Remote Control by Arched Fire – song by song.

‘Hindsight 20/20’ is an introduction. It’s twenty-two seconds of traveling through time, trying to find the right frequency… which we did, and Arched Fire was reborn in the late 2019. The fragments you hear through the static are echoes from the past, from our early songs like “The Pestilence” and “Fear of Death”, and the world-famous ‘hevispiidi’ quote, of course, by the courtesy of Yle.

And now, we’re back on track.

Mika Rytilahti:

“There’s a story behind ‘Back on Track’. The original version was a hardcore punk song with Finnish lyrics. The song was called ‘Radalle’.

It all started a long time ago, when my friends started to talk a lot about this guy they knew, Kristian Herkman. It was always like; ‘We went to see Kristian’s band Violencer play’ and ‘Kristian did this and Kristian said that’ – I kept hearing stories about him, but no-one ever asked me to come along to see his gig or to party with him. It seemed to me like he was a lot of fun to be around and held some legendary parties… I thought that I’d like to get to know this mythical Kristian figure everyone was talking about. This went on for five or six years, and I never met the man.

In 2007 I was in a death metal band called Death Experience. I told a friend of mine that we were looking for a guitar player. Some time later he called me and said his friend Kristian – him again! – would like to join our band. He gave me Kristian’s phone number, and I called him right away. We chatted over the phone, and he seemed like a really nice guy. It turned out we were practically neighbors, and yet we had never met! I went over to meet him, and the journey began.

‘Back on Track’ happened when Death Experience wasn’t doing much. Kristian and I wanted to have fun and make music, and we started to arrange Friday Night Jam Sessions, which meant we got together to drink beer and write songs, hardcore punk and other stuff. This is how it worked: On a given Friday, I’d call Kristian and say, ‘I have a couple of ideas, let’s put them on tape’. If he gave me the green light, I went to his place, and then we’d program the drum track and then record some guitar, bass and vocals.

When we recorded ‘Radalle’, Kristian did the drums and played the guitar tracks. Meanwhile, I wrote the lyrics. We were drinking that night, and when it was time to record the bass parts, I was so out of it I couldn’t play anymore. So Kristian had to play the bass as well. Then I growled the vocals, still drunk, and the song was ready.

Years later, when we started working on the Arched Fire album, Kristian re-arranged the base tracks and wrote new lyrics in English. ‘Radalle’ was slower and less metallic than ‘Back on Track’.

Kristian Herkman: “’Back on Track’ is about the power that substance abuse and addiction have over people, about a compulsory need to go out and get wasted again, even when you realize that it’s going to kill you, eventually. There’s hope, though: the protagonist is about to make a turn to the right direction.”

BACK ON TRACK

Darkness of polar night descends
In despair you cut yourself
No sun and no light
Just your mind cloudy again

Back on track
Back on track
Back on track
Straight to the core

Drinks, drugs and tobacco
Are you looking for some company?
That is all that is on
Are you feeling lucky?

Back on track
Back on track
Back on track
Get to right locations

The scent of heat floats in the air
And I am included
Large bonfires rumble tonight
I swish along with my thoughts bright I’m

Back on track
Back on track
Back on track
On the train

Feeling beaten at morning after
Did you miss the night bus?
It makes no difference after all
There is always a choice to go

Back on track
Back on track
Back on track
On the train

Straight to the core
After for more
Inner combat
Back on track