THE DEVIL'S MOUTH Vol. 113: ? Rounds with Ike Vil (Sleep Of Monsters, Babylon Whores)
Singer, writer, cheeky Mephistophelian trickster - Ike is the full deal.
Last June, the Babylon Whores cult debut album ‘Cold Heaven’ turned 25 years old, and unlike many other ageing records, it retains every bit of its skewed, unhinged potency. In fact, every time you listen to this unlikely masterpiece, it seems to get better. A big part of its appeal, and of the Finnish band’s entire career, has been the unmistakable vocal presence and lyrical excellence of their frontman, Ike Vil. Unfortunately the band called it quits a few years after their last album, ‘Death Of The West’, but Ike remains artistically very active - he is the singer for the fantastic Sleep Of Monsters, whose long-awaited third album will finally be released, after a few setbacks, on May 12th via Svart Records - pre-order here! -, and he has just released his debut novel ‘Daimon’, which you can also get via Svart here, though for now it’s only available in Finnish.
So these things were the backdrop to the chat with this brilliant man, but as the Mephistophelian trickster that he is, conversations never sit still for too long in the same place. Especially not when he’s sitting in his own bar/mancave and he’s being fuelled by beer, as it may have been the case. So not only did he cheekily subvert the Ten Rounds rule and got fourteen songs in, but he also sent a “bubbling under” list of other songs that was so awesome we couldn’t help but turn into a full-blown playlist. Here it is, for your enjoyment, including the songs that made it onto the podcast at the end:
See, but it wasn’t just because I’m a fan of the man that all of this happened. Ike treated the choice of songs as a biography, as he explained during the conversation, and each of them had a remarkably well justified reason for being there. And if each song gives us the chance to get a few more stories (like when he used Terveet Kädet’s scatological love song ‘Pissaa Ja Paskaa’ on a song contest at school and obviously got zero points - “why kiss ass when you can be hated?”) and a few more notes of wisdom (for instance, have you ever thought of Dio as the “good king” of heavy metal and Ozzy as a sort of Parsifal-esque holy fool? Well, now you have) out of the man, we’ll happily give him 100 rounds if he wants.
Click the pic above or this link to be transported straight to one of the most unique, thought-provoking episodes we've had on this show. It’s been a trip!
Find Sleep Of Monsters on Bandcamp, Instagram, Facebook and Spotify.
Pre-order ‘III’ here.
Get ‘Daimon’ here.