More than that - could they find the city in the country with the highest concentration of heavy metal bands? Could it be a contest where cities were ranked on how metal they are? “Then we can say that it’s really the capital of metal and the most bands in the world.” “Let’s list all the bands that we have in Finland,” Mäkynen said. With metal as both an export and a way to attract tourists Mäkynen and some friends had an idea. In Finland, money brought in by festivals like this account for nearly one-third of the music industry’s total sales. It spans three days with 15,000 people attending each day. He’s the head of the company Finnish Metal Events which organizes Helsinki’s Tuska Festival, northern Europe’s largest metal event. That all started with a guy named Eeka Mäkynen. “But the thing is I never, ever expected that our small town Lemi would be in any way connected with this,” Hyyrynen said. Today, the scene’s still going strong - contributing to a national music industry worth over $1 billion. “When we’re not silent, we’re probably shouting and our language is like clack clack clack,” Hyyrynen said. He acknowledges Finn’s have a reputation for having a reserved demeanor, but says that’s not the whole story. Hyyrynen shrugs off cliches about how Finland’s long, dark winters are the source, saying compulsory music education in Finland schools is probably more of an influence.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why technical, extreme music is so prolific in Finland. It’s the same studio that’s produced some of Finland’s most popular and best-selling metal albums. On a recent Wednesday, Hyyrynen and other musicians in Finland’s punk and metal scenes gathered to record an anthem for a local hockey team at Astia Studio in Lappeenranta, Finland. Hyyrynen certainly looks the metalhead part with long blond hair, arms and hands covered in tattoos and a T-shirt of British death metal band Carcass. Stam1na’s past five albums have gone number one in Finland and they’ve won three EMMA Awards, the Finnish equivalent of the Grammy. “But in our culture this starts to be like a boring thing.” Really, like kick people’s asses,” said Antti “Hyrde” Hyyrynen, singer and guitarist of Finnish metal band Stam1na, with a laugh. Metal bands top Finland’s music charts, professors at universities organize heavy metal research conferences and Finnish metal bands have even won the international song competition Euroversion. With the popularity of bands like HIM, Nightwish and Children of Bodom in the late-1990s, Finland cemented its reputation as a metal stronghold. While metal is a genre relegated to the underground in many countries, metal has flourished in Finland and its Nordic neighbors. So, when a national search in Finland to find the heaviest of all heavy metal places brought the town of Lemi - population 3,076 - into the international spotlight, it presented the small town with a unique economic opportunity. The metal scene even got a shout out from President Barack Obama at a 2016 White House state dinner. Finland has more than 50 metal bands for every 100,000 citizens, making it, perhaps, the heaviest of all metal places in the world. But increasingly, it’s gained a reputation as a metal exporter - heavy metal, that is. In Finland, a small rural community is making waves for something else: a heavy metal legacy.įinland’s long been known as the home of the once dominant cell phone company Nokia, steaming hot saunas and a robust welfare state. Some towns are known for their berry festivals.
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