Boys have balls and girls are bitches. Common knowledge. Guys among guys always get along, while females always have something to complain about or then, they can spend three hours talking gossip. With men it’s so much easier, the used patterns we see every day in typical male / female behaviour apply everywhere, even in the crispy biz of Metal. Bands with female vocalists are more likely to end in drama (Nightwish and Tarja) as a combo consisting of only dudes. Riiight...

A few days ago my good friend, let's call him Frank -guitarist his profession- mentioned to me the trouble he experienced in his previous band he had just left a few months ago. Differences in sound development, conflicts between him and the bassist, who’s also the main songwriter, and personal quarrels had been the final straw to something that was bubbling on the inside, barely visible for outsiders. So he got sacked, and left voluntarily, too. Now, that his ex-mates have released their new album and have also found a replacement and it seems a new chapter has begun; grief and envy are still circling in the air like the smell of hot sweat after Tuska Open Air.

I wonder, is this an individual case? Clearly, it’s not! Regularly bands face separations or in the worst case even split up over unsolvable issues. And of course this doesn’t spare Finnish heavymen, even though for a long time I used to believe this kiss-and-tell-thing would only apply to the Spice Girls or Guns’n’Roses. But lately, as seen, shared, discussed, felt, witnessed, disgusted or enjoyed, examples as Stratovarious, Norther, Ensiferum, Swallow the Sun, Finntroll, Medeia, Sentenced, Shamrain, Hateform, Dauntless etc. etc. prove that it doesn’t need some crazy money-sucking bitches to stir up the wheel of harmony.

What creates this chasm between band members, members who have spent so so many years alongside each other, sometimes even up to ten or fifteen years, starting when they were teens, following a somewhat holy dream; and at some point everything just falls apart, and even ends in messy nagging? Isn’t a band like a relationship that needs a lot of gentle handling and compromises, the will for mutual understanding so to say to reach for the same goals? Why would you throw ten years of band history away, three albums, hundreds of gigs and unforgettable memories over one fucking disput over the fucking setlist?

Wasn’t it you guys who are buddies with everyone, and it only takes you a guitar and a beer to make friends? I would really love to scoff at all oh-so-serious guys who always leave the bickering to the chicks; pointing out that you folks always get along. But I don’t. Because I know far too well how it is, as a girl, with all those different opinions to be reconciled. In the end your own wishes, desires and visions simply become too important and guiding to have them be destroyed by someone else. I guess the swing of things didn’t show mercy on these countless replacement acts in Finnish Metal during the last years, but it didn’t only point the finger at us, but also gave us even higher pleasure to discuss the substitutes found... How would the world be without Tomi Joutsen in Amorphis, or Sentenced without Ville Laihiala, Ensiferum with Petri Lindroos, Amoral without Ari Koivunen?! The answer I leave to you guys, but for sure without Ari Koivunen it would be a better one...