Tracker Name: AEUK
First Name: Antti
Last Name: Kivilahti
Age: 27
Location: Finland
Years Tracking: about 13 years
Favorite Tracker(s): Impulse Tracker, Modplug Tracker
Favorite Genre(s): Death/thrash/grind
Please explain a little about yourself: Music has always been in a big role in my life. Not only I am literally always listening to some music, but also enjoying as making it too (tracking mainly). As long as I can remember back to childhood, my big bro was already a "metalhead" with relatively large LP collection. So I started getting into metal music around the age of 8 or something. The rest is history :)
Do you play any real instruments? Yes, guitar and bass guitar.
If So, for how long? I have been playing guitar since about 10 years old kid (electric guitar since 18 years old) - though, I have progressed in playing especially guitar more in past 2 years, than in the era from 1992 to 2000. That's just cause I have had much more motivation / inspiration / time for that recently. Bass guitar since 1991, but the bass I got in 1991 (I sold it away in 1995) was so bad one, that I never really enjoyed playing it. Totally opposite thing in comparison to my present bass guitar, which is very enjoyable to play. Overall, I still rate myself as novice player both in guitar and bass.
Please explain how you discovered the metalmod scene: It happened in 1997. I was just once again searching for some metalmods, which wasn't too easy to find from net. My friend found some huge mod-archive site. We started going thru it - I found something, but nothing really amazing - but my friend found something that stroke me like not any metalmods before. It was Corpse's "siberian train" mod. It sounded damn good, very "real-sounding" angry guitars, and also drums had some technical things in them that I think I learned whole lotta more from that one track :) Soon after this, I found Goatwarriors stuff, Metalmod Of The Week site, and so on. And from there it started. I was about a year in a scene like a passive listener, wasn't in contact with anyone, released hardly anything in public, etc. Things have changed quite a bit from that ... ehh ..
What is your opinion on what the metalmod scene has become? It has become mainly 1. much better known 2. more popular and 3. easier to find from the net. And it's not anymore just "some simple metalmods tracked with one palm mute and one open chord guitarsamples" - but instead very realistic tunes, professional production at times - yet it's still free for everyone in most ways, and no money involved with it.
What are your future plans in regards to metal tracking and the metalmod scene in general? Well, not any special plans - at the moment it seems that I shall continue like so far, but I have noticed that there's been some changes which are constantly going on with my mods and my "way". Meaning that I don't flood anymore releases like a nutcase, and I think that my general feeling is more towards quality instead of quantity. And perhaps not plain lo-fi releases in the future ... That's it, I think.