Children of Finland Fighting in Norway is quite the acronym. What’s the inspiration behind it, and are any of you actually from Finland?  

No, sadly, there's no significant meaning behind it. We started this band kind of between Year 6 and Year 7. We were around 12 years old, and at that stage you're just discovering all these bands and different styles of music that are opening you up to the world of music. One week, you’ll choose this name, because you're influenced by AC/DC, and the next week, you change it to this name, because you're influenced by Metallica or Slayer.

But then we were put on the spot for a name at one point, and one of the guys just said “Children of Finland” for some reason. We thought that that was a terrible name, but because we told it to some older guy, we thought we had to stick with it. So we said “Maybe we can tell him that it's part of an acronym?” C.O.F… and then someone said, “Oh, C.O.F.F.I.N!” And the first thing that came to someone's mind for F.I.N  was “Fighting in Norway” – Children of Finland Fighting in Norway. It’s pretty random for a few kids from the Northern Beaches to have a name that includes two Scandinavian countries. But somehow, that's what we came up with.

What is one word you’d use to describe each of the members? Nice words? Whatever you like.

‍Abijah: talented, Aaron: annoyed, Kosty: clown.

As a band who uses their voice to fight social injustice, have you ever faced any pushback?

Yeah, a lot of the pushback probably happens in the shadows. For example, with our song ‘White Dog’, when that was first put on YouTube, it was reported by someone, and then taken down. And then several times after that, it got reported.

We've also had people sabotage us by calling venues and saying “Oh, don't book them; they're out of control; they'll screw up your venue and cause you trouble.” It was mainly earlier in the days when people didn't really know us as well, that you’d suddenly get a venue that says, “Oh, actually, we can't go ahead with the show.” And you wonder: where's this coming from? And you then find out someone spoke to someone there.

Some of our songs and the way we speak about some of these issues aren't black and white because these issues like toxic masculinity or racism or ideas about the environment aren't necessarily super straightforward.

We think it's not that interesting or honest to explore them in that sense. We like to show the complexities of them in a way that's not virtue signalling. And that then sometimes gets pushed back when people are like, “Oh they’re thugs” when they hear our song ‘Locals Only’, but really the song's ironic, and it takes a deeper examination to understand the nuance of what that song is making a critique on.

Indigenous rights seem to be a big part of what the band fights for. What connects you to that cause?

It's just a natural respect. We all have different backgrounds from around the world, and we feel very lucky to live
in such a beautiful place like Australia.

But we also feel enraged at how Australia has caused suffering for and destruction of Indigenous culture, and how it has continued to keep it as something that's
so separated from everyday Australian life.

When there's such a rich history and culture here, it seems so outrageous for it to not be more learned about and integrated into everyday life, as opposed to Maori culture, which in Aotearoa, New Zealand seems – from our visits –  to be something people are very much more connected to even if they aren't Indigenous Maori, but live in New Zealand.

And so for us, we see Aboriginality as such an amazing culture and a world of knowledge and experience. It's something we feel strongly about and wish that we were deeply connected to.

Are you always in agreement with political and social views? Yeah, we're really lucky. Growing up, our parents would often take us to anti-war rallies and rallies for issues around climate and protests against right-wing politics. So that was instilled in us early, and we are lucky to all come from a similar background and share the same principles and morals.

We've all appreciated discovering music and the environments that music happens as a place to explore these kinds of topics and issues, as opposed to being themes or ideas or debates that are solely explored within an academic or political setting; I think there's a danger in that because it removes it from the day-to-day conversation.

“That's a thing, politicians do,” or “that's a thing only academic activists debate about.” No, it shouldn't be. These are things that are just as much something for us to be engaged in, but finding a place to do that, though, is the problem. We think that live gigs and the music world can be a place for that, for the everyday person.

And is it to say that it should always be that? No way. That would be kind of boring and tedious if music always had to be political or have some agenda, but it's a great place to have those conversations.

And are you guys working on any music now?

‍Yeah, we've got a new album recorded, which hasn't been announced yet, but that will be coming out later in the year. It's a continuation on our Scandinavian theme.

The art on your merch is awesome. Who illustrates the designs?

Well, thank you very much. That would be me.

Do you have any art training or is that just natural talent?

‍That's another thing to thank the band for. Having been involved in this since we were young, we often were having to do our own posters and merch because, first of all, it's fun, and the visual side of things has always been something that's partnered with this band as well. But also, it's quicker. If you need to fly tomorrow, you just do it yourself.

And also having no money. Sometimes you might have a generous friend who's talented, but you can't really be contacting an artist like, “Hey, can you do the t-shirt design for us? By the way, we've got nothing to pay you.” So we just do it ourselves.

We're lucky that we also have Kosty in the band, our bass player who's a tattoo artist. So he's done designs too. It's something we enjoy, being directly invested in a part of the visual side of our band as well.

Do you have a favourite lyric you’d like to share?

Maybe from ‘White Dog’: “Are you the one whose kingdom comes, with drugs and guns // Disease as charity?”

Any last words?

I would just say to kids on the Beaches who are interested in playing music: don't hesitate. We just started by jamming together with friends and hanging out on the weekends. We never had some grand plan of becoming a band that recorded and toured the world; it was more hanging out and just spending time with each other and creating. It's been something that's given us a lot of engagement with the community and with places all over the world.

So, I would just say if you're thinking about it, you definitely should, because that's how we did it, and we were just a few kids skateboarding around the Beaches. •

@coffin_aus  |  Spotify: c.o.f.f.i.n.