Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
There are many musicians who have played in a wide variety of projects over the years, always reinventing themselves as artists according to each band’s vision, and Finnish vocalist Jules Näveri certainly fits into this category. The musician became internationally known in the metal scene for his work with Profane Omen, with whom he released an extensive discography and performed around the world, but he was also the voice of bands like Misery Inc., The Nibiruan, and Empire of the Sun. From death metal to black grunge, Jules’ versatility is always put to the test. Whether as a frontman, lyricist, or composer, the musician always leaves his trademark in songs and especially on stage with his charismatic performance.
Living between Brazil and Finland for the last decade, Jules remains active in the scene, releasing albums and performing with his current bands Spiritraiser and Rootbrain. In September of this year, a commemorative show celebrating the 20th anniversary of the release of Misery Inc.‘s Random End was performed in Helsinki, with the band’s classic lineup. Jules kindly welcomed us backstage before the show to chat a bit about the group’s reunion, the influence of Brazilian music, and current plans with his bands. Check it out!
You’ve lived mostly in Brazil, but you’re usually here, in Finland, during the summers. What instantly reconnects you with your Finnish roots every time you return?
Oh, I think maybe it’s the overall feeling. Whenever I come here, it happens to be somewhere close to the midsummer. So, that is, in my opinion, a magical era in the summer in Finland, because the light is very, very special. You can come at any time in the Vantaa airport, basically during June, and it’s bright. It’s 11 o’clock in the night or 1 o’clock in the morning, and it’s the same.
So, I think it’s the summer light that I connect to, because when I was still living here, I was working a lot only doing night shift. So, you can imagine when you’re working night shift a couple of years straight, and then, of course, you have your off days, but when you go to work, it’s dark. When you get out from work, it’s dark. Maybe it twisted my mind a little bit, so I feel like I am searching for the light. The light connects me when I come here during the midsummer.
Still talking about living abroad. You’ve visited many different countries, traveling the world with bands like Profane Omen and Enemy of the Sun, but love has made Brazil a second home. After more than a decade immersed in Brazilian culture, how do you see its influence on your art as a musician?
I actually necessarily don’t see it, but it’s there. Probably maybe others see it more, but I still have my influences that come from decades ago made albums, so I don’t really know if that resonates much to the Brazilian culture, but there are things that I feel connect to Brazil with music, and maybe it’s the rhythm. It doesn’t necessarily have much to do with vocals, singing or with writing lyrics, but I think maybe because of that influence, nowadays I’m way better at making tempos and rhythm with my vocals. I think I have come to a new level with that.
I think that’s important with arranging music, arranging vocals, and whenever I’m doing just rhythmics to the vocals and all these things, I think maybe I’ve developed in that sense, so maybe Brazil has worked in that somehow, because Brazil is just pure rhythm. You go everywhere, you hear music, you feel the percussions, you hear them, and it’s a way of life in a way, as far as I know, because everywhere you go in Rio, music is everywhere, and the Brazilian music genres, they are endless. I think Brazil has the biggest amount of different music genres coming from the country, so there are some bands that if somebody would make those records in Europe or in North America, they would be exploding into the charts, but they are not famous in Europe or in North America, so, they are really huge in Brazil, of course.
Yes! But when Brazil had the chance to show that with bands like Sepultura or Angra, people saw it and were like “Wow, that’s different!”.
Yeah, and if we talk about the bands of today, for example Crypta, I think that maybe, well… not yet as Sepultura is still making those shows, but they are, in my opinion, basically one of the biggest heavy metal bands coming from Brazil at the moment. It’s really insane that they haven’t played in Finland yet. So somebody really needs to fix that, soon, or else I have to (laughs). But really, they need to come here because, as far as I know, Finnish bands have been a big influence in their music and in the artistic approach of Fernanda Lira (Crypta‘s vocalist). We have to see Crypta in Finland as soon as possible! Somebody needs to fix this.
Today we’re here for a special show. Misery Inc. is celebrating Random End’s 20th anniversary and it’s also a reunion show for the band, since the breakup back in 2008. They say there’s magic when a classic lineup reunites. What has this process of nostalgia and rediscovering those songs from Jules from two decades ago been like?
Well, it was actually quite easy to make the whole album because Janne, our songwriter, he had basically 90% ready songs, also with the lyrics and all these things. So it was pretty easy for us to arrange the vocal melodies because he also had a lot of ideas for that.
So many things that made this band so strong came from Janne and, of course, from Jonttu, the founding members. Also, of course, the combination with the guitar work. Teemu is an amazing guitar player, amazing solo guitarist, and also they worked together with the songs, so it’s a classic album for us. It has been a very important record in many people’s lives here, at least in Finland, but it also gained some international interest when it released, so it was a big surprise for us when it came out.
“Wow! How can people from all over the world know this album?”, and it’s funny, I have a couple of friends from Rio that I have met during the last year, and they come to tell me, “Wow! This album was a kick-ass record!”. How did they find that album? Maybe through Napster or something, or maybe the distributor was actually sending some albums to Brazil and maybe somebody got them. I’m happy they went to homes where people liked them.
But it was a surprise for us because we had a very small label that really didn’t give us enough resources to actually make it somehow bigger, and we tried, but then again, when I left the band in 2007, I was in a situation where I had four bands, and I just couldn’t have the time anymore. I had to drop something, and I felt that I had more input in the other bands.
I would have liked to maybe have a little bit more of an input in Misery Inc., but I could not get it in a way in that time, and it was a super busy time musically in my music career. We were doing a lot of shows with all of those bands, so it was difficult to make everything work. Very difficult decision, but then I just decided, “Okay, I just simply need to drop something in order to keep my life somehow in my hands”, and if I would not have done it, maybe nothing good would have resulted in that, so it was a decision that I had to make back in those days, but it’s been really fun to come together with this bunch of guys.
Everybody is still the same as 18 years ago when we were still doing shows together, and it’s a really great sense of feeling of belonging and doing stuff together. It is completely an effort of this small community that we have in this band, so it’s really important for all of us.
Regarding songs, in most of the bands you’ve been part of, you’re the main lyricist, and many of your lyrics talk about self-discovery, an internal and philosophical search. How important is it for you to give voice to personal thoughts and something you believe in?
I think the simple answer for that is the feeling you know, the feeling you have and the things you know about yourself or about what is happening in your surroundings or what you feel about different things happening in the world and how they affect you, that’s the thing you know.
So I try to write about things that are close to me, because I feel the most comfortable when singing about those things. If I start singing about flying saucers or dragons and knights in the medieval times, I would feel like “Ok, now I’m creating something that I have no fucking clue about”, and I really respect, of course, the artists who do that, but at the same time, it’s never been my thing. I rather seek, look into myself and think, “Ok, what do you want to say?”, and if I have something to say, I write it down. And if I feel like, “Ok, this is worth maybe recording or also doing something surrounding those lyrics”, then I continue that.
Well, the future of Misery Inc. is still uncertain after this celebratory concert, but you currently have two active bands: Spiritraiser, which released its second album in 2022, and Rootbrain, which has already released an album and recently an EP. You also have two cover bands, one in Brazil and one here in Finland. Music remains very present in your life, so what’s the current plans for these projects and future plans?
Well, with Spiritraiser, we spoke with the band in the beginning of the summer, and we’re still searching for the right moment, I guess, because everybody has been really busy doing different things and it’s been basically impossible to get everybody in the same place. So I think that will come when the time is right, because we still want to do things. It’s a special band for all of us.
With Rootbrain, we were supposed to make a little bit more with the songs, the material that we have. We have plenty of material, and it will be the next big project we are going to do together, and we’re really excited about it. We are still searching for when we will gather these songs together and complete everything, because we have so much material. And that’s going to happen. I hope, that’s going to be the next one that’s going to happen.
With the cover bands, next summer we’re going to play more shows with The Top Guns in Finland. We just made a booking agency deal, so we told them that this is the time period that we need to make shows, so I hope that there will be plenty of those, because that’s a really fun thing to do. It’s not just a cover band. It has a thematic with 80s action movies, soundtracks, that I think is the best packing idea, in my opinion. So if you play those songs, you will always have a good time. We are now going to look into the next summer and plan that just for the shows, learn some more songs, make some different sets and hopefully do plenty of shows.
And with The Red Pilots in Brazil, we’re going to do some more shows coming in December and of course throughout the whole next year. So those things are coming up nicely and we have actually started making some new songs, our own songs with The Red Pilots, so I’m really looking forward to compiling those songs, just to complete them and make them ready, because that’s going to be something really cool.
It will be your first time making music with Brazilians, right?
Yeah, sure! Actually composing and making lyrics, and yeah, looking forward to that.
There are other projects coming up, but I cannot tell anything about that.
Thank you for taking the time, sir.
Thank you!
You can listen to Misery Inc.‘s album “Random End” here:
