Across three decades, Inkakai has walked through fire, sabotage, and spiritual crossfire to arrive in its current form, carrying the scars from Bleak and Fireal as proof of survival rather than nostalgia. In this interview, the masked collective pulls apart the machinery of ghost production, industry corruption, and ego driven networks that tried to turn their life’s work into a disposable product. From Lapland’s stark forests to Helsinki’s poisoned glamour, from onibi flames and martial arts discipline to sci fi futures where spirit wrestles with the machine, they sketch out a worldview where integrity matters more than algorithms, sync pools, or chart positions. If you have ever wondered what it costs to stay truthful in a field built on illusion, this conversation will light up the shadows.
To fully comprehend this journey, it is essential to examine the unvarnished truth, including the missteps encountered along the way.
The very first transformation occurred in Rovaniemi, Northern Finland, in 1995, when a school cover band evolved into Neutral, built largely on the Inkakai founder’s material. Guitarist Warden invited him to jam, and he brought his songs along with his cousin Madu (Tuomas Miettinen). After Warden left, lead guitarist Crab (Janne Lehikoinen) joined. Originally called the Finnish ‘Sheol,’ the band was renamed Bleak in 1997 and ran until 2000. The founder remained in Rovaniemi to form the metal project Umbra but was later pressured to move to Helsinki with Madu and Crab. In 2002, Bleak was rebuilt around his new material, but Madu’s attempts to assert control caused friction with the founder. Drummer Junior (Mikko Pietinen) joined in 2006 after the debut album ’Burns Inside’, produced by Tomi Malm. Bleak ended in 2009 due to unresolved toxic dynamics; Madu, Crab, and Junior proved to be the band’s three biggest mistakes.
The founder immediately reformed the band as Fireal, reviving the heavier Umbra sound with Amiga 500 influences and recruiting T-Noir (Tero Mustonen), who contributed nothing to the album and a decade later was revealed to have been linked to their enemies, marking another mistake and leading to his firing in 2019. Fireal released the second Bleak album ’The Dark Side in 2011, co-produced by Tomi Malm and Jukka Backlund, following the success of the single Halo (2010). On the verge of success, the band faced sabotage from within and beyond, unbeknownst to the founder. Fireal’s film soundtrack plans were abruptly cancelled and later taken over by Tomi Malm, who, along with Backlund, was discovered in 2024 to be connected to the founder’s enemies, becoming the band’s longest-standing mistakes.
After joining Lordi on Finnish Clash of the Choirs in 2011, the founder adopted masked imagery but, disillusioned by industry corruption and still unaware of the saboteurs’ identities, placed Fireal on hiatus in 2012. By 2013, he introduced the hooded, masked, anonymous collective that later became Inkakai — then called I.F.F. (Imperial Forces of Fire), named after an Amiga 500 file format — and began work on the third album ’Unlite’, announcing the single ’Serafi’, which was later cancelled. Around this time, a ghost production group with ties to Freemasonry and satanic networks — featuring ex-members “Snake” (alter ego: Parasite, aka “Madonna”), “Shrimp,” “Senior,” and “Theron Blackstone” — escalated sabotage into a full campaign, creating ghostwritten bands under “Spineless” metal labels and “War Chapel” to undermine, plagiarize, and replace Bleak, Fireal, and later Inkakai. Using access to the founder’s unpublished material via certain two producers, former members, and common “friends,” they reworked and redistributed his material as their own through sync pools, aided by Marja K from “War Chapel.”
Still unaware of the sabotage, the founder revived Fireal in 2019, fully realizing his old concept as Inkakai, using only symbols instead of names, his signature black-and-red visuals, and fire as a purifying motif infused with onibi ghost flames (“Inka”) from Asian mythology. ’The Smoke’, written by the founder in 1993, demoed with Bleak in 2003, and planned for 2013 with Fireal, finally surfaced, proving its independence from Madu and Crab. This prompted further sabotage as the “Snake crew” exploited financial gains from Sony deals in 2020–2021 to promote their replacement acts and escalate cyberbullying, partly orchestrated by guitarist “Fatal” through his work in social media and a major Finnish TV channel.
Despite this, Inkakai reached milestones independently — working with Tim Palmer on ’Drown’ (2022), collaborating with Steve Vai’s touring musicians, and surpassing 1.5 million Spotify streams without any label, funding, or social media support. After discovering that the ”Snake crew” had ghostwritten another plagiarizing Bleak in the US already in 2019, the founder revived Bleak in 2024 with original guitarist Warden, initially developing this with him under Sons of She’ol (2018–).
Which brings us to 2025.
The ghost production group has now extended its reach from Scandinavian acts like ”The Ramses” — whose market-strategically departed guitarist “Paulie the Beach-bod,” a burger-sensei, recently appeared in Kerrang! alongside another ghostwritten group ”Sightless Station’s” former second vocalist “Noel Hukka,” the caped clown — to major American acts such as ”Detunes” and a “Mammoth of a Son” of ”Von Hailin’”, who recently released a song responding to the chorus line of Fireal’s ’Pyromania’. The track had already surfaced years earlier on one Finnish forum’s trash topic through anonymous cyberbullying, where a Nashville-based Finnish producer and his bassist brother slandered the founder while the producer simultaneously worked “with” him.
With certain two producers among them, the ghost production group responded to Bleak’s revival by creating another ghostwritten, satanic Bleak in the UK — with threatening lyrics, some referencing our bio about former members. This time using Λ and V, which together form the Freemasonic Square & Compasses, as the persecution was driven by anti-Christian motives — and the founder was long known to be Christian.
Ironically, they were mistaken: while part of his family came from religious circles, the other half carried non-religious, natural magic bloodlines, which he had fully embraced. Never pro-Satanism nor a devout church follower, his path lay in personal faith, rooted in ancestral heritage rather than rebellion. Considering the initial inspirations for the Bleak logo included not only retro game figures but also Balrog and Loki, his enemies’ portrayal of him as a “rigid Christian” was, and remains, entirely false. This served to give those unfamiliar with him a pretext to persecute him.
After more than two decades, we approach 2026 with clear eyes and awakened knowledge. Our enemies’ pattern of behavior shows total absence of remorse and no willingness to reconcile. Consider Putin — peace occurs only when compelled; left unopposed, he would pursue domination at any cost. Likewise, we hold no regret, as no genuine opportunity for coexistence or collaboration was ever offered. Had such opportunities existed, we could have contributed to other artists and become part of a larger creative whole. Instead, our efforts at peace were met with behind-the-scenes obstruction and immature interference, despite repeated attempts at diplomacy.
The decision to reveal certain projects and contributors responds to years of sabotage — not to judge those working in the shadows or any individual religion. The creative landscape includes many contributors, and we acknowledge the roles some have played behind the scenes. Cycles of revenge are futile; coexistence without obstruction is rational, mutually beneficial, and allows for genuine collaboration, enabling all of us to function as both contributors and independent creators.
Sadly, many of these elitists — sustained by status, wealth, privilege, and external validation — have responded with contempt, envy, and hostility when confronted with authenticity. Their mockery, belittling, and sabotage conceal cognitive dissonance and chronic malignant envy directed at those who threaten their constructed falsehood.
This is the divide between deception and truth — between those who create to Deceive and manipulate and those who create to reveal, Witness, and burn the blinding lies. We will continue to exist as the truthful version of ourselves — not as something twisted and fabricated by those living in unearned privilege, masking their narcissism beneath wealth and deceit.
A lie may be ”halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on”, but that doesn’t mean it’s The End.
What began as one man’s artistic and musical expression was compelled into something larger after all the revelations through all the evidence the ”Snake’s” crew have left behind in their own arrogance and vanity. We are not exposing confidences, but tracing and pointing to the breadcrumbs left by those once tied to us, revealing the path they carve as they unravel.
This is one reason our releases have unfolded slowly. Another is the series of discussions that, despite occupying the better part of a year, ended in disappointment earlier in 2025. Yet despite all opposition, setbacks, and delays, we will continue to move forward with unwavering resolve.
We released ’The Wave’ with Bleak this year. It is one of our oldest songs, written in 1994. On the surface, it portrays despair and being blindsided and crushed by an enemy who expects to bury you. The deeper meaning flips this: the wave symbolizes evil pressing in, but the “black wave” represents something else, a hidden strength and mastery. Inverting evil’s apparent triumph, what seems like defeat becomes defiance and divine justice. ’The Wave’ is ultimately about evil’s arrogance in believing it has already won, only to be later consumed by a force far greater.
As demonstrated in this answer, this has become far more than music: it is a matter of power, influence, and morality. For us it’s about reclaiming rightful ownership and the freedom to exist without interference.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link; when a string of weak links collides with something unbreakable, forged by decades of hardship and resolve, it will break. But we will remain. Retreat, regroup, return. Unyielding, unending, and shielded from the Son of the Dawn within our Unlight.
In an industry built on trends, algorithms, and pressure to conform, staying true to oneself sometimes means walking away. Over the years — quite recently, in fact — we’ve turned down offers, distanced ourselves from people, and refused paths that demanded a bigger moral compromise or simply failed to show respect. Every step has reinforced why independence matters. It’s more about protection than rebellion.
We’ve seen what happens when one’s soul is traded for exposure, and we’d rather stand in silence than follow that path. We want to exist beyond commerce and for us this is a form of spiritual survival. What remains uncorrupted is what defines us all, and that’s something no system, label, or algorithm can imitate.
Gold is the classic currency to buy souls with. In industries where access to it is limited, many go to any length to obtain it, willing to trade basic human decency for material gain. Their world thrives on deception, and the more convincing the lie, the greater the reward. That is why so many politicians, power brokers, and others seeking influence serve money; deceit becomes their sacrament. Wealth is the most potent lure for the human soul.
Belief changes reality. When enough people focus on something, it takes shape — in minds, actions, and the world around them. Doesn’t matter if it’s divine or psychological, the effect’s the same. That’s how gods, systems, and symbols stay alive, fed by attention, repeated until they solidify into individual reality. In the end, belief itself is the power.
Sometimes the decisive influence comes from the culture of specific labels and the networks surrounding them; environments that elevate certain imagery into an identity that normalizes drugs, deceit, and moral transgression. Once inside, young artists encounter veteran figures who are already entrenched in that world. They corrupt innocence, create dependency through drugs, compel transgressions to bind loyalty, and redefine lying and manipulation as proof of strength. It is a layered process where the culture provides the atmosphere, the network grants access, and the individuals at the top enact the corruption. What results is an intentional, structured erosion of integrity. They prey on ambition and naivety, because those who hunger for status are the most pliable.
Independence isn’t only artistic but also shapes how passion and livelihood interact. The stronger the intrinsic drive, the more naturally music becomes an act of self-expression, therapy, or necessity. For some, it’s instinctive; for others, a creative outlet or dream. Once music turns professional, financial pressure and creative expectation start to pull at its core. Many fall away when that balance breaks. Others — those unwilling to betray their essence — carve independent paths instead.
For established, long-term artists, livelihood, identity, and routine merge with music — and that can become a trap. Deviating from the formula risks financial loss or collapse. This dynamic reflects creative entrapment and burnout that come when art turns into obligation.
Some see themselves as “survivalists” in the music industry because they’ve fully embraced AI, but this is often a sign that the drive to succeed and make money has outweighed their integrity. It should serve as a tool, not become the purpose. Relying solely on a machine to do what you cannot do yourself, or compromising your creative principles for personal gain, is not survival but weakness.
Artists who don’t depend on music for survival remain free. Without commercial weight, they can create without filters — expression instead of performance, truth instead of product. Independence restores what music was meant to be: the sound of something real, uncorrupted, and alive. It keeps the fire burning beyond the idea of money and fame, beyond fear of missing out.
These are rooted in the visions and fascinations of the founder’s childhood that have remained constant through life, evolving from early imagination into creative language. From aesthetics to philosophy. Fire represents transformation, the inner forge where pain becomes purpose and endurance turns to creation. It’s destruction and rebirth in one motion, heat that refines rather than consumes. Shadow reflects what moves unseen: restraint, precision, the intelligence behind a calculated strike. It’s not darkness for its own sake but controlled invisibility, the choice to act without spectacle, to let meaning speak louder than attention.
Sci-fi expands that framework into possibility. It’s the future as metaphor, a lens to question control, evolution, and human direction. Through it, sound becomes a weapon and reflection: mechanical, emotional, synthetic yet alive. Martial arts spirit ties together discipline, honour and awareness where movement is shaped by the same code: efficiency, intent, and truth in motion.
These forces merge in Inkakai’s sound as deliberate, dense, ordered, where chaos is sculpted rather than unleashed. The visuals follow the same principle: firelight cutting through shadow, movement revealing silence, symbols drawn from conflict and ascension; elements carry weight, purpose, and consequence.
Ultimately, Inkakai is more than a band or a project. It embodies a living doctrine, a collision of energy, emotion and structure. Fire teaches transformation, shadow teaches patience, sci-fi teaches perspective, and martial arts teaches mastery. Together they form a single language that speaks through rhythm, silence, and the will that remains unbroken.
You recently returned to Rovaniemi for a photoshoot that ties Inkakai’s aesthetic back to your roots in Lapland. What emotions or memories surfaced while revisiting the stark northern landscape, and how does that sense of place feed into your identity as a band?
Returning to Rovaniemi brought a profound sense of perspective and reconnection. The northern landscape is stark, elemental, and unyielding. It acts as a mirror for resilience. The journey through those familiar forests, frozen rivers, and long winter nights resurfaced memories both painful and cherished: moments of solitude, early creative sparks, and lessons learned from struggle.
Among these recollections is the legacy of the founder’s grandfather, a mystic recognized for his ancient magic, who once encountered a snake placed on his path. He killed it and tied it to a tree as a warning — a premonition foreshadowing the trials and conflicts that would later unfold through his bloodline in the founder’s life decades later. These memories recall the origins of Inkakai’s sound and vision, rooted in survival and reflection rather than commercial expectation.
The contrast between the purity of Lapland and the corruption of Helsinki sharpened this awareness. In the north, everything is elemental and direct: the wind, the snow, the quiet expanse of forests — life stripped to its essentials. This experience reinforced traditional values that go beyond music: attunement to nature, respect for the spirit world, and the understanding that roots are more than geography — they are memory and endurance carried across time.
It was a purifying journey. This return allowed us to Witness the way northern landscapes shape the art and the character. It affirmed that Inkakai’s identity is inseparable from these forces: the fire and shadow of Lapland, the silence of the forests, and the unspoken lessons held in the rhythm of seasons. This profound connection to the North and its natural rhythm and spirit nourishes us, ensuring that we remain grounded in truth, action, and spirit.
Balance is essential. Light and darkness, spirit and body, man and machine — all mirror the tension between creation and corruption, discipline and chaos. It’s a philosophy of mastery through awareness; acknowledging shadow without being consumed, wielding power without ego, and letting the work itself act as both Witness and Force.
Intensity and drama often draw attention, especially in youth, because the brain craves novelty and stimulation. Yet true mastery lies in restraint: in observing impulses without surrendering to them. Drama reflects unresolved conflict or unmet needs, and no external source can fill that emptiness — peace comes only from within. Self-mastery is the practice of directing one’s energy, shaping it into purpose rather than allowing it to be hijacked by circumstance or desire.
Among frail, overweight and/or visibly middle-aged corrupt men, a quiet resentment often surfaces toward men who embody physical discipline and presence — those whose strength arises from, for example, martial arts, self-mastery, or a naturally confident bearing. Their mockery is a form of projection, masking the insecurity of men aware they cannot compete on that plane. Lacking the ability to command respect or attraction through genuine masculine energy, they have built their identities around status, persuasion, or material advantage. This dependence fuels status anxiety and cognitive dissonance: confronted with authentic strength, they seek to redefine value itself by deriding it. It is not strength opposing strength, but weakness shielding itself through distortion.
It’s also crucial to distinguish darkness from evil. Fiction often illustrates this. Take Star Wars: the Dark Side and the Sith fascinate not because they’re evil, but because of the style, mythology and power they embody. Strip that away and what remains — Palpatine as a hollow politician — is just corruption without depth. That kind of evil already exists in our reality: banal, parasitic, and self-devouring. It doesn’t expand but implodes.
Ironically, while fiction often depicts evil as dark and overt—like the Sith—in reality, it often is the opposite and hides behind the smiles and glamour of public figures, mirroring those of the “Light Side” in fiction. This perversion is used to further and enable the lies upon which the entertainment industry is built. That is partly why we feel comfortable adopting the style inspired by the Dark Side of Star Wars: we are inverting their inversion of what is good and evil.
Some adopt dark aesthetics and occult imagery to mask greed, resentment, or failed ambition; stealing ideas, undermining others, and disguising envy as mystique. Without genuine belief or higher purpose, they cluster into networks or labels that worship chaos for profit. Their “darkness” isn’t spiritual but decorative, an excuse to rationalize cruelty while resenting those whose strength exposes their weakness. Evil hides its fragility in numbers; weak individuals pack together to appear powerful. A pack of lesser Wolves.
Within such circles, substance abuse reinforces shared delusion. Shared intoxication becomes shared fantasy: paranoia and overconfidence replace strategy, and manipulation masquerades as intelligence. Drugs like cocaine amplify impulsivity and erode judgment; long-term use corrodes truth itself. Lies become reflexes, and paranoia fractures whatever unity they pretend to have. Addiction devours control, focus, and loyalty — the very traits their illusion of power depends on.
People trapped in malignant narcissism and collective delusion can’t make peace, because peace demands accountability and empathy — the two things their identity rejects. To reconcile, they’d have to admit deceit was their foundation. For them, that’s annihilation. But those who see clearly understand: detachment is possible, reconciliation is not. True peace exists only outside their reach where their existence no longer defines or limits yours.
Having endured industry shifts, line-up changes, and reinventions, what moments stand out as turning points that tested, or perhaps reaffirmed, your commitment to the music itself?
The most defining turning points often came from rupture and reinvention. The dissolution of Bleak in 2009, after years of internal friction and attempts at control, was a line-up change but also moral and creative reckoning. It forced a confrontation with the question: why do we do this? Seven years of hiatus before Inkakai emerged stripped everything down to fundamentals, testing whether the commitment was to comfort, to recognition, or to the music itself. That period was a crucible, isolating the work from expectation and forcing reflection on what honesty in art truly demands.
Moments like reviving Fireal in 2019, releasing Inkakai’s work, or reasserting ownership over decades of material were personal victories and moral confirmations. Every obstacle reinforced that the music is the ultimate measure — not the audience, not the platform, not the industry — but the act of creation, unfiltered and unbowed. These are the moments that define a lifetime of devotion, where endurance and clarity converge to ensure that the work itself remains sovereign, uncompromised, and alive.
Reclaiming our sound through the release of ’Drown’ in 2022–23 — a song conceived over ten years earlier and reimagined with Tim Palmer — was another turning point. It wasn’t simply about a single or a milestone but proof that the core identity of the music could survive and even thrive despite interference, imitation, and sabotage.
Betrayal and external sabotage shaped the clearest tests of resolve. Attempts to steal, distort, and erase the work could have derailed everything, yet each forced a choice: compromise or reaffirm purpose. Choosing the latter — reclaiming what was ours, building independently, creating without concession — repeatedly confirmed that the commitment isn’t to trends, popularity, or validation, but to the music itself and the integrity behind it.
Some may achieve status through deceit, manipulation, or malice but such gains are hollow, exacting a cost no measure of wealth can justify. Talent alone does not redeem corruption. Those who betray their essence may rise temporarily, yet in the end, karma remembers, and the path of integrity endures beyond the transient triumphs of others.
Success or failure in life is not measured by wealth, fame, or recognition but by whether you have pursued the dreams that came before the world told you what to want. Childhood curiosity, creativity, and purpose define true direction; fame and wealth are taught desires, not born ones. If you’ve lived your dreams through craft, creation, or action, you have not failed. Real success aligns with your moral self: staying true to that path preserves integrity, self-respect, and long-term peace.
The thread through every era, from Bleak to Fireal to Inkakai, is resilience. Across decades, the message remains: spirit is superior to the material world. It’s about enduring challenge, claiming your own power, and standing unwavering in the truth, no matter the forces aligned against you. Survive. Create. Persist. That is the unshakable truth we hope listeners take with them.
The emotional truth runs deeper, rooted in decades of vision, struggle, and transformation. What began in the late ’90s with a few Nordic musicians and playful nicknames — one from a snake game, one from catching crabs, one mockingly called Hydra — has developed into something far larger.
Consider that even these names are preordained. The snake, the crab, the hydra, and ultimately, the dragon. Each embodies a lesson, a force, a stage of evolution.
The Snake’s poisonous mouth symbolizes words that corrupt and harm — slow-acting psychological damage, manipulation, and deceit. It is earthbound and lowly, obsessed with the material, suffocating its targets by draining will and options. It slithers to evade accountability, adapting only to save itself, and calculates survival or gain with no warmth, morality, or justice. It avoids open confrontation, strikes from shadows, exploits weakness, and only attacks when victory seems certain.
The Crab walks sideways, avoiding direct confrontation or accountability, always moving indirectly. Its thick shell is self-protection from consequences or criticism, hiding vulnerabilities and placing self-preservation above morality. Its claws grab and hold with opportunistic control. Slow and deliberate in its movement, it clings to the past, stuck in bitterness and unable to rise above or process emotion.
Now, when these two would mockingly twist the Hydra’s myth as ridicule, beneath that insult they inadvertently uncovered its strength: the Hydra embodies multiplicity of identity, rebirth through loss, and unbreakable endurance — every defeat returns it twice as strong, tempered by adaptability and patience. Its regenerative chaos teaches persistence and the lessons forged in conflict: what challenges you strengthens you.
Yet it also embodies the danger of reacting without strategy — raw power before patience. The Hydra is both obstacle and teacher. It cannot be subdued by force, but must be understood. Within the irony of myth lies the key: fire is the Hydra’s end and the Dragon’s beginning. Transformation demands that even the strongest parts grown from past wounds be confronted and purified. The Dragon’s fire is not mere destruction, but alchemy: renewal, transcendence, and controlled power. To slay the Hydra is not to annihilate the self, but to realize it fully. The Dragon rises not in spite of the Hydra, but through it.
The Dragon carries forward that evolved strength: it destroys to purify and illuminates the path through fire, turning challenge into self-realization. Above the chaos, above the battlefield, it remains a Witness with patience and calculated strategy. With scales of resilience and breath of Fire, it wields deliberate, controlled power. A guardian and arbiter, a force of transformation, secrecy, and the enduring flame that emerges through trials. The Dragon is the culmination of all that came before, the fire-born ascension from Hydra, tempered and evolved through perseverance into something far greater. A force that transcends its origin.
All these accounts mirror the real individuals involved in ways that hint the presence of larger forces beyond a simple band feud. A statement of spiritual justice manifested through creation.
The parallel to Lucifer is illustrative: pride and rebellion, when detached from responsibility and truth, collapse inward. Morningstar was undone not by punishment, but by self-inflicted failure — striving to dominate what he could not create, refusing to serve a higher truth.
The “Snake crew’s” actions reflect this same dynamic. They had access to creative power, influence, and opportunity, all built on foundations laid by others. Instead of stewardship, they chose vanity, control, and deception. When the host — the source of authentic creation — stepped away, they resorted to false symbols and illusions to simulate power. Their rebellion exposes the difference between authenticity and imitation. Every falsification, every manipulation, every plagiarized act confirms their dependence on what they cannot generate themselves. What comes from ego will eventually destroy itself, because ego cannot sustain what it did not create.
Their empire doesn’t fall by force; it rots from within, undone by the same pride, deceit and excess it was built on — thus fulfilling the same prophecy: the fall is inevitable, because the rebellion was never about truth — only about refusing it. Once you reject truth, reality itself becomes the punishment.
Our eyes are awokened as we Witness this now — the rise and inevitable fall of our enemies, collapsing under their own corruption. And the lesson that reaffirms our core is simple and eternal:
There is nothing to fear
from an army of Nothing
The Lesser Many
Against the Greater One
…and ours is beyond your ten thousand.
Stream Inkakai on Spotify now.
Interview by Amelia Vandergast
