A Chat with MonDeGos (11.09.26)
With a desire to transform pandemic isolation into a creative revival, Finnish group MonDeGos offers music that is honest, raw, and unafraid to explore challenging reality. We speak with main songwriter and vocalist Tero Kuusi about MonDeGos’ debut album, Trickster, what music means to them, and much more.
OSR: Rather cliché, but how did MonDeGos come about? What drew each of you to music?
Kuusi: It probably took us longer than most bands to actually become a band. Music had been there for all of us since we were young, but life happened in between — work, relationships, different careers, all the usual chaos. At some point the need to make music became too strong to ignore. MonDeGos really grew out of that. We wanted to reconnect with the kind of alternative rock that had originally made us fall in love with music — heavy guitars, strong melodies, darkness, tension and release — but without trying to recreate the past. By that point, we had enough life behind us to have something of our own to say.
OSR: What does music mean to you?
Kuusi: For us, music is above all a form of communication that you simply can’t replace with anything else. We all work in different fields connected with society, ideas and people, so we are used to communicating in many different ways. But I think we all share the feeling that what you can communicate through music cannot really be reached through ordinary language or other forms of expression. At its best, music is almost a direct channel to emotions and to some very fundamental level of how we experience and think about things. You don’t necessarily have to explain it first. You just feel it. There is enormous power in that kind of expression.
OSR: You recently released your debut album, Trickster. What can you tell us about the album? Is there a particular concept or backstory?
Kuusi: Trickster is a collection of songs that came together within a relatively short period, and only gradually did we realise that there was something connecting them. That connects quite closely with the way we think about music itself. Music is something that can be difficult to grasp or explain, and The Trickster became a way of wrapping that whole idea together.
Trickster is a force that crosses boundaries, changes shape and is somehow difficult to fully understand. There is also this connection with the subconscious, and that’s very much something we want to reach with the music. In a way, we hope the album shakes the listener up a little. Almost like a magic trick — it disorients you from the ordinary world for a moment, hopefully in a good way. And maybe that change of perspective can become a creative force in itself and make you think or feel about things slightly differently.
OSR: As your debut album, what does Trickster mean to you? What is its significance, and what do you take from it?
Kuusi: It’s obviously a huge thing for us. We’re incredibly proud that we made this record, and it’s something that we genuinely appreciate ourselves. More importantly, I think Trickster is the first real push towards building the MonDeGos sound in its entirety. The album comes at the music from very different directions. There are heavy elements, atmospheric parts, more straightforward rock moments and much more cinematic material. That versatility is very important to us. We don’t want the band to be defined by one narrow formula. So in that sense, the album feels like the first time we really put the whole musical world of MonDeGos on the table.
OSR: After listening to the album, what do you hope people take from Trickster?
Kuusi: Above all, we hope that it touches people. A lot of the songs come from fairly dark places, but there is an uplifting element inside them as well. There’s a willingness to find some kind of clarity or hope — something that can shift the way you feel about the craziness of the world around us.
We’re also trying to create a particular musical world with MonDeGos, perhaps a kind of cinematic take on rock music. Hopefully people can enter that world, enjoy it in their own way and take something of it with them afterwards.
OSR: Do you feel Trickster is a good representation of MonDeGos at the moment?
Kuusi: Yes, definitely. I think Trickster represents MonDeGos very well as we are now. But at the same time we’re evolving constantly, and we definitely don’t want to stay inside one genre or one particular sound. That’s very important to us.
I can imagine us building even more on the cinematic side in the future, maybe bringing in more symphonic and electronic elements as well. There are already a lot of new ideas and quite a few songs that we’ve written since the album. Some of that material is perhaps even more dramatic and more adventurous. So I think you’ll probably hear even more versatility from us in the future rather than less.
OSR: What makes MonDeGos unique?
Kuusi: I don’t think we actually start from wanting to be unique. That can’t really be the reason for making music. For us it starts with inspiration. Sometimes I have this strange feeling that music is almost being channelled from somewhere. An idea arrives, and you just have to trust it. Maybe the uniqueness comes from trusting that inspiration rather than consciously trying to sound different from everybody else.
There is definitely a Finnish tone in our music as well. It comes partly from the environment — the wilderness, the silence and these enormous open spaces that feel very particular to Finland but somehow universal at the same time. Many of the songs have been written in quite remote conditions, away from cities and everyday routines. I think that remoteness and the atmosphere around it inevitably give the music a certain flavour.
OSR: Which is more challenging for you: writing lyrics or melody?
Kuusi: For us, they tend to come as a package. I personally tend to think about music through melody, so that’s often the first thing. Sometimes the melody or the whole feeling of a song arrives almost like lightning from the sky. There’s this immediate sense that something is there.
But the lyrics are usually involved very early as well. Quite often one word or a short phrase suddenly appears while you’re playing with the melody. Then you start dwelling on those few words, and eventually the whole lyric grows out of them. So there’s a strong storytelling element in MonDeGos. We’re trying to create musical scenery, but the words and the scenery are usually already connected to the original mood of the music from the very beginning.
OSR: If you had to introduce a new listener to your music, which song would you recommend and why?
Kuusi: I think ‘Saints’ captures the dramatic side of MonDeGos particularly well. It also shows some of the wildness in the structures of our songs and our willingness not to make too many compromises just to make the music more conventional. It’s also one of those songs that came through very quickly. The whole idea seemed to build itself from the first musical impulse. Even the words started in a very simple way. The phrase “Dance with me” was there very early, and somehow the whole song began building around those few words. That’s quite typical of the way we write.
OSR: What can we expect from MonDeGos in the future?
Kuusi: I think MonDeGos is only getting going. We definitely want to explore new musical ground and keep developing what the band can sound like. At the same time, we obviously want to get the music out there — online, on records and especially live in front of audiences.
We’re already working on new material. As I said, some of it may be even more dramatic, with more electronic elements and perhaps an even broader cinematic sound. We don’t really know exactly where it will take us yet, and that’s one of the exciting parts. We want the next music to grow naturally rather than deciding beforehand what a MonDeGos song is supposed to sound like.
OSR: Do you have a message for our readers?
Kuusi: MonDeGos is music for people who want to feel something more and who want to explore music a little deeper. If music is not just noise in the background for you, but something that can open other worlds — and if you’re willing to step into the worlds that music creates — then MonDeGos is something for you.
Many thanks to Teri Kuusi for speaking with us. Find out more about MonDeGos on their Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Spotify.
This artist was discovered via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
