Finnish Rising Melodic Metal Force HOKKA Release Their Debut Album

Finnish rising Melodic Metal force HOKKA release their highly anticipated full-length album Via Miseria IV today via Nuclear Blast Records. The band brings together three major names from Finland’s rock legacy: former BLIND CHANNEL frontman Joel Hokka, THE RASMUS founding member and former guitarist-songwriter Pauli Rantasalmi, and phenomenal young drummer Jimi Aslak. None of this was planned. Initially, they met simply to share stories, reflections on losing their respective bands of brothers. But neither the warrior nor the sensei has ever been short on ideas. One chord led to another, and the songs came. Joel Hokka talks to Rob Lyon about forming HOKKA and their new album Via Miseria IV.

Congratulations on your debut album. Does it feel like a bit of a relief, or a moment of triumph, that it’s finally done?
It’s only just come out, so everything still feels incredibly exciting. And to be honest, I’m nervous as hell, in about four hours here in Helsinki we’re hosting a pre‑listening session for media and radio, and it’ll be the first time people hear the album properly. Tonight was actually the first moment I got to see real reactions to the record, and yeah, fingers crossed. But so far I’ve heard a lot of good things, so I’m feeling excited.

How do you cope with this kind of limbo phase, where you’re just waiting for it to be released?
I’m just trying to meditate, sleep well, exercise, and stay connected instead of isolating myself. Right now, I’m doing interviews all day for Australia, and it feels like I’m talking to people through a screen, but once I’m actually there, meeting everyone face‑to‑face, it’s a completely different energy. The days are flying by, and suddenly the album is about to drop. After that, hopefully, it’s going to be a wild ride.

Did you feel a lot of pressure with this album, defining what the band’s sound actually is, and making a statement that this is who we are?
For me, it feels like a continuation, not the same thing, but a familiar rhythm. I spent years being extremely active in my previous band, so stepping into a new one almost feels like doing the same job in a different corporation. The difference is that this setup works so much better for me. I finally get to express myself fully and tell my own story. Creatively, it’s much closer to what I want to put into the world, and that makes this a really good place for me right now.

Was it just the right time to do it? Were you thinking about it and then decided, let’s do it?
I think everything happened so naturally. We didn’t force anything, we didn’t actually write any songs. We just had fun, and all of a sudden, all the songs wrote themselves. Then we had the whole album there, plus many more tracks, and everything was super easy and natural. There wasn’t any forcing anywhere. It just happened.

How did you all meet? How did you all come together and find each other?
It really started about a year ago, when I needed therapy after splitting from my previous band. I knew there was one person in Finland who truly understood what it feels like to walk away from your life’s work, Pauli, who left The Rasmus in 2022. He began mentoring me, giving me advice on how to deal with the departure and everything that came with it. During one of those sessions, I brought in some demos and asked for his thoughts. The next time I visited, he already had a guitar in his hands and was working on one of the tracks. He had even written Serpent’s Song. That’s when I realised something was happening, we weren’t just talking anymore, we were starting to write together.

Originally, this was supposed to be my solo project, which is why we operate under my family name. But things escalated quickly: we wrote more songs, filmed music videos, landed a record deal, and eventually brought Jimi into the picture. At that point, it became clear that this wasn’t a solo act anymore, it was a band built around my name. And honestly, bands like Bon Jovi and Van Halen have already proven that this model works.

Is this the best you’ve felt musically, once you found these guys and started jamming songs and it came so naturally?
This feels different now because this band doesn’t write as a full trio. It’s really just Pauli and me — we write everything together. That’s the core. Yimi is in the studio with us, adding his drum magic and shaping the feel, but he’s not a songwriter in the credited sense. So artistically, the vision the world sees is mine and Pauli’s.

Honestly, I prefer that dynamic, the sensei‑and‑warrior energy, far more than being in a five or six‑person band where everyone is fighting to get their voice into the songs. In my previous band, trying to write within a group that big made it almost impossible for me to express myself. This setup works better for me. It’s clearer, more focused, and exactly what I need right now.

Even from those early stages, did you think it would actually lead to creating an album?
At first, we were just having fun, songs kept coming, one after another, and suddenly we realised, okay, if there are this many tracks, it can only mean one thing: we’re making an album. Then, when we signed with Nuclear Blast, it became real. It wasn’t “we have to make an album,” it was “we get to make an album.” We were lucky to be in that position. Once we committed, everything fell into place naturally, the track list, the songs, the whole vision. Nothing felt difficult. It was easy, organic, and genuinely fun.

How important were your own influences or musical heroes in shaping your sound for this album?
One of the key sparks for all of this was seeing Ghost at Nokia Arena during the Skeleta Tour in May 2025. That show hit me hard. I realised they’ve built an entire lore around their music, rooted in ’70s and ’80s rock, horror aesthetics, and that whole church‑era satanic‑panic vibe, yet it still feels cohesive and iconic. If you ask anyone to describe Ghost, they’ll mention Papa Emeritus or the different characters Tobias Forge has embodied. That made me think: we need our own lore too.

I realised I wanted to build a world inspired by the early‑2000s pop culture, rock, and metal I grew up loving. Seeing Ghost live was genuinely life‑changing; it showed me the direction I wanted to take. From there, everything clicked, the red capes, the visuals, the graphics, the whole Hokka universe. That show was a huge inspiration for me.

How was it when you played the album back for the first time, start to end, once it was all finished?
I’d heard a lot of the mixes before the final master was done, but I still remember the moment it all hit me. It was late December, somewhere between Christmas and New Year’s, when we finally received the finished master. I was up in northern Finland, listening on my AirPods, playing the album from start to finish, and I just thought, did we really make this ourselves? I was honestly amazed at how well it turned out.

Then the final graphics arrived, the LPs, the CDs, the whole visual world, and seeing it all while hearing the music made everything click. That’s when I realised we’d created something special. But it still feels like the beginning. Everything is still forming, still settling. I think it’ll truly sink in once people hear it. Maybe even tonight.

Was that pretty tough, getting down to the final track selection for the album? Were there some songs there that were still good enough, but didn’t quite fit the album?
There were a couple of songs we left out because we have other plans for them, they’ll definitely come out at some point, maybe as bonus tracks or standalone singles. But when I look at the track list as it is now Blackbird, In the Darkness, Death By Cupid’s Arrow, Via Messeria, Heart Said No, Bon Appetit, it just feels complete. To me, it’s the perfect shape for this album. There are leftovers, but that’s a good thing.

Are there any sort of particular songs that mean more to you than some others?
For me, Death by Cupid’s Arrow is the most personal track. I actually wrote it back in 2024, and it was originally meant to be a Blind Channel song, it already existed in that form. But because I wrote the chorus myself, I took it with me when I left the band, and I realised how personal it really was. When Pauli and I rebuilt it together, the verses, the riffs, the whole final shape, I felt like it became one of the best songs I’ve ever written.

At the same time, In the Darkness is special because it was the beginning of this entire journey. Heart Said No is special. Angels Fall is special. Murder Ballad is one of the coolest tracks I’ve ever made because it’s so different from anything I’ve done before. Honestly, the whole album, Blackbird feels incredible to me. It’s the most powerful thing I’ve ever created, and I’m so proud of the entire team who helped bring it to life.

Are you looking forward to getting on the road and start touring this album over the next few months?
Right now it’s not really a full tour, it’s more about playing weekend festivals around Finland. We’ve got a different festival almost every weekend, and then our final show of the summer will be in Switzerland in mid‑August. We’re playing Rock the Lakes with In Flames and Arch Enemy, which feels like the perfect way to close the season. We’ve already had the chance to perform on some big stages here in Finland, and hopefully later this year or next year we’ll get to play more shows outside Finland too. Fingers crossed.

Any plans to come down to Australia and tour, maybe in the summer next year?
2027, there’s definitely a plan for that, but we’ll see how things develop and how fast everything escalates. If we stay active, keep playing the songs, and keep spreading the word, it’ll happen quickly.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Via Miseria IV is out now via Nuclear Blast…