The Making of: “Hannutopia — The Musical World of Hannu Honkonen”
Gothic Storm’s latest release sees prolific trailer composer Hannu Honkonen embark on creating a passionate masterpiece that has been years (decades!) in the making. Live strings and vocals paint breathtaking utopian-dystopian fantasy vistas. A pure artistic expression of Hannu’s true musical loves. We spoke to Hannu about inspirations, delving into his musical past and what is was like creating this very personal album.
Given you had free rein to compose in any style/mood for this album, did you have a solid idea of track concepts before composing or did it all come naturally at the time?
Actually I had a long journey with many of these tracks — reaching all the way back to early 2000’s. That’s basically the concept of the album. A journey through time and 20 years of my musical career.
Since the album varies in style and emotion, is there an emotion you feel most comfortable writing with?
I love to compose music that has emotion and dynamic movement. I’m a huge fan of Analog synth sounds as well as hard hitting guitar driven music.
How does your composing process begin? Do you imagine particular cinematic moments or is it more about melody and instrumentation at the beginning?
For me it’s melody, usually haha, but the inspiration is the driving force. It really goes on its natural course from there. I really don’t know what’s behind the show but I tend to think I’m dealing with some kind of mystical invisible force — Music. I need to open my mind and be good buddies with it, get a grip of it and from there on it’s almost an automatic process that feeds itself, I’m just a tool for it. It’s a really enjoyable ride. A way of living really. When the process starts, I like to visualise it and sometimes even use existing films / trailers to give an extra boost.
Do you take inspiration from current trailer trends? Or is it more about originality?
For me it has always been about the music that speaks to me. If I hear something cool in a new blockbuster trailer or any artist or band really, it’ll give me a glimpse of inspiration immediately. I want to draw the inspiration from all sides of music… from classical to heavy metal, from EDM to film scores. If I think about it, I don’t even know my favourite genre! I feel that the originality cannot be forced too much. I either have it or not. It’s up to me — how much I value my own work. What I think is that if I put all my heart and soul into the music — the originality is there too... I hope.
Your track “We Can Stop Crying” is a first for Gothic Storm, a rock epic complete with lyrics. What is this track about?
This track is a very special to me, and to my good buddy Mikko Lempinen who is the singer and co-producer of this song. I wanted to include this song in this album, as it’s quite literally a journey through time and space (pun intended). The birth of this song was way back in 2002, When I was just turned 20 and dreamed about being a rock star as well as a film composer. Oh boy. Yes, 20 years in the making. We have matured and the music has matured, our hair has matured — just look at the album artwork! It was really time to finish up this song, give it a final polish and finally let it out to find its home in Hannutopia. Just give it a second chance — At a first sight it’s quite a puzzle — but give it a second look it’s a quite simple to solve. If you are tuned into the same wave length it should be a beautiful mess.
We Can Stop Crying takes you into the weird human mind and tells a story of the importance of friends to keep us sane.
Is there a track you’re particularly pleased with and why is that?
For me it must be “Through Time and Space”. I’m just so pleased I decided to include this baby that I kept to myself for 17 years, It now has a meaning and purpose and serves as a pathway between the different musical worlds.… A reveal of a little secret here: It’s a track that really pushed me into the other side. I should call it the source of my inspiration. The emotion and essence of Hannu. I really hope people will find their own journey from this album — That’s what it has been for me as a composer.
Hannutopia is available now for industry use with a full public release coming soon.
