Originally from Helsinki, Whisper is a death metal band that stands out not only for its love of brutal music but also for its originality. Formed from the ashes of the grindcore band Genocide Sentence, Whisper has carved out its own identity by incorporating diverse musical influences and unique live elements, such as the use of synthesizers and keytars. We spoke with Stuba (Vocals of Whisper) about the band’s formation, their inspirations, and what makes them distinctive in the death metal scene.
Serial Metalbums: Tell us about Whisper and how this band was formed ?
Stuba: We’re a death metal band from Helsinki, Finland. Perppa, Luxi and our previous rhythm guitarist, Mio played in a grindcore 3-piece called Genocide Sentence. After some time they decided to dissolve the band and Luxi and Mio started talking about starting a death metal band. They mentioned this to me and I was like “Death metal? I love death metal! I want in!” and not long after, the band was formed.
Serial Metalbums: What drew you to this Death Metal genre? And who are your biggest musical inspirations?
Stuba: I’d been listening to extreme metal for quite a long while and as some of my friends started their own bands, I got introduced to the local scene here, which deepened my appreciation for death metal in particular and increased the drive to start a death metal band of my own. Currently, our biggest inspirations are Intestine Baalism, Demigod, Blood Incantation, Edge of Sanity and Morbid Angel.
Serial Metalbums: How would you define your sound compared to other Death Metal bands?
Stuba: All of us listen to a wide plethora of music, all the way from jazz fusion and gangsta rap to prog rock, pop and ambient, which I think has helped us differentiate ourselves from the “traditional” DM sound. Another thing that sets us apart is the use of synths and keytars live. A lot of OSDM bands have absolutely incredible synth parts, but they hardly ever play them live, even through playback. In metal as a whole, it’s hard to come up with even a couple names who’ve had keytars as a part of their live performances; the only examples I could even come up with are Jordan Ruddess (of Dream Theater) and Janne Wirman (in the early days of Children of Bodom) whipping it out every once in a while.
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Serial Metalbums: Can you walk us through the creative process behind Xenogenesis? How did the songs come together? Which themes in the EP are particularly important to you?
Stuba: Some of the songs, particularly Phantasmagoria and Immortal Eyes were unreleased and unfinished compositions of mine from previous projects, but we ended up axing a lot of the riffs from those and redoing them to form a much better result. As for Xenogenesis, I was noodling around with an acoustic guitar and came up with the intro and hook of the song, took it to practice and we came up with the rest of the song in a couple jam sessions, just in time for our first gig last October. As for themes, I reckon the whole EP is intrinsically personally important to me as Immortal Eyes was the first song I ever wrote lyrics for, and handles Mesopotamian mythology, which I personally find very intriguing. I came up with the idea and lyrics of Phantasmagoria while I was fighting COVID and hallucinating thanks to a sky-high fever. Extraterrestrial Seeds… came about accidentally on the synth recording day of the EP and Xenogenesis marked the first truly “original” Whisper song (as in not an unfinished song from a previous project.)
Serial Metalbums: How was the recording process? Did you encounter any particular challenges?
Stuba: For most of us, the recording of Xenogenesis was the first time recording anything for real, so some of the parts had to be rerecorded completely, and our rhythm guitarist at the time hadn’t confirmed or learned how the some of the riffs are supposed to go, leading to some headaches. But thanks to Juuso and Daniel (of Azatoth and Disguised Malignance), who produced, mixed and mastered the EP, we were able to get a result we’re quite pleased with.
Serial Metalbums: What are your plans for the future? Is a new album in the works? And what are your goals as a band?
Stuba: Right now, we’re preparing to record a promo for our upcoming full-length album, which we’re still in the process of finishing the rest of the songs for. We have a good amount of gigs still left for this year, and we’re finally doing a couple gigs outside of Helsinki (within Finland as we had one gig in Tallinn, Estonia in July). The new album will be even crazier, even faster, even more progressive and even more interesting than anything we’ve done thus far. As for goals as a band: finishing the record and subsequently dominating the galaxy and becoming supreme leaders of the cosmos.
Serial Metalbums: Overall, what's your favorite memory from the recording of Xenogenenis ?
Stuba: At least for me, the recording day of synths and backing vocals was my favorite as after a long day of recording vocal takes and half the synth parts. We went out to eat, and subsequently crashed in Juuso’s apartment when we came back. I think someone even fell asleep as I started playing something that resembled ambient or dungeon synth or something. Juuso took a liking to what I played and asked me to record it. I did, and in the following days, Juuso layered a bunch of synths on top of it: creating the song Extraterrestrial Seeds... , which was not planned at all.