Wywiad z Marco listopad 2005

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Wywiad z Marco

Interviewer: Aki Nuopponen © [link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

MARCO HIETALA

"The last six months were such a rough period, that we had all the reasons to support each others, and now following it, it's very nice at last get rid of everything and concentrate on a little bit more peaceful patterns in the near future."

What in commmon have the Finnish heavy metal legend Tarot, Nightwish who recently returned from their world tour, Amorphis who are releasing their new album next year, and let's say, the gigs of Heavy Christmas we will hear in December?

- At least a man called Marco Hietala, who recently has had time to get involved in many places, at least when looking at the past year and the time to come. Nightwish just returned from a tour lasting year and a half with crushing feelings, but his future will instead bring up at least re-releases of old Tarot-albums and in addition rumours are telling about a new one to come.

Also Marco had time in complete silence produce vocalizations on the upcoming album of Amorphis. When we learned about all this, it was more than necessary to contact the man, Marco Hietala himself, and discuss the latest happenings in different bands, but also to have a look at the future as well.

About Nightwish

To start with the most recent issues, up comes first Nightwish who ended their world tour with shattering news, and around whom the dust really has not settled down yet.

Marco Hietala: At least the tour did not end with the usual feelings, but then again, there wasn't any good points to mention. We did cover quite a voyage and following it our feelings have been pretty frozen during the last few weeks, when we have tried to pull purselves out from it all. But I have felt a bit down also, even it was heck about the time to have some leisure at last.

After a tour like this, it always appears to become a hellish feeling when I don't know how to live or to be in a situation when there is no need to be coming and going all the time. Of course you get used to all kind of action fast, and sometimes you even find yourself longing it back, but let's see for a while. Now the plan is to take it easy, and start thinking about the future, because we are not going to idle, even if Nightwish will remain silent for some time.

The tour really didn't end the usual way, when Nightwish became the target for an enormous media attack when they fired Tarja Turunen and this kind of exaggeration has definitely not passed without leaving it's marks?

Marco Hietala: It really couldn't be avoided, even it has been quite much in vain. The incident was good news for like two or three days and after that there wasn't anything new to tell about, but everybody kept it going for weeks. All kinds of stories were told, maybe some of them were digging into times before the person's birth, which actually wasn't anything but provoking and efforts to throw gasoline on the flames.

The most amusing and at the same time the saddest thing about all this is the fact, that many issues and exaggerations in the middle of this have only been an illusion created by the media. I myself have tried to take a neutral attitude and keep as much distance to the whole incident as ever possible, because to tell the truth I actually can not form an opinion about the situation. Seen from the grounds, the issue is that all this came to everybody behind a tree, so to speak, I mean suddenly for one reason or another, even when the problems had been tried to solve in silence.

Instead of the firing itself, the fuzz has been very much about personal relations, so I ask you if your relations really have chilled as much as has been told by many sources?

Marco Hietala: During the last six months or maybe a bit longer, we encountered the biggest changes in everything, changes which lead into quite big outbursts or to such definitive highlights when people let out from their mouths everything they had been willing to say for a long time. In that situation it was evident that previous duscussions or certain agreements didn't have any weight, when the two persons were trying to dominate everything in a lunatic manner.

I don't know if we gave the little finger to them first, but after passing a certain border there was an unbreakable wall developing around Tarja and Marcelo, when they kept giving orders and demanding constantly more, when we first had agreed in some lesser cases. In that phase we couldn't talk about a band any more, nor call it democratic, when the rest of this community were fully obliged to follow these two persons' impulsive demands. All long term disagreements erupted this way, and all the consequences are impossible to estimate yet, but I believe that there wasn't any other solution left.

The band does not work the way that two persons build a fort of their own and terroroze others by hitting the brake on the worst possible moment. The last six months were such a rough period, that we had all the reasons to support each others and now it feels good to get at last rid of it all and keep concentrating on more peaceful things in the near future.

The tone of these announcements let us understand that the situation was extremely tense, so this kind of solution had to be the top of an iceberg after everything.

Marco Hietala: Media has taken a strong grip of some subjects and these have mostly been those concerning personal relations, causes and consequences, of which everybody certainly have their own ideas. I can tell that each and everybody have been slashed quite heavily in the past year, so we have a reason to stop healing our wounds.

Let me put it this way: No one is innocent when it comes to matters concerning social relations, but certain parties should have turned to take a look in the mirror much more earlier. Many times the case about us not really recognizing Tarja as a woman has been raised on top, but I think it totally opposite. Back in time her demands went to the level that Marcelo had to come with her and stay in hotels, even our wifes and girlfriends most of times had to be left home. We agreed to this in the beginning, but were she not a woman, the situation might have been very much harsher.

It is evident, that when acting as a band, everybody has to clearly play together with similar advantages and limits but obviously this side of the work wasn't quite so clear to some people.

Marco Hietala: In the name of honesty, I'm not even sure, what it all was about with these figures on Tarja's side after all, but I do know the effect those had on Nightwish. On Tarja's and Marcelo's side it might have been plain business or then leaning more and more on the fact that Tarja didn't need the band but the band needed Tarja, which advanced their possibilities.

Especially in recent times and also when speaking about the future, Tarja has been highlighting all the time how the amount of work and concerts should be continuously reduced, even the band is simultaneously in huge growth. I understand really well all kinds of physical sicknesses, problems with touring and also other downsides which may be involved in this all, but I don't understand, why things had to be discussed - or rather announced - through a third party.

What everybody needed was to handle issues face to face, but obviously some people had no guts to get to the point and so we had to make the move by cutting off a piece of the band and thus endangering the life of the band, because without doing it everything might have stalled, which still remains as an option.

While these kind of reasons are easy to analyze from different points of view, this whole situation must definitely be quite irrational and impossible to figure out considering all the years gone?

Marco Hietala: Yes! Because of that I can understand all this hype and exaggerating, while I can not by myself figure out how this all happened and why there wasn't any possibility to do something about it. I do remember extremely well, how different the situation in the band was back in time, when Century Child was released, when the earlier crisis was left behind. When the tour started and kept advancing it all grew heck of great, when everybody had a similar respect towards each others and everybody contributed to the band like it has to be within this kind of a band.

It really was a pity to reckognize, how small and seemingly simple things made everything fall. Only if people had been able to notice the others in a different way, then we wouldn't have become in a situation like this. Everything seem to be confusing and yet understandable at the same time.

I don't know a more neurotic job, but to be a singer in a heavymetal band with all the difficulties it brings, and I don't know if everyone were able to undersatnd it, but these difficulties can not be the reason leading little by little into total lack of communication and co-operation. This situation must be embarrashing and confusing for everybody, not depending on the side they are in.

How do you see the future of Nightwish now, when literally the band are at the end of an era and when at least a part of the band's future must lie totally uncovered in the dark?

Marco Hietala: I'd like to believe, that we can continue with safe and stedy steps from now on, as soon as a few things are cleared and arranged. Indeed, this is not the end, but rather an end of an era and the new beginning. During this winter it is going to be silent on us bandmembers' side until long in the spring.

Of course we keep thinking new things for the upcoming record, but Tuomas will definitively have the full speed on again, beginning on these very days. Sometime next summer we will take a look what everybody has come up with, and if we have found a new vocalist by the time, even better then. Of course it is impossible to say exactly, when we will really start making the new album as far as the most important question about the new singer is still pending. Anyway, here we are preparing new material and by the next summer our future should be clearing up in a way or another, so let's keep observing the feelings and taking it easy as long as it will be possible.

After Century Child Once meant again growth into more massive directions, so in the near future Nightwish may meet many kind of decicions considering the album and compositions for it.

Marco Hietala: I bet that we're going to move respectable masses in the future, so there will be massive arrangements, large choirs and full size orchestras to wait for in the future, I mean there hardly won't be any sudden full turns about to come. Of course we will do it on terms of our current situation, which for sure will make a difference between Once and the upcoming album, as expectable.

The new vocalist will of course have an immense effect alone, so there is no need to be afraid that we would be stalling on the same lines with Once. We have made it clear to everybody in the band, that the filter about everything will stay strict, which means that with current growing success we will not in any circumstance set our decicions with the easy or confirmed solutions. What this means in practice, will be found out only when the new songs have been made ready, but we definitely will walk new paths and most important, will be making a helluva good album, because with that we won't compromize an inch!

It looks that Nightwish is about to carry on after ending one era, but first a new singer must be found, and choosing her will not be the easiest of tasks?

Marco Hietala: First, we won't start the process with pre-determined image about her. We are not going to build a formula for a Nightwish-singer, with everything beginning from colour of her voice to her outlook included. The only fact we are sure for is that this band needs a female vocalist also in the future, because it is the nature of the songs and the band, including the duets we have made.

In addition to this, nothing is decided, which means that the new singer might as well be found in rock- or classical music circles, and thus she won't be squeezed in any nonsense mould. When recordings, photographs and demo material starts to come in, all of it will be inspected and considered as long as we are determined to have found a proper singer for Nightwish, a singer with charisma, courage, voice and everything that the future of Nightwish will need in all actions.

Changing the vocalist may be hard to bite for many people, but when the music stays music it is clear, that there is always a way or another to find a singer to match the demands.

Marco Hietala: Yes, it is possible, but I'm not saying it will be easy. Tarja has been a long time the face and the voice of Nightwish so it is obvious that many things of the band personate with her character. Things today are quite on the level, that nobody is so unique, that the band would be impossible to carry on without the person, in a new way. After one member leaves, we will seek and find a new, different person to the band, someone who knows the duties as well or better as the predecessor, and we don't need to stay halt under the fire.

Time will tell if we can find such a vocalist we are building an image of somewhere deep in our minds. Of course the decision in any form will change our audience and have an affect on our future in everything, but this is the necessary change we have to meet. At the same time it is quite exiting also, because it is really great to be waiting and later hearlng what kind of a singer we will find and what we will be able to carry out with her.

The DVD filmed at the last concert has been left with less attention under all media hype, even it will be besides the book the biggest happening with Nightwish in the spring to come.

Marco Hietala: As a matter of fact, both of those are really coming up and the DVD will be mainly built around the very great last gig. I hope everything with the DVD will go well to the last aspect, with filming, sound quality and other things in perfect order, because there are no meaningless extras planned to be included on that DVD, we had quite a lot of those included on our previous DVD.

What is ironical with this, is that actually the previous documentary DVD would have been better to be made until recently or at least combine the story at a culmination point like this, but then again, we did not know by the time what was to happen in the future. Of course it would have been more disturbing if we did know the things to come.

The DVD and the book will be the end of this era, the end which we really didn't manage to pass without wounds, but we did finish it with Nightwish speeding at full power, without bringing the drama in or starting to mix it with the most essential thing, our music.

MacFly

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