John Two-Hawks dla Beyond Ear Candy 13 Listopad 2005

Patty

Interview with John Two-Hawks, guest performer on Nightwish’s Once

October 20, 2005, Ann Marie Reilly of BeyondEarCandy.com along with our good friend and contributing photographer, Petri Vääntäjä have landed in the Presidentii Hotel in Helsinki to meet with John Two-Hawks. Within minutes of our arrival, the regal, North American Indian descends the center stair case of the prestigious hotel, and scans the lobby with piercing eyes for his interviewers. Having talked with him at length over the telephone in August of 2004, I cannot wait to meet him in person, so quickly we leap from our seats and make the obligatory introductions. John is gracious, enthusiastic and captivating at every point in the interview. He is accompanied by his agent, Peggy Hill, who provides additional insight into the history and philosophies of this extraordinarily, eclectic musician. Please enjoy taking the time to read Mr. Two-Hawks' words, listen to his flute demonstrations and gain a little insight into the spirituality of his music, the history of North American Indians and his impressions of Nightwish and Finland.

Nightwish and John Two-Hawks Mutual Discovery

AMBR: We talked quite a bit before when I did the first interview when Once came out, but I’m going to cover some of the same ground for people who will read this interview and haven’t read the other one. (First Interview)

So, tell us how you came to be involved in Nightwish, their cd, Once, and specifically the song Creek Mary’s Blood.

JTH: We were contacted by Ewo (Rytkönen) of King Foo (Entertainment) through e-mail and we were informed that Tuomas had looked me up basically and he was interested in my music and he wanted to talk to us about collaborating on this piece of music. That was the initial contact.

AMBR: Were you surprised to be contacted by someone from Finland, specifically that they were writing a song about North American Indians?

JTH: I was thrilled, interested. I don’t know if I was so much surprised as I was excited. To me it was a great opportunity, first of all, to come to Finland and experience the people, culture, and so on. One of the other exciting parts about it was working with this music, this band. Because they’re talented, REALLY talented and the music that they create is phenomenal. They’re in the metal genre, but it’s not really fair to call it just a metal band. They’re so much more than that. The music that they create is really great stuff.

So for me, musically, folks know me mostly as a flute player, but I am much more than a flute player. I’m a musician. I use a lot of music in my recordings. The fit between Tuomas and I was almost uncanny. In the studio, we were clicking both of us; hearing exactly the same things.

So it was really something. We have even been talking about doing something more in the future. This maybe not the last time we do something together.

AMBR: That would be fantastic.

JTH: One of the things…maybe I wasn’t surprised so much, because I’ve done a lot of different things with different musicians in places around the world. So it was not so much a surprise to get a contact from another country, but Finland was definitely a new thing. The irony of that too, was way back when I was young, I had a really good friend who was a Finnish exchange student and at that time I really thought I’d like to come to Finland and I talked with her about her culture and learning the language and all that. That was WAY back, so to have this come full circle was kind of neat.

The Song: Creek Mary's Blood
AMBR: So what do you think when you heard the concept of Creek Mary’s Blood. How did you feel it was able to express the story of your people?

JTH: I like to look at the song lyrically as a balance of two sides to the story; the physical side and the spiritual side. When you hear me singing, in the very beginning of the song, I say, “Mitakuye oyasin lel ohinni e yelo," which in Lakota means, “All of my relatives are all still here.” Then the very first line that Tarja sings in English is “Soon I will be here no more.” What that’s really saying is there’s truth in both those statements. Because there were a thousand nations in North America, 53 million American Indian people lived on the North American continent, before WE discovered Columbus. A lot of those people are gone. Three hundred of those nations don’t exist anymore because of the genocide and the greed.

AMBR: They were entirely wiped out?

JTH: Entirely wiped out. Gone forever. So there is truth to the concept, “Soon I will be here no more.” But there is also truth in that concept, because a lot of what our people know as our traditional way, our traditional culture and our communities has forever changed. It will never be the same again. So there’s truth in that.

There’s also truth to say, “Mitakuye oyasin lel ohinni e yelo,” “All of my people are still here,” because we are. In the very physical, the very real human sense. Our populations are growing. Our cultures are thriving. Our languages have survived and we continue to be a thriving, adapting, growing culture. We exist still today. On a spiritual level, our ancestors are in the wind. We’re in the soil, we’re in everything. So I think we affect and influence the very cultures that exists now in America, because we are still here. So, lyrically, I think the song is two-sided. It’s talking about a spiritual and physical reality all at the same time.

So, I was VERY pleased with what Tuomas wrote as far as the lyrics are concerned. One of the things he seemed to….I don’t know how he knew this, but innately he knew this; there’s sort of a concept about Indian people coming over the Bering Strait, how there was nobody in North America and Indian people migrated over the Bering Strait. That’s taught in history classes throughout the United States. In truth, indigenous people don’t agree with that concept. Our own histories predate the Bering Strait theory. Our own concept of North America, Turtle Island as we call it, is we’ve always been here. And Tuomas wrote in the song, he actually wrote, and I’m going to grab it, (picks up Once cd booklet), I have it right here. I want to get the words right. In the song, he actually writes, “Once we were here, where we have lived since the world began, since time itself gave us this land.” That’s an indigenous concept. Time itself gave us that land. There’s an old story among my own family, one of my relatives went to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Actually, several of my relatives, ancestors went there. But one of them in particular tells the story about an old man who was in the classroom and taught him after the class was over that our people have been here since the beginning of time. There wasn’t a mass migration of all of us that came over. So that’s an old concept. For Tuomas to kind of be able to grasp that concept, to me, it’s a spiritual thing.

AMBR: Musically, did you think it creates a good imagery of the land and your people?

JTH: I think it’s particularly attuned to, this could be biased (laughs), but I think it’s particularly attuned to the Lakota people because this song is grandiose. It’s big. It’s huge in it’s arrangement. It’s orchestral, it’s symphonic. It’s a vast expression which is what our land is like. The prairies, the plains are vast and endless. As far as you can see, you can just see. We’re one of the few places in the world where you can actually see the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie from miles away. Musically, to me that’s what the song expresses.

One of my favorite parts of the song is where the snare (drum) comes in with that lone flute of mine. The balance between those two is incredible. It says, “Here’s our spirit, you hear that in the flute, here is the essence of who we are. We’re of the earth, we’re natural, we’re like the wind. Our spirits are gentle and peaceful and fluid, kind and good, but we’ve been forced to this beat. But yet, the snare is our spirit too, because to me it represents the strength of our character and how even though we may have experienced great trauma, great change, we soldier on, we continue, we march forward and through our strength we have survived. To me, that part is one of the most powerful parts of the whole piece of music. Everything STOPS. And it’s just the snare and the flute. I mean there’s other things going on, but for the most part, it’s the snare and the flute. I LOVE that part. The song is FANTASTIC!

I want to do more of this, and I talked to Tuomas last night when we had dinner about doing more of this and I think we can do more. No one has ever done this before. I think it’s a great concept.

AMBR: What about the final poem at the end. Did you have any input in that?

JTH: I had to, because Tuomas wrote it and used words that don’t exist in the Lakota language. Our language, the Lakota language, is a language of concepts. The oration at the end is, of course, is the poem that Tuomas wrote, so to translate that, I had to tune in to what Tuomas was trying to say, the concepts, what they mean, not the literal words, but what was he trying to say, figuratively expressing with his heart, what did he mean by this. So, the meanings were easy to translate into Lakota. For instance, where he uses the word, “caribou” I use the word for “elk”, ok, which would be more accurate in the context of what he’s trying to say, elk, “hehaka”, was more accurate. The poem to me, I think it’s powerful because what it talks about is how we still dream of the old times. At the end of the poem where it says, we will still be here when you’re….hold on let me get it. (Picks up cd booklet again) “Our spirit was here long before you, long before us and long will it be after your pride brings you to your end.” That’s powerful stuff. Again, Tuomas, somehow, some way, being this far away from the indigenous culture, his spirit tuned right in to how we feel about things. That is that we are still here, we will still be here, when this thing all comes back around, we will still be here, regardless of what happens with the planet, with societies, if they come crashing down, we’ll still be here.

PEGGY: Art transcends the physical. He is such an artist. His words and music transcend culture and the finite mind.

JTH: It’s incredible. I love watching Tuomas, because he is like myself. When we were rehearsing today…when I play, no matter where it is, if I’m just rehearsing a song, if I’m just demonstrating for somebody, to me, anytime my breath flows through that instrument, that flute, to me it’s not just for nothing. There’s a reason for it. So, there’s a purpose every time that wind blows through that instrument. So, if I’m just giving you a 30 second demonstration on the flute, I’m doing if for a reason. The sound of the flute is going into the air with purpose, with meaning. Tuomas is the same. We were rehearsing today, we were in the middle of a song and I just happened to glance over and I saw Tuomas with his hands on the keyboard and his eyes were closed and he was just feeling that music. He was just completely enveloped in it, as was I. The two of us really understand what both of our music means to us. It’s more than just entertainment. It’s something deeper than that.

The Performance, October 21, The Hartwell Areena
AMBR: In the performance tomorrow, will you be speaking the poem at the end?

JTH: Yes I’ll be doing the oration in Lakota at the end. I’ll be speaking it.

AMBR: What about the part in the beginning where you are speaking, but the flute is also playing. Which will you do?

JTH: Yea, obviously I had to choose because I can’t play the flute and sing at the same time. (laughs) My choice was to sing. So, I sing that part, and then, of course, the flute that comes in shortly after that, is the big drone and I play that. Then I also play the flute during the part with the snare march, the cadence. Then I sing all the parts and then there’s another flute that comes in when Tarja is singing, there’s another flute in there. So, I’ll be playing that as well, then speaking the oration at the end.

AMBR: It’s interesting that you will be speaking in front of about 12,000 people about North American Indians to basically a predominately Finnish audience. How do you feel about that?

The People of Finland
JTH: I think it’s great! One of the things I was saying after our first visit here, when we came here to actually go into the studio to record the music, the time we spent here, and the people of Finland that we got to spend time with, I came away with the sense that the Finnish are a lot like the Lakota people in a way. Interestingly, the language, the phonetics, the way the letters are used, are exactly the same as they are used in the Lakota language. The vowels are pronounced in exactly the same way. The consonants are a bit different, but very similar.

Beyond that, the character of the people. This little country was able to hold itself up during the world war when Russia came here and tried to take it over.

We went out on the islands off the coast here, the seven or eight islands that are off the coast here. Ewo took us out there. It was the middle of the night and the stars were out. We walked around the island and they still had the cannons, these big guns. So there are six or seven islands that are all joined together by little foot bridges. There just right off the coast of Helsinki here. You can get on a little ferry and go out there. There’s a fortress there and the King’s Gate. When we went out there and when I walked around and saw those cannons still sitting there as if it were the Finnish actually saying to anybody that would want to come and take over their land again, “Remember what we did to you last time.” It’s almost a reminder. The cannons are still there saying, (holds up his hands as if pushing something back).

The people, after spending time with them, I recognized they are good people. They’re reserved. And this is generalities too, there’s always unique exceptions, but as a general rule I find the Finnish people to be gentle, kind, friendly, but reserved as well. They don’t butt in to your business, but they’re very friendly, very gracious people and that’s the same way with us. They’re strong of character. Maybe forged by the cold wind of the north. It’s the same way with Lakota people. We are very gentle, gracious, kind, but very strong.

PETRI: I have heard stories of Finnish going to North America and they have made very good friends with the native people very easily.

JTH: Doesn’t surprise me. In the northern part of Michigan, which if you drew a line across the globe, it’s probably the same latitude as Finland is. Interestingly, Finnish immigrants came to the United States and really liked that part of the country maybe because if reminded them most of their own part of the world. And they’ve lived there ever since. It’s a very rich American Indian community there of Ojibway and Odawa people there, and they’ve inter-married, the Indian people and the Finnish. So, they call their kids, Finndians. (laughter). It’s a joke, you know. So it’s kind of neat.

AMBR: Is this the first time you’ve seen Ewo and Nightwish since you were in Finland to do the recording?

JTH: Yea, it is the first time.

AMBR: I remember when I interviewed Tuomas during the U.S. tour he said he really was hoping to meet up with you.

JTH: Yea, we were touring at the same time. You know, we were both in Colorado at the same time. We probably drove right past each other.

AMBR: So what was it like coming back over and meeting them again?

JTH: Aw, it was like seeing family again. Oh, my gosh, it was great! We e-mail, but you know, e-mail is not the same as sitting in the room. So it was great.

AMBR: Yea, I have friends all over the world through e-mail, but I’d love to see their faces.

JTH: Yea, we saw Ewo when we got off the plane and it was great. There’s our old buddy, Ewo! Some of my best friends live in other countries. It’s kind of a Catch 22 in a way, because it’s both beautiful and wonderful and at the same time it’s very difficult. I want to spend all this time with them, but I never have the time I want to spend with them.

AMBR: So when did you find out they were going to do this show?

PEGGY: When Ewo for wrote me and told me about his weekend, we had a retreat planned. We do a few retreats every year and we ALWAYS do the third weekend in October. So, I told him, “I’m sorry, we can’t do it.” Then he said, “Well, maybe you could come to London and do a show.”

JTH: I can’t remember when.

PEGGY: And I said, “Yea, we’ll work on that.” Then he wrote me in July again and said, “Well, we can’t do the London thing, but is there any way you could come on the 21st?” So, I got on the phone and before I even told John about it, I thought we really just have to do this. I personally called every person that was coming to the retreat. I called the retreat place and got the date changed to the next weekend.

JTH: Which we’ve never done. It’s always been the same days.

PEGGY: Then I called everyone that was going to be there and they all love John and they all understood and they all made the change of plans. One of them was even scheduled to take a cruise and they changed their cruise!

JTH: People really bent over backwards.

PEGGY: Then I called Ewo back and said, “What’s the weather like at that time?” (laughter)

JTH: Yea, then he knew we were in!

PEGGY: Yea, it worked out perfect. Now when we get home we have one day and then our retreat. I really didn’t want to put our thing ahead of other people’s thing. I just didn’t feel like that was the right, spiritual way to do it. But it all just turned out.

JTH: Everyone was just so… everybody that comes to my retreat was very understanding. They were all very happy for me. They were just thrilled to change the date. Some of them had to really work at it and make arrangements with their jobs. All of them have Nightwish cds. A lot of my own fans are becoming Nightwish fans too. It’s wonderful.

AMBR: Do you feel you’ve gotten an increase in popularity for your own music since you’ve done this with Nightwish? Do you think you’ve become exposed to a wider audience?

JTH: I don’t see how it could not have. Nightwish definitely has a different audience than I do. What’s really wonderful to me about it is the Nightwish audience, they love my music. I’ve gotten lots of wonderful letters from Nightwish fans from all over the world. Just wonderful responses from people who are really big fans of Nightwish music and they say, “Wow, I’ve never heard this kind of music and it’s wonderful.” It’s great. I’ve always had a European fan base and certainly this experience has definitely increased that.

PEGGY: I think after tomorrow night it will be even more so.

JTH: Yea, I think tomorrow night is going to be really big. We tried to arrange a show in America when they were on tour. We were trying desperately to figure out how to get a show together. But, like I said, we just couldn’t make it happen. So I’m glad it happened at the very last one.

AMBR: Yea, they were trying to get that show together in London with you and a full orchestra but it couldn’t be done in the time frame, but maybe sometime in the future.

JTH: That would be nice. It would be great.

AMBR: I’ll HAVE to come back for that!

JTH: For sure! Absolutely!

The Music of John Two-Hawks.
AMBR: Tell me about the songs you wrote for Ewo and Tuomas on your new cd.

JTH: My new cd is called the Signature Series. It’s a 2-cd set and it’s my namesake. It gave me an opportunity to showcase the music both that I am known for and that I love. So, disk one is what I would call the music I’m known for and disk two is what I would call the music I love. But I love it all, don’t get me wrong, but what I mean by that is disk two, there’s different things on there. There are some folk songs, there’s some concept pieces. I did some music for the History Channel, there’s like a pow wow song, and they used it and it’s on here. It’s interesting in that way that the disks are different from each other. It’s called Two-Hawks, which is my name and it’s the two parts of myself. Everything is a duality, an interconnected duality. People are the same. I have two sides to myself just like anyone. This kind of expresses that too.

I wrote two songs on here for my Finnish friends. Because when I was here last year, I bought an instrument over here. Whenever I’m in a different country, I want to see the traditional instruments of that country. I asked Ewo to show me what instrument is traditional to the Finnish. He took me to a music store in town and he showed me a kantele, which I then bought. Interestingly, he told me I was the first person, he had shown it to dozens of people, and I was the first to ever have bought one.

So I went home and started playing this kantele and I actually put it on my Wild Eagles DVD and I put it on this song that I actually composed for Ewo and his fiancé, Olga, because of that experience that I had on those islands that night. It was magic. I named the song Mystic Island. It’s with the kantele and the flutes. It’s just a beautiful song.

Then I wrote another song on disk two for my dear friend, Tuomas. It’s a special song and it’s named for him. It’s called Shadow Wolf. He knows what that’s about. (smiles)

AMBR: That’s the Indian name you gave him?

JTH: Yea, I don’t want to take too much credit for it because it’s a spiritual thing. That’s his name. It’s what we call a spirit name. It’s powerful.

More on the show at the Hartwell Areena and Flute Demonstrations
AMBR: So you’ve been performing for 15 years or more, have you ever played for an arena audience this size?

JTH: I’ve played for civic centers which is probably the biggest type of venue other than an arena that you can do. I’ve also done major concert halls. I think the biggest audience I’ve ever done before this is about two thousand at one time as a solo artist.

AMBR: So how do you feel about performing in front such a large audience?

JTH: Aw, I love it. To me, the more the merrier. I’m just thrilled about it. I’m pumped, excited! It’s going to be great.

AMBR: Have you done any special preparations for this? Have you been to the arena to rehearse?

JTH: We’re actually going tonight. We did our rehearsal where they set up a place for us to rehearse today. But tonight we’re going to actually go to the hall to rehearse my stuff. Because the band, they’ve been touring it all year.

AMBR: Yea, they got it down. (laughter)

JTH: I’m actually going to be doing one of my own songs during this concert.

AMBR: Really?! Fantastic!

JTH: We were rehearsing today and I said, “We don’t need to rehearse my song.”

AMBR: Can you tell me which song it is?

JTH: Yes, it’s off of my Honor cd. It’s called Stone People. It’s played on the…let me get this flute out for you here.

PEGGY: Make sure you know it’s called, Stone People, not Stoned People. (laughter)

JTH: Yea! (laughs) Good point! It’s “Stone People.” This is the flute that I will be playing Stone People on. With all the other music that I create too, like Tuomas, I’m a keyboard player. I use a lot of keys in my music as well. He and I there are so many things we have in common. So there’s a lot of keys in my music. There’s a wonderful drum in the song that I use. It’s a very powerful American Indian drum. You can hear that. And I do a chant. The song is great. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it or not.

AMBR: I didn’t get that cd yet. I have Traditions and Good Medicine.

JTH: If you have access to the web before tomorrow, there’s a sample of it up there on my website.

AMBR: We’re going over to the Mbar after this so we’ll get a chance to listen to it. So this instrument is like a double flute?

JTH: Yea, it’s two flutes joined together and you play both of them at the same time.

AMBR: So with one you do the fingering and what does the other one do?

JTH: The other one is what they call a drone. It creates a drone side. I’ll just give you a little sample. (Listen)

AMBR: Wow, that’s really beautiful.

JTH: Thank you. So that’s the one I’ll be playing in my song. I was thrilled by that too, because Tuomas was the one that told me that…we’d been e-mailing, and he told me, “I really want you to do something of yours before we do Creek Mary’s Blood.” I e-mailed him back and said, “I have the perfect song.”

AMBR: Was that from that song?

JTH: No, I was just playing improvisation.

PEGGY: What’s really amazing, is that John’s music is very relaxing, spiritual music. It’s really kind of earth music. And Nightwish’s music is quite different from that but I love the way the two of them come together. They make like a root to a tree.

JTH: Yea, it’s incredible. When we were rehearsing today, we were waiting on some technical things to get wrapped up, so while we were waiting, we were just fiddling around, goofing with each other and you wouldn’t believe the stuff that was coming up. Tuomas was coming up with these beautiful key pieces and I was working in these incredible flute parts and Marco was playing these just amazing bass lines and Emppu too, it was incredible, just incredible!

AMBR: Now that one you played is a cedar flute but there’s obviously different types of cedar flutes. They must all have a unique sound.

JTH: Every one of the flutes I have, and I have over 20 now, every one of them is unique unto themselves. I play all of these (gestures to three next to him) actually in Creek Mary’s Blood. I play three different flutes in that. You may recognize this part. (Listen)

AMBR: Wow, I can just hear the rest of it coming in now, like the wind.

PEGGY: I can smell the cedar even from where I’m sitting.

JTH: The reason you can, is this cedar flute unlike a lot of cedar flutes you see now-a-days, is not varnished. It doesn’t have a finish on it. Because of that, you can smell the cedar. (Everyone examines the flute.) So when you’re playing it, you can actually smell the cedar. People are often surprised when I hand them this flute. They go, “Wow, I can’t believe how light it is!”

AMBR: Yea, incredibly light!

JTH: Cedar is a very light wood to begin with, but it’s been hollowed out so it’s definitely a very light instrument. It’s also a very soft instrument. Some of them are like this which are very soft. When we do our sound checking tonight they’re going to get a little Flute in Concert Lesson 101 from Mr. Two-Hawks here. (smiles) Because they’ll have to make adjustments. Because this flute (the double one) is very powerful, the drone. But as you know now, this flute (unfinished one) is very soft and very kind of quiet.

AMBR: So they’ll have to pull that out and push the rest back.

JTH: Exactly. This little guy here (shows smaller flute) is REALLY powerful. Probably as powerful or more than the big one. This flute comes in, in the beginning. It goes like…(plays a passage on the small flute.) You know how it starts. (Plays more.) Then during the song when she’s singing, there’s actually a part that goes…(plays another part.) (Listen)

AMBR: Now these are the actual flutes that you recorded with.

JTH: Yes, these are the actual flutes that I recorded the song with. Tuomas sent me a cd of the music without the lyrics or anything in it before we traveled over here last year. Then I was able to go through my collection and find the flutes that worked. I didn’t know that I would use them all, but there were these three flutes out of 20 that went. So, I brought them all and they just all ended up in the song. It’s kind of cool, you know. There was enough time there, it’s a big piece, you know.

AMBR: Yea, for sure. So, what will you wear tomorrow?

JTH: Tomorrow in the concert, I’ll be wearing my full traditional regalia. The regalia that you see me in on the cd… I have two regalia’s. I have this one (shows Once booklet) which you can’t see a lot of, but you can see some of it. That’s one of my regalia’s. The other regalia is what I’ll be wearing tomorrow. This is it. (shows another photo.) I designed and made this one. I designed the other but I didn’t make it.

AMBR: The one you designed and made is on the Once cd booklet and this other you is on the Signature Series cd, right?

JTH: Yes. That’s what I’ll be wearing tomorrow. The symbols that are on the front of my regalia, people might be interested to know a little bit about them. Those are the symbols that represent my visions. They represent my power. So that’s what they’re about, the lightening bolts and the different things that are on there.

AMBR: Where will you’re song be in the set list?

JTH: (asks Peggy) Um…should I give that away?

AMBR: I only need to know if it is the 5th, 6th or 7th songs because that’s the only time we can take photos.

JTH: No it’s not then. It’s gonna be later. They want to kind of surprise folks with it.
Do you have a media pass?

AMBR: I waiting for Ewo to bring it now.

JTH: Good, maybe you can get some photos anyway. Maybe we can work something out with Ewo.

AMBR: Well, you’ll have to ask him. I’m just glad we can finally see you perform live.

So after Petri takes more photos and we talk a bit longer, John and Peggy return to their room to get ready for the rehearsal and we continue to wait for Ewo in the lounge. John Two-Hawks’ hypnotic performance on October 21 at the Hartwell Areena was well received by the crowd who clapped along through out Stone People and gave him a huge round of applause. In the weeks that followed, the memory of this final concert and Mr. Two-Hawks spiritual performance remained a bright spot in dark days as Nightwish fans were stunned by the departure of vocalist, Tarja Turunen, For those fans willing to look to the future instead of lamenting the past, the words and music of John Two-Hawks can provide a steady, soothing beat of anticipation for the magic still to be conjured in the future.