lyrics-wise the most important one might be the closing piece from the debut, a song called “Kiss the Sky”. It’s very personal and deals with one’s existential crisis.

Music-wise it gets a lot harder, but I rank “Irene” very high. At the same it has so much of groove, and big vocal lines that you’d love to bellow out at your nearest karaoke bar with your buddies. It also has a very dark topic, it’s about someone close to you taking the final solution. On top of all that it has a nice video to support the feel of the lyrics.

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

I build steampunk/weird science lamps, whenever I have the time from other things. I’ve been pondering if this talent could be something I could use with Atomic Agent too. Steampunk influenced live props, video props, you name it.

Some of that steampunk stuff you can check out on www.facebook.com/artefaktasite.

Closing out, what is Atomic Agent currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

I’m writing new music all the time and there will a single release or two in the next coming months. Probably music videos too. Then there is an EP in the works for a spring release and probably the second full length album later this year. I’m also doing a two-way collaboration with a nice Finnish Goth music talent, and you should hear from this later on.

Some of these plans might blow up slightly though if I get that live lineup assembled.

Thank you so much for sharing and taking the time to answer these questions, and best of luck moving forward.   

Thank you, it was a pleasure! — Al Aston / Atomic Agent

Getting to Know…Atomic Agent: Interview No. 403 [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Atomic Agent; Clker-Free-Vector-Images, Królestwo Nauki, OpenClipart-Vectors, Pete Linforth, Tumisu from Pixabay]