Markus Eurén, also known as Lord Eurén, was born in Helsinki on April 19th, 1978. A big fan of Ronnie James Dio, Kiss and Dismember, the first band he played in was Gorewinter, together with Marko, where he played the guitar. Although he obviously knew how to play keyboards, he became officially a keyboardist when he joined Moonsorrow, which happened in their second concert (2000·4·13; on the first one they had had a guy called Kharadrai). He started studies of engineering but didn't finish them; he currently works operating a paving machine. In his spare time he likes to listen to music and to play chess.
Of the official members, he's possibly the one who participated the less in the band, as he not only didn't appear in Suden uni (Moonsorrow was a trio back then) but also in Voimasta ja kunniasta, the band being already the same quintet it is nowadays. He also didn't appear as a member of Lakupaavi; all he did in Raah raah blääh was to write and perform the outro. However, he recorded keyboards in the rest of albums and always performed with them on stage.
Video statement uploaded on April 12th, 2008 featuring Ville Sorvali of Moonsorrow and Hari Joensen of Týr
Statement appeared in Moonsorrow's official website (www.moonsorrow.com) on April 13th, 2008
Recently there have been claims about Moonsorrow being a fascistic orientated nazi band. We would hereby like to declare that Moonsorrow is not affiliated or fascinated with the nazi-movement in any way. They are not political, they do not have connections to any political parties or societies, not in Finland nor elsewhere in the world.
As Ville Sorvali, the lead singer and lyric writer of the band says: "We, Moonsorrow, have come across news that Antifa wishes to prevent our concert in Berlin on April 17th. We hereby announce that we are not a Nazi band, nor we have any political connections whatsoever. We are strictly against fascism and all restrictions against freedom of speech. We wish that Antifa would withdraw any actions they have taken against the concert and let it proceed normally."
Some have said that Moonsorrow have an SS-rune in their logo. The logo has been handdrawn many many years ago and it has not been renewed since. The S in the logo is not intended to look like an SS-rune, it has been drawn in an angular manner to suit the logos other letters. We apologise if drawing one letter in such a way makes the logo look national socialistic - it is and has not been our or Moonsorrow's itention to sympathise with the Nazis by drawing the S in such a way. Changing the letters' appearance would make the whole logo look inconsistent and incomplete - hence we have not even considered changing it nor do we intend to, it has never occurred to us or to the members of Moonsorrow that there could be such a problem as this with the logo.
Some have said that the lyrics to the bands song "Blood of an apostate" are close to an old nazi song which is against jews. We have to say first that the members of Moonsorrow have not to this date heard of such a song, they are not familiar with any national socialistic songs or with German lore. Secondly we have to say that the lyrics come from a wholly different, easily recognisable FINNISH source. The lyrics to the bands song "Blood of an apostate" come from an old Finnish legend - the murder of the Bishop Henrik committed by the peasant Lalli. Moonsorrow have made several lyrics based on this tale. This legend is told in Finland already in pre-schools, it is a very common Finnish folk tale. You can find more information about this legend from this address: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalli.
There have been claims that Moonsorrow's music is somehow sympathetic to the Nazis. Moonsorrow's metal is certainly epic, but it has nothing to do with politics. It is purely epic metal made in Finland that tells of ancient Finnish tales - not about tales sympathised by the Nazis now or earlier.
With best regards,
-All members of Moonsorrow and the Artist & Relations team of Spinefarm Records, a Universal Music Company
The affected bands initially tried to ignore it, but then the media started to make it big, and some days later they realized they had to do something to defend themselves, so on April 12th a video was uploaded to Youtube showing Ville and Hari Joensen, of Týr, saying they had nothing to do with that ideology they were accused to belong to, and that runes had existed for hundreds of years. Also, Moonsorrow posted a statement on their website saying basically the same thing, and also explaining that the lyrics of “Luopion veri” come from an ancient Finnish legend that’s told to small children and the S has that shape to match the rest of the letters of the logo, and they did not intend to change it. (Both the video and text statements can be seen HERE.) Some people in the forum said they were following their game and the best
Kivenkantaja UK
to do was to ignore those accusations; Marko answered: “It's not that simple to just ingore them. Since they obviously have power to cancel the shows in Germany (Impaled Nazarene's tour in 2006, they cancelled about 7 or 8 shows in Germany!), we really cannot risk anything in Germany (a country where our main markets are business-wise) nor anywhere else. Of course we in the band think also that this whole thing is ridiculous and we don't want to think about it too much”. Henri spoke in a more general sense: “Trust me, it´s not business of money which keeps us defending ourselves here, as I got that impression of Marko´s text. Simple as it is- we just want no-one to harass our band- activities on absolutely non-factual accusations. Even though we have different political views within our band, we have never been taking any stance into any direction whatsoever as a collective group”. I don’t know if they had more similar problems besides the BIFFF accusations, but I think in the end they didn’t have to cancel anything. Some months later, Mitja told his thoughts: “That false propaganda was all over the press in Germany. And just one guy behind it all. […] The scale of it was surprising. Some words can mean so different things in different countries. If you use the word “national romanticism” in Finland, everybody links it to the arts and to a specific era when Finnish artists started to seek the aesthetic values of Finnish nature, language, etc. as a source to their art. If you say the same words to a German, he will most definitely link it to Hitler and far-right nationalism!”.
In September, the then recently created British subsidiary of Spinefarm, simply called Spinefarm UK, re-released Kivenkantaja, on 22nd to be precise. Besides the original album,
Mexico posters
this edition has a slightly different cover, the picture being the same but adding the logo on top, a bit distorted (that’s what the label happily called “extended artwork”); a booklet with more pages, including some photos, a few words by Ville and a couple of articles by the owner of the label; and finally, the most juicy feature is a bonus CD called Thunder in London with three songs recorded live in the label’s presentation concert in London the 8th of April of the same year, where they shared stage with Kiuas and Children Of Bodom. One of the articles of that label guy says the rest of the concert will be released at some point in the future, but Marko was clear on that: “No it won't. There were too many tech problems during the first half of that gig so only 3 last songs were good enough quality for the release”. Later, the rest of the albums were re-released too, one by one, without any extras.
The rest of the year they basically toured. In autumn they went to North America again, visiting Mexico for the first time. When I read they were going to León, my
Fireee! Montréal (left) - Helsinki (right)
heart turned over, until I saw it was the Mexican León. On November 21st, in Montreal, they played with fire-eaters (or whatever they’re called) on stage during the first and last song. As they hadn’t rehearsed (“what could happen anyway, it's just fire you know”, said an ironical Ville), the girls danced for longer than the band expected, so they ended up playing an instrumental version. On December 31st they finished the year with a gig in the club Nosturi, in their hometown Helsinki, sharing stage with Korpiklaani and Kiuas and including, for the first time, pyrotechnical machines. There are very nice photographies of both concerts in www.shutterblast.net.
To be continued... some day!
Sankaritarina (live in London 2008 - official recording)
