“That’s a very good question actually,” he admits. “There have been plans to tour Australia before, but they always got cancelled for some reason, maybe economic reasons or something else. We seem to have a lot of fans in Australia so it seems kinda weird to never have been there before, but I’m really glad that it’s actually happening now. So maybe we can come there more often.”
So it’s a case of better late than never, yeah? “Yeah exactly,” he enthuses. “We’re really excited, it’s going to be a great experience for all of us, I’m really looking forward to it. It’s going to be excellent.”
With the aforementioned 20 plus year career and 11 studio albums, the band have a heap of ground to cover for hungry Aussie fans who have never seen the band before. But Yan is very confident that the band will make a very good fist of constructing a set that will satiate those appetites.
“Yeah, it usually depends on the length of the set, but we’re playing a headliner in Australia, so I would say it will be a longer set,” he predicts, “so it’s going to be a ‘best of’ from the whole career of the band. So there’s something for the old fans and something for the new fans, and pretty much something for everybody that likes Amorphis.”
That said, he agrees that it’s very difficult to write a setlist that will please absolutely everyone, including the band members, especially after so long, “it is almost impossible, to be honest,” he laughs. “I mean, there are six guys in the band and we are a democratic unit, and sometime like I said it’s almost impossible. But we have to do it every night.”
“So of course there are lots of songs that somebody would like to hear and somebody would like to play more than others,” he continues, “but usually we can come up with a pretty good setlist that actually covers the old stuff and the new stuff to make a good live show for people.”
In fact, the band is set to break a heap of new ground for themselves across the world during the back half of 2013. Australia won’t be the only country they visit for the very first time on the current tour. It speaks of the burgeoning popularity and influence of the band, even after so long, and Jan cannot wait to see a bunch of places he’s never been to before.
“Yeah of course, it’s maybe the widest tour so far that we’ve done,” he reveals. “We’ve never played in Australia, and also we’ve never played in China, we’ve never played in South Korea and stuff like that. So it’s going to be really exciting. And we’re also doing 12 shows in Russia and The Ukraine, and Belarus as well, so we get to play some new places, and it’s going to be exciting for sure.
“Of course there is the down side as well,” he goes on, “because some of us have families and stuff, so it’s a bit rough on them. But it’s our job, and that’s what we do.”
Ultimately it must be a great feeling to have the band in such high demand across the world after such a long time? “Yeah of course,” he agrees enthusiastically, “it feels very rewarding after all these years and all this work we’ve done, to see that there’s actually people out there who want to see us live and that they buy our albums and stuff. When you start playing as a kid, that’s everybody’s dream.”
“I have no complaints, let’s put it that way.”
Amorphis come to Australia in early to mid October, and the tour pulls into Billboard in Melbourne on October 14 . Lending strong support is Melbourne band The Eternal, who themselves have been around for a decade and have just released a superb new album When the Circle of Light Begins to Fade, so make sure you arrive early to catch them as well.
BY ROD WHITFIELD
