Jari Maenpaa - His Stupid Fucking Face and the Crybaby Bullshit that Comes Out of It

WHERE ARE ALL OF THE ASSHOLES WHO ARE NOT EATING MY MOUSSAKA

I apologize in advance for writing what is basically a MetalSucks article, but I just can't keep doing this shit.  I can't keep seeing and hearing Jari Maenpaa make shitty excuses for his shitty music while all his good little minions lap it up like ignorant gobshites.  My frustration boiled over today after he posted an announcement on Facebook (you can read it here if you'd like).  Ostensibly, it's just an update for fans.  But when you think about it even medium-hard, it really just exposes him for the narcissistic fraud he really is.  I've gotta rip him apart somehow, and I've already reviewed everything he's touched, so I'm just gonna lash the fuck out and not give the minutest shit how unprofessional it is.  Nobody makes my blood boil like this guy.  So here, an open letter will have to sate my bloodlust for the moment.


Darling Fascist Bully Boy,

Basically, what this statement does is show us where your priorities truly lie.  You want to be a rockstar.  That's the long and short of it.  You seem to believe that your genius is worth more money than Nuclear Blast is willing to give you and is so precious that you doesn't even want them to get a cut of the potential crowd funding pie.  Which, in your defense, you do say that Nuclear Blast straight up forbade you from going the Kickstarter route, but at the same time I really don't blame them.  They've done everything they're supposed to do as a record label, the onus to create lies solely on you at this point.

To start the whole rant off, you complain about your living situation and how that affects your ability to practice and record.  You live in a rinky dink apartment with neighbors, so you can't practice or record vocals or anything of the sort in your apartment.  As such, to avoid bothering them, you work at odd times and yadda yadda.  That's all well and good, but you know what?  Fucking zero other metal bands can record in their apartments.  You think that when it's time for a new Dying Fetus album, they all just get together at John's place, drop trou, and start ripping out some death metal loud enough to piss off everybody in earshot?  What the fuck makes you so goddamn special?  Get in the fucking studio like every other band worth a damn in the history of the universe.  I understand that you want full creative freedom and you feel constricted in a studio, plus I can assume you've had some bad experiences with them.  I understand, every artist should have full control of their work, but the way the cards are falling now, you're in absolutely no position to be making demands.  You work slower than a three legged tortoise, you don't have the ground to start demanding more money for studio time from your label.

I've got to give you credit for something though, this is probably the first time I've ever felt sorry for a major record label.  Nuclear Blast is huge and can absolutely survive without you, but as it stands, you owe them money.  You are in debt to them and I don't feel the tiniest drop of sympathy for you.  You say that in order to craft Time II as you intend, you require more time and money to accomplish it all.  The thing is, you knew the score, they gave you your advance with the full expectation of recuperating that cost with album sales.  The label is refusing to give you more money because they already loaned it to you.  They gave you the money to make an album that you never made, now they're out however much until you get off your ass and fucking make that album.  They're not holding your art hostage here, you are.  Remember when you announced that Time II would come out in early 2014?  Yeah, I laughed about that too, because I knew that was bullshit.  And here, rolling into August, I'm smug as a peach because I was 100% goddamn right.  I kept my mouth shut until May, which is around the time I started reminding everybody "Hey, remember that Wintersun album we were supposed to be enjoying right now?"  Do you know how ridiculous this is?  It's already August in Finland and you haven't even fucking started this new album.  I am utterly floored that your fans put up with this much shit from you.  I don't even fucking LIKE Wintersun and I'm appalled!

The thing is, you can't go crying about the business being against you right now.  Since day one, since the instant you left the starbound Ensiferum to work on your pet project here, the one your heart was truly in line with, you've been consistently failing at doing your goddamned job.  If you turned in your completed work, and Nuclear Blast had said "No, this isn't want we were looking for.  We wanted an album that sounded more like [this]", then I'd be right behind you here.  As much as your unfailing inability to recognize and write to your strengths drives me up the wall, I am 100% in favor of artistic freedom and you should be able to make this album sound however you want it to sound.  But the issue here is that Nuclear Blast hasn't done that.  They've refused to loan you more money and shot down the idea of a Kickstarter campaign because you're the cause of a gushing hemorrhage.  They've put money down on you, and you've given them jack shit in return.  You absolutely can not sit here and cry about the business being unfair when you've proven yourself completely incapable of fulfilling your end of said business agreement.

I'm also not buying your crocodile tears about how you have five albums worth of material written that's just sitting unused because the big bad label is causing issues with Time II.  Ignoring the fact that the only person causing issues here is you, I don't believe for one second that you have five fillerless albums penned.  No you fucking don't.  The first batch of songs for Wintersun's debut were written in 1996, and the album didn't come to fruition until 2004.  I understand you were working with Ensiferum at the time, but Ensiferum has always been Toivenen's band, not yours (as evidenced by the fact that the music sounds pretty much exactly the same regardless of your involvement), and it really just shows that you've always taken eons to write anything.  Five albums have been written since 2006, when you claimed to have written Time?  Yeah okay, I believe that about as much as I believe in the legend of the toilet fairies.  And you claim no filler?  Well okay, no artist is ever gonna say they've got filler songs, so I can't knock you too hard for that, but man you've always been prone to shitty filler songs.  You're good at one style and bad at everything else, Wintersun has a whopping three good songs ("Beyond the Dark Sun", "Winter Madness", and "Sons of Winter and Stars"), and your work with Ensiferum was pretty much half and half.  Hell, the only Ensiferum  album that ever managed to have no filler was the first one they made without you.  You haven't written shit, that's a bold faced lie and I actually feel fucking insulted that you'd even try to pass that one by me.

The bottom line of all this is that you need a studio.  The thing is, fucking book some god damned time at one and finish your shit.  You don't get to own a studio simply because you want it, and no amount of caterwauling is going to change that.  You don't get to complain about the label making money off what you do because, ya know, that's precisely what a fucking label does.  It's almost like you expect to live entirely off your music despite the fact that no metal bands can do that unless you're famous on a level akin to Metallica or Iron Maiden.

Oh wait, there's a post script, I wonder what it says...

"p.s. Should have stayed working in the post office!"

Wait...

You mean...

You're actually not working?

WELL NO FUCKING SHIT YOU'RE BROKE YOU DUMB, EGOTISTICAL BASTARD.  What kind of maniac quits his job before knowing whether or not it's totally feasible?  I'm blown away, struggling to comprehend the thought process here.  Okay, so you quit your job at some point to work on the band, sure.  But surely you didn't just recently quit, surely at some point over the last ten fucking years you've noticed that you're not going to be able to afford the studio time and everything else necessary to complete an album since you don't have steady income.  At no point did it dawn on you that you should probably get a fucking job?  How old are you?  Even I have a job and I'm a fucking idiot.  No wonder you can't afford anything and need to beg the label for more handouts to finish an album you haven't gotten close to finishing after god knows how many years and dollars have been sunk into it.  Ross Dolan and Bob Vigna of Immolation work construction jobs and just take time off when it's tour time, and they're one of the most consistently respected death metal bands still active today.  Hell, Eric Adams (I remind you, the singer for fucking MANOWAR) works a day job.  You do not get to act like you are above Manowar.  You do not get to pretend that you or your band is or has ever been more popular or important than Manowar.  That's just fucking astounding, you want to be a rockstar, seemingly blissfully unware that you simply will not ever be one in the genre you're in.  

There are hundreds, thousands even, just a metric crapload of bands who have less money and prestige than you do that still manage to book studio time and churn out several albums in a decade's time.  This perfectionism of yours is completely killing your band, you're turning this whole charade into a metal version of Chinese Democracy.  I'm not telling you to settle for less, I understand that you want your artistic vision to reach its full potential, and as much as your art disgusts me, I support the notion.  The problem is that you're completely unwilling to work things out for your fans.  Instead you continually drag out this woe-is-me bullshit for years at a time, passing deadlines with no updates and constantly throwing out empty promises.  

And the saddest part is that, come 2020, when Time II is finally released, it'll surely just be another half hearted turd you squeezed out for all your adoring fans to gather around and lick rapturously.

In short, you kind of annoy me.


May the seed of your loin be fruitful in the belly of your woman,
~BH