When Noora Louhimo told Battle Beast late last summer that she was leaving, the band had shows already booked and no singer. What they did next was not a search. “There was no list,” bassist and founding member Eero Sipila told SDTV at Stonedead Festival, in an interview reported by Blabbermouth. “We just had Marina. She was the only person we considered asking, the only person we asked.”
Sipila was candid about the state he was in. “I was a bit kind of catatonic. I was, like, 'Ugh, I don't know what to do,'” he said, crediting lead guitarist Joona Bjorkroth with moving first. In hindsight he thinks the speed helped. “If we would have had more time to think and consider and rethink, things could have gone a lot worse, if you start questioning yourself.”
Marina La Torraca, who came from musical theatre and expected an audition process, got none. “I was, like, 'Oh, this is gonna be like an audition process.' But it wasn't,” she said. What she got instead was an Asian tour in March and a full summer festival season. “I'm just being thrown in the lion pit from the beginning,” she said. Writing starts once the season ends, and she is not treating it as a chance to sign her name on the band. “It's more, like, let's see what we can create together and make it good.”