Shadow Tribe Unveiled!

Shadow Tribe

Shadow Tribe Unveiled!

Shadow Tribe was initiated when Altaria/Stargazery bass player Marko Pukkila joined forces with ex-Celesty/Spiritus Mortis/Masquerage front man Kimmo Perämäki.  The group, whose lineup is rounded out by Simo Pirttimaa on guitars and Petri Heinonen (King Satan) on drums, signed a worldwide record deal with Pride & Joy Music and released their debut album “Reality Unveiled” as the tumultuous year of 2020 was spinning to its conclusion.  Presenting melodic metal at its finest and most inspired, it won’t be long until this Finland based collective becomes well known above and beyond the Scandinavian region!

Highwire Daze recently interview bassist Marko Pukkila to discuss the making of Reality Unveiled, his participation within the ranks of Altaria and Stargazery, working with Frankie Banali of Quiet Riot, and a whole lot more!  Read on…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Shadow Tribe, and how long the band has been together.
My name is Marko Pukkila and I am a bass player. I have been around the European rock scene for over two decades and played on almost 40 different records. Shadow Tribe is a band I formed a couple of years ago. I had written an album worth of material but didn’t have any active bands at the moment so I formed Shadow Tribe.

Where are you based out of and what is your local music scene like there?
I live in Finland. The local music scene here is really strong. We have a long history here with great bands. We have a lot of new and old bands coming up.

How did you wind up signing with Pride & Joy Music?
The owner of Pride & Joy Music (Birgitt Schwanke) was the manager of my band Altaria when we started around 20 years ago. She also helped us to get our record deal with Metal Heaven in 2003. I have kept contact with her ever since. And when the Shadow Tribe album was ready I offered it to her and she liked it and wanted to release the debut album.

Reality Unveiled

Is there any overall story or concept behind the Reality Unveiled album title?
Every song is a different story about how crazy things are in the world at the moment. We have this Covid-19 going on and the global warming etc. So each song is a story about something crazy happening in the world. The end might be near.

Select two songs from Reality Unveiled and what inspired the lyrics.
I am not the right person to answer this question since I haven’t written the lyrics on the album. But lyric-wise my favourites are A World Taken Hostage and Many Tears To Go.

Who did the cover art for Reality Unveiled and how much input did you have on it?
The cover art was made by our singer Kimmo Perämäki. I wanted the lyrics on the album to tell about the situation in the world at the moment so I wanted the cover art also to show a very dark side of the future of our planet.

What has it been like to record and release new music in the middle of a pandemic and so much social unrest in the world?
Of course it has been a really strange thing. First we were not sure if the album will be released because of Covid-19. A lot of record labels decided to postpone their releases to a future time. But our label released albums as normal and our album was released in November. The recording session wasn’t that different since we all have our own home studios where we do all our own recordings. So we didn’t need to meet to record the album. We had the material and the drums recorded already for the album before the Covid-19 started, so we just needed to record the rest of instruments and vocals for the album and released it.

Has Shadow Tribe ever played live or plan to do so after this pandemic comes to an end? Were there any shows cancelled because of the pandemic?
Shadow Tribe has only played a short three song live stream. We did it a couple of weeks ago. We have no shows booked at the moment and no shows were cancelled because of the pandemic. Of course it would have been great to go out and promote the album with live shows but the situation is what it is and just have to cope with it. Hopefully 2021 will be a better year for the artists and bands and we can do tours and play live again.

What was it like working with Frankie Banali of Quiet Riot?
Frankie was a great guy and a really fun guy to work with. He is one of my big heroes so it was an honour for me to get a chance to record with him.

Marko Pukkila of Shadow Tribe

How did you wind in Stargazery on their new album Constellation?
I have been good friends with Pete Ahonen, the leader of Stargazery. We had talked about doing something together but the time was never right for both of us. Always someone of us had something other things going on. Stargazery´s former bass player quit the band when they started to record the “Constellation” album. Pete called me and asked if I was interested to join Stargazery. I thought about the idea for a couple of days and then called Pete and told him that I am in! And shortly after I recorded the bass for the album.

What is currently going on with Altaria? Any new music on the horizon?
We actually did a comeback last year with the most famous Altaria lineup. The 2006 lineup, that we toured Europe together with DORO and Sonata Arctica and played big festivals around Europe. We signed a record deal with Reaper Entertainment and they did a remastered re-release of our 2004 album Divinity. The album was released on CD with bonus tracks and as a limited edition vinyl release. We have been working on a new Altaria album too and we wanted it to come out this year since its the 20th year of Altaria. But unfortunately the pandemic came in the way and we had to postpone the album to a 2021 release.

Are you involved with any other bands or projects not mentioned in this interview so far?
No other active bands at the moment. I have done some cover recordings and I released my first cover album last year titled Marko Pukkila with Legends – “Kiss My Covers”. The album had Vinny Appice, Frankie Banali, Keri Kelli, Phil Lewis, Rowan Robertson just to name a few on it. Now working on the second part to it. Marko Pukkila with Friends “Kiss My Covers II” will include current or former members from bands like Stratovarius, Hanoi Rocks, Tarot, One Desire, Thunderstone etc etc.

What do you hope 2021 brings for you and Shadow Tribe?
Hopefully we can finally do some live shows around Finland and Europe and play some summer festivals too. Also we have talked about starting to write music for our second album. So hopefully next year we will start to work on the follow-up album to our debut album.

Any final words of wisdom?
Words of wisdom? From a bass player? 🙂 Just kidding… well stay safe and I hope 2021 will be a lot better year to all of us!

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions!
It was my pleasure! It was nice to talk to you Ken!

SHADOW TRIBE is:
Kimmo Perämäki – vocals
Simo Pirttimaa – guitars
Marko Pukkila – bass
Petri Heinonen – drums

(Interview by Ken Morton)

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