Getting to Know… Halysis | Interview 🎤

For the 83^rd interview on the Musical Hype, we ‘get to know’ up-and-coming Finnish metal collective, Halysis.

Here at The Musical Hype – US based, specifically ‘The Bluegrass State’ – we like to keep it all-inclusive and of course, international.  If you’ve noticed, so many of the interviews in the Getting to Know… series hail from artists around the world – pretty cool.  There is no exception on the 83^rd interview. What makes Halysis, the band that’s subject of our latest interview, distinct? “Our combination of diverse, brutal riffs and memorable melodies.” Hey, works for me – rock on. 

The Finland metal collective is comprised of Samuel Arola (drums/vocals), Santeri Salminen (guitar), Jose Pynnönen (guitar), and Santeri Haikonen (bass).  As do all the artists and bands brave enough to answer our questions, Halysis provides us background and insight into their craft – they tell us what they’re all about! Without wasting anymore time or spoiling things, here is Getting to Know… Halysis: Interview #83.

Getting things started off right, for those who may not be familiar with Halysis, what would you say makes your band distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

Halysis: Our combination of diverse, brutal riffs and memorable melodies. Those two elements play a big role in our sound, both in our fast and slower paced songs.

Rock on! Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did Halysis form and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a band early on?

Halysis: Three of us (Samuel, Jose, Santeri) started playing together in the 6th grade. We started off pretty simple, learning our first cover songs, also starting to take interest in writing our own stuff too. We didn’t have goals or any plans to make an album back then, it was mostly just us having fun together and playing heavy music. However, after a while we started to get more into writing our own songs. I think that was the time when we really began to realize that we could do something with this. We were a three-piece band back then, but we really wanted to have two guitar players, and that’s when our second guitarist, also named Santeri, joined the band. Around that time in 2015 we started to write our songs to our recently released debut album, Cerulean.

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?

Halysis: I guess the core idea of it all hasn’t changed, having a band and making music, but of course, now that we’re older makes it much easier to understand everything that comes with the process of being in a band. There’s a lot of work that goes into making an album, let alone doing it independently from scratch.

In any case, our goals have always been to make great music that people (including us) would enjoy. That hasn’t changed, more like quite the opposite, since now that we’re capable of delivering good music to the world makes it even more exciting!

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

Halysis: This is a tough question, since all of us have little bit of a different background. Musically, and the way we write songs are influenced by many bands like Trivium, Between the Buried And Me, As I Lay Dying and The Faceless to name a few. Each one of us have our own influences from the earlier days, but I have to say that Metallica has probably affected all of us somehow, being one of the most listened to bands out of all in our books. These bands have shaped a lot of our guitar playing and melodies, and if you’re familiar with the bands we just listed, you can probably hear their influences they make in our music too. Also the drum work tends to get a lot of inspiration from these bands.

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. 

Halysis: No tour experience with this group as of yet, neither gigs to be fair. One of the reasons we haven’t performed live yet is that we didn’t have a singer. Fun fact about the album, our drummer (Samuel) actually learned to do both scream and clean vocals just so we could finish the album. Although, Samuel doesn’t want to sacrifice his drumming by doing primary vocals at the same time. However, we are working with a new singer right now, and we’re looking forward to bringing our performance everywhere, after this COVID-19 mess is over. Until then, we’ll keep practicing as much as we can.

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?

Halysis: Tough question again! Probably “Animus” would be one of our favorites to perform. It’s a dark and fast song with gloomy but soothing melodies, and it won’t leave you out in the cold!

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

Halysis: Not really haha, what can we say! We’re just normal guys from Finland making some heavy music. One could say we love playing video games though…. Jose has this weird addiction of completing every game fully (100% platinum with all the achievements) on his PS4! Crazy! Also, if you haven’t checked our latest lyric video for “Animus,” then what are you waiting for? You can find it on our Halysis Official YouTube channel!

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

Halysis: New music is in the works with the new singer, but that’s all we can share with you for now;)

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

Halysis: Thank you very much!

Halysis Socials & Such: 

Photo Credits: Halysis, Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype; Icons made by https://www.flaticon.com/authors/freepik (Freepik)