The Finnish Winter Metal Patch Jacket

Those that have been hanging around this blog for a while will probably remember that I traveled to Finland last year for the mighty Tuska Open Air Metal Festival as well as various other misadventures, most of which involved a hell of a lot of alcohol. Finland made a huge impression on me, it felt like my home away from home and although I've lived in the same place my whole entire life I've never really felt at home here in Wisconsin. Be it the lack of metal or the fact that the average person is... well, just average and dull could be a big reason for this.

Therefore, when I returned I wanted to do something special to commemorate my journey to Finland. My first thought was to get a tattoo, but my mind continuously drew blanks on this matter. Eventually I figured I'd put that huge Amorphis back patch I had purchased at the, 'Helsinki Rock Shop' to good use. Although my first thought was on a hoodie I ultimately decided to put it on my old biker jacket, which I had resurrected in 2010.

The whole idea was to create a, 'Metal Jacket' that consisted of just patches from Finnish bands or Finnish related subjects. At first this seemed like it would be a fairly easy idea, but soon as I really went looking around I found that not many of my favorite Finnish bands had patches available. From there it became clear to me that I had to do something different to make sure my unique idea was even more unique.



By some stroke of luck I came across a guy on eBay who was creating custom patches. You'd think something like this wouldn't be hard to find, but before coming across this chap (I think he was from the Czech Republic) I contacted several American custom patch shops and they all told me it would infringe on copyrights, even though I told them they were for private use and not being resold for profit. The first two obvious choices were Swallow the Sun, whom I've been a follower of since their debut years ago as well as Barren Earth who absolutely blew me away and continue to amaze me with their debut release, 'Curse of the Red River.'


On the more older Finnish band spectrum I absolutely had to include patches from Sami Tenetz mighty, Thy Serpent. You'd think Thy Serpent might have a patch floating around out there already, but no. The patch below comes from a band named Vordven who had a fantastic release back in '99 titled, 'Towards the Frozen Stream' as well a stunning EP in '01 called, 'Woodland Passage.' These bands are important to me because besides Beherit these were two of the more blacker sounding metal bands from Finland that I heard and purchased CDs from first years and years ago.

The Barathrum and Kalmah patches are not custom, but they seemed fitting since I've known Barathrum for a long time and although I haven't heard much of their work I plan to change that soon enough. Also the seller on eBay said this patch was, 'Supa Rare,' so it seemed hard to pass by. As for Kalmah, I've been a fan since the first album and I generally like what they did on their first couple of albums too. I haven't heard much of their recent work, but I suppose that might change since their patch adorns my jacket now.

... and how would a Finnish Metal Patch Jacket be complete without a little Behexen and Horna hanging around the bottom!? Right, it wouldn't! In a way it feels sort of odd having these patches and that's mostly because of the Amorphis patch, I guess its just a big contrast of styles and all. I remember when I was in the shop rummaging I also saw a, 'Tales from the Thousand Lakes' patch, which seemed appropriate for the old schooler in me, but my undeniable love for, 'Skyforger' got the best of me and I went with it instead.

Finnish doom/death legends also had to be a part of this jacket, no doubt about that! This patch was originally on one of my sleeves, but after sewing it on I found it nearly tearing off when I would wear the jacket and move my arm in a certain way. I also had Impaled Nazarene and Abhorrence on the sleeve, but those were removed and still need to be sewed on elsewhere.

On my left sleeve I have a patch of the Finnish flag, which I found at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport a few hours before I left. Some might find it odd for an American to wear the Finnish flag on his sleeve, but I do it with pride, because as I said Finland felt like my home away from my home. To date no ones questioned it, which is semi disappointing because for the laughs involved I'd just love to have someone call me a traitor to my country or at least have someone mistake me for being Finnish.

The patch below the flag is the final custom one and its of the band, Routasielu, which I can't simply recommend enough. By far one of the coolest bands I've heard in a long time and one I continuously find myself coming back to. It seemed wise to be this patch below the flag since the band writes all their lyrics in their native Suomi language, but I guess I could have easily have put the Horna patch here too.

On the right arm we have, Moonsorrow & Beherit whom are another two bands I've adored for many years now. Moonsorrow defines what epic folky metal is all about while Beherit and both their old and latest creations rank quite high on my list of favorite things. Regrettably the Beherit patch has suffered some damage during the winter, but that's mostly because I always carelessly hang my backpack off my shoulder, usually forgetting there's a patch sewn on there. I had originally thought about going with a Moonsorrow back patch at first too, but I guess those that know me, know that I've got quite a bit of love for all things Amorphis. So, it really wasn't a hard choice in the end.











The front remains mostly untouched other than that spiffy Amorphis pin on the pocket. I'll more than likely add add the aforementioned Impaled Nazarene and Abhorrence patches somewhere on the front, as well I've got ideas for more custom patches. However the custom patch thing was fairly pricey and I don't have much extra money to spend these days, but that's fine as I don't plan on retiring this jacket any time soon.

Finally a shot of yours truly out freezing his ass off while modeling his creation, forlornly too. I had been hoping for a snowy day to do this shot, but as far as I can tell winter has passed Wisconsin by this year, which is highly regrettably on so many levels. Honestly it wasn't even that cold when this was shot, haha.

As a final thought I have to say I've put a lot of thought, time and effort into this thing and I hope it shows. Its still not done, of course, but I wanted to show it off before this so-called winter season passed by entirely. If you like what you see feel free to share your thoughts as well link it up on your facebook pages, forums or whatever as I think it would be cool if fans of Finnish metal, Finns themselves and maybe even some of the bands saw this.

I think from now on I'll also try and do something special on this blog like this at least once a month. I've got lots of cool stuff to show off, which I think might tickle some interest around this place. Metal and beer reviews are certainly fun, but diversity is definitely the spice o life, don't you agree?