* Introduce us to the band! What are your names and what do you do in the band?
HI, I’m Matti Pulkkinen, founder and keyboardist of Ultimatium. Other current members are guitarist Harri Niskanen, vocalists Tomi Viiltola and drummer / vocalist Matti Auerkallio. And on our latest album ‘Virtuality’, we had guest vocalists Jukka Nummi, Emily Leone and Peter James Goodman. And Petteri Gullsten in bass.
- Where do you call home?
In Finland. We’re currently all in southern Finland, mostly in the Pirkanmaa area, but over the years we’ve called Suomussalmi, Kajaani and Oulu our homes as well.
- How long have you been together as a band and how did you find each other?
Ultimatium itself has been around since fall 2001. Harri Niskanen joined in 2003 and that time it started to be a band really, with Tuomo Juntunen on bass and JT Partanen doing the vocals. Tomi Viiltola joined the group in 2005 and Matti Auerkallio in 2015. Harri is my childhood friend, so he was obvious choice for guitars, Tomi Viiltola I met when I joined Santhyr from Raahe and Matti Auerkallio was discovered from the internets to perform drums on ‘Vis Vires Infinitus’ and later on joined the group as regular member.
- Do you have a special songwriting recipe you follow?
No, not really, usually it’s just me with keyboards and then a lot of midi-composing using computer and virtual instruments.
- How would members of your family describe your music to someone that hasn’t heard it?
They’d probably say “That’s some fast heavy metal with high pitched vocals, like that famous Finnish powermetal band, what was it name, Matti had their sweatpants for years and he wore them to shreds”
- What do you have on your(Spotify) playlists you would be embarrassed for others to see?
If I’d use spotify, which I don’t and ever will, there would be a lot of Eläkeläiset and maybe some 90’s techno 😀
- Do you have any pre-show rituals?
WE don’t do live shows anymore, we quit on those after ‘Vis Vires Infinitus’ and decided to go full on with epic albums
- Who have you met that has left you starstruck?
Jens Johansson, in backstage of a show
- What do you consider your greatest achievement as far as a band?
Our latest album ‘Virtuality’, it’s +65min progpower opera, with give lead vocalists, so that was massive project for us
* What key elements do you believe makes up a successful song?
I think it should be catchy, well performed and unique, preferably make up something completely new. Or at least try to
*When writing, how do you know when it is finally done?
When I’ve done the outro 😀 Songs have a certain structure in my head always and it seems to be really hard to break it.
* What song of yours are you most proud of?
Mindcaptives, 4th track of ‘Virtuality’, that’s 11min 30sec song I hoped some day to write and now it’s done. So maybe towards longer ones then? 😉
* What can BleachBANGS do to help you in any way?
I hope we’ll get some visibility.
* How can everyone keep up with everything you have going on? Where can they get albums/merch?
Best way to keep up is our homepage and our facebook pages, so www.ulti.fi and www.facebook.com/ultimatiummetal and there’s a lot of videos in www.youtube.com/ultimatiummeta
Formed in 2001, by Matti Pulkkinen in Suomussalmi, Finland
- Harri Niskanen joins Ultimatium in 2003
- Tomi Viiltola joins Ultimatium in 2005
- Matti Auerkallio joins the band in 2015
- 4 demos, appeared on 2 singles and has made four full length albums:
- New Dawn (2004)
- Hwainoo (2008)
- Vis Vires Infinitus (2015)
- Virtuality (2020)
- To be revealed (202x)
- Musical style evolved from melodic powermetal to progpower nowadays
- Often compared more to American counterparts than European ones
- On Virtuality, Ultimatium infused more infuences of opera metal into their album, main inspiration being the works of Arjen Anthony Lucassen and Devin Townsend project(s), meaning cast of excellent lead singers we’re performing a theme album
- Likes to do things by themselves and usually keeps a fair gap between albums for the sake of not crowding the scene
- Ultimatium is semi-independent band: We record, mix and master albums ourselves and then license them forwards
- We also are purely studio band currently, we don’t indent to do live, since our current productional size and potential venue sizes would not go together nicely 🙂
- For more indepth and unecessary long history, please see History-page
