“It’s like taking a spring break for us,” he laughs. Despite being around since the mid-‘90s, the 2013 tour will be only the band’s second time to Australia in their entire history, the only previous time being a very memorable jaunt with Sonata Arctica in 2010. Petri doesn’t hold back when letting fans know what to expect from the mighty Ensiferum live show.
“Hopefully a show to remember for the rest of their lives,” he describes. “The only thing is that it’s really like a budget travel, so we cannot bring that many props with us. The stage setup will be quite minimal, but we have a lot of songs to play, so hopefully people will be satisfied with the setlist. We will deliver a kick-arse show every time, with or without the big stage set up!” he promises.
Even though the band released three albums prior to Petri joining in 2004, he tells us that the band are likely to be playing material from all of their five studio albums, this being a headline tour for them, not just the ones he has performed on.
“We usually try to fit in songs from every album when we play our own tour, depending of course on the set times. Since we have an hour and 40 minutes probably, there’s easily time to do it, so I would say that from every single album there’s gonna be some songs, definitely.”
Beyond the Aussie tour, the band are heading to the States for some shows before heading back to Europe for summer festivals. It was a full three years in between 2009’s From Afar and their latest opus Unsung Heroes, which came out late last year. They are determined not to let quite so much time lapse in between album releases this time around, and we may possibly see a new Ensiferum record in the not too distant future.
“Of course we cannot promise anything, but we’re trying not to have another three years in between,” he says. “We’re trying to push ourselves to make it happen a little bit faster. We’re going to hopefully hit the studio quite soon.”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
