Brilliant DSOL! Thank you for an awesome read! I love that interview!

Thank you serinde! You always find awesome stuff!

Thanks for finding this serinde! <3

June 13th 2012 Helsinki Day concert, interview with Seiska magazine.

Marko: It’s great when the audience knows the lyrics to all our songs!

Interviewer: Marko from Poets of the Fall… Congratulations for an awesome gig. The audience sang to each of your songs. How are you feeling now?
Marko: I’m feeling really wonderful after the gig. It’s great to see that with our new album which came out in the spring, these people already knew the songs quickly after it and they sing along, it feels good. Home audience is always the best audience.

Interviewer: What’s going on with Poets of the Fall during the summer?
Marko: Aaah, a little bit of touring, luckily a little bit of vacation as well, and a fun kind of waiting, there will be promotion abroad and we’ll see how the album sells there and how many gigs we’ll be able to book. Yeah.

Interviewer: What’s going on with your own summer, then?
Marko: I hope some summer cottage stuff like lying in a hammock. It would be fun to travel a little, some kind of a trip that isn’t tied to touring.

Interview: How did that festival in India go?
Marko: It was pretty much incredible. The vibe there is insane. You can compare it with what we had here today. It’s a very interesting place. I’ve gotten over the culture shock because we’ve been there before a while back. So when you go there again you notice that it’s a really interesting and fun place to visit.

Thanks for the translation Annika
And does anyone know where the promotion abroad is?? Is it something we already know about or something new??

Most likely Germany (maybe even Austria and Switzerland too?), cos the album is coming out there on July 20th.

And you're very welcome, glad you enjoyed it.

Hey DSOL, has the band been to Switzerland before? I bet that would be an awesome place to visit!

(Fingers still crossed for the USA! , hey, one can dream! )

Not to my knowledge. And I probably shouldn't have even speculated like that, because I really haven't got a clue about their promotion plans. It was only a guess.

I don't think this has been posted here before, looks like it was published today
Rytmi.com column written by Marko

I'd love to tackle that translation, but I don't think anyone here will be patient enough to wait for me. I know I would not be

And I wasn't patient enough either. If you like, redbossfan, just don't check out my translation.


Marko Saaresto – Spice up your life with mistakes

If life were a street, it would be lined with all kinds of intriguing shops, kiosks, boutiques and stalls. In between those you would find doors and gates to hills that go up and down in a form of excluded, charming and even forgotten little alleys.

There would be people walking around on that street, dressed in who knows what kinds of attires. Some of them would pass you by, and some would go to your direction, together or alone. They would be children and elderly people and everything in between. And there’s no forgetting the pigeons, alley cats or stray dogs. The general vista would be astonishingly rich. Then the limitations of life would step in. It’s time, which forces us all to make decisions.

Who do we meet? Which sidetrack road do we check out and which ones do we pass on our way to the end of the street? When there’s an incomprehensible amount of choices in front of us at all times, making decisions is crippling rather than liberating. At least for me the plenty in its all wonder is a true obstacle course. This happens because there’s a new questionable team on the game: mistakes.

Some say that mistakes are the salt of life. I agree, at least to a certain point. At least they are the marjoram, thyme and savory. Excessively good spices for sure, if you know how to use them. Or, if you happen to be a musician, you might use the terms like sixth and ad9-chords.

Mostly however mistakes are decisions that do not lead to the conclusion you hoped for. A while back when I was visiting someone, I happened to lean on the wall behind me without noticing that it actually was a display of valuable objects. You can guess the rest, and no, none of those objects was left whole. Usually mistakes just have a tendency to appear bigger than they really are. Most of the mistakes are small deviations that usually lead to the most interesting end result, such as… well, evolution.

That topic, though, is too large to be dealt with on this text. But we have whole professions whose purpose is to make mistakes as much as they possibly can. They are often and mysteriously called “those who wield power”. If we spoke English, we might use the word “they”.

I am a part of another group of professions which is alike in that respect: artists. In practice, the more I screw up or fumble the easier it is for other people to accept their own humanity and mistakes. That’s why it doesn’t bother me to get up on stage with the zipper of my jeans open while our gig is being filmed for television. There are an abundance of similar examples, I’m sure.

What it comes down to is that the little mistakes we make every day lead us to new possibilities if you look at it carefully. In the end, there are no mistakes. There are only events that lead to other events that lead to other events and so forth.

What has happened to me sometime is that I’ve been giving up on a song and throwing it away just to see that the song changes along the way, ends up on an album and is soon after played on the radio over and over again. People interpret the lyrics to their own ends and sing it at our gigs from their hearts.

And all that good only because at one point of the recording, we happened to have some experimental track running and what we heard in it by accident changed everything.
So if mistakes truly are the salt of life, and if I were a chef I would say that no matter what the main ingredients – the meat – of your cooking is, mistakes have the unique ability to bring out the most delicate flavors. As a musician my vocabulary changes and I humbly end up worshipping the dissonance.

Original text: Marko Saaresto

The writer is the vocalist of Poets Of The Fall-band. They released their new Temple of Thought album in March. www.poetsofthefall.com

^ WOW, how fast can this person be with the translations!! Bows

Thanks so much DSOL, you're amazing.

I agree. Sometimes when you're in the middle of it, it might look like you've messed up everything even worse than you actually have. It takes some steps (and some time) to realize that not all is lost (except the valuable objects on what looked like a wall ^^) and maybe you have also learnt something. And in the end, it's not like you have a chance to rehearse life: might as well take the good from what comes.

Sorry for digressing ^^
Beautiful column But what is it? Is it a column where different people write every time? Was it a 'one-off'? Or is Marko going to have a column on that site?

I think it's a one off. They have different artists to write columns, one each. The only one who's done more than one column there is Jone Nikula, a Finnish media guy (radio persona, author, Idols judge etc) but he's been in rock music business as well.

And you're all very welcome. Just don't start bowing to me, it might go to my head.
(You'd do much better to bow to Marko's wise words instead.)

That was beautiful! Thank you for translating!

Hey everybody!
Here's the video from Poets Of The Fall live at Provinssirock (right-click and choose "save as")

Sorry it's quite a big file... and it's in FLV (I think both GOM player and VLC player should play it). As soon as I have some time I'll try to make another version of the file. And to make a decent page for it on the PCJ too, but at the moment the whole Media section is going under reconstruction to make it in a way that will be easier to browse.. sometime...


But more important: thank you so much to Dark Side Of Light for recoring this!!!

Here's the translation to interviews and spoken parts:

Marko talks to audience before Diamonds for Tears:
Marko: It's so nice to see you all here! We're going to have a lot of fun tonight, right?!
Audience screams.
Marko: Diamond, diamond.

Marko talks to audience before Temple of Thought:
Marko: Thank you! Now we're going to play some new music for you from the album Temple of Thought. The song is Temple of Thought.

Marko talks to audience before Locking Up The Sun:
Marko: Now a rain dance coming up... Shall we play some more rock for you?!

Part One
Interviewer: Do you have to find a different attitude for open air gigs, like now we’re just going to offer you all our hits and none of that experimental material?
Marko: Well, perhaps not the experimental stuff, but new songs anyway and they’re always a challenge. Even though our album has been out for a couple of months already, you always have the feeling of wondering if people are going to know the songs yet. It’s like people know the older CDs much better. But our HC-fan group knows the new lyrics immediately.

Interviewer: You’re pretty well known to a wider audience as well. Your new album has sold well, so people buy your CDs right when they’re fresh and the new songs are familiar too. Or am I wrong?
Marko: No, no, you’re somewhat right. We know that Temple of Thought was something people had been waiting for, for quite a long while before it even came out. Our fans were discussing about it a lot and after it came out too. It’s been great, because it’s been 2 years since our previous album came out… I’m trying to get these feathers out of my neck… In truth, I’m the black swan.

Interviewer: Do you get some kind of a cleansing feeling on stage, when you see the tent is full of people and you see that they’re full on rocking with you and you know you’re opening up the whole festival. So does it feel like…? Sometimes people talk about it being almost like a fervent religious experience.
Marko: A rapture, yes. If can be compared to that. And it is a catharsis of a kind in its own way. You can really let go and bring out everything you’re feeling and channel them into the music. Afterwards you’re in this endorphin high, so this work kind of gets you hooked.

Marko talks to audience before Dreaming Wide Awake.
Marko: Your word is the law! Let’s scream so loud that everyone outside will come in too.
Audience screams.
Marko: I say that we’re going to play here all evening until they cut off the power and throw us out of the stage. Wouldn’t that be good?!
Audience screams.
Marko: I might just be dreaming, though.

Part 2
Interviewer: Next year is going to mark the 10th year that you’ve been going at this work. How are you going to celebrate this milestone?
Marko: We’ll see what we have time to come up with. Time flies so fast… We’ve been working on the album for a year, we managed to finish it and we’ve been on the tour for the spring and summer and will continue the tour during the autumn and winter. We’ll see what we have time for. But we’ve been talking about a 10th anniversary tour. We’ll see what we can cook up. But it would be nice to come up with something special.

Interviewer: So, has everything worked out like you perhaps planned a long time ago?
Marko: If you look at it from a very wide perspective, then yes, we’ve been slowly gaining more and more success over the years. We’ve slowly but surely become bigger all this time, and we’ve been working for it by ourselves all these years. But it’s been a rollercoaster with a few other funfair rides thrown in, so sometimes some things have really hurled everything upside down and to the wrong direction but it’s all been a learning experience. So in a sense many of our dreams have come true and then we’ve had to come up with new things to dream about.

Interviewer: So how much can a band actually plan their career ahead? Can you decide early on that on this and this album we’re going to do something specific?
Marko: Yes you can and in my opinion it should be done, or it’s a good thing to do it. You never really have to do anything, but sometimes it’s a good thing and worth it and you can do things. But I think it’s a good thing to plan ahead, to understand what you’d like to happen and what you could do to get there. And then you assess if it’s doable, and how successful it’s likely going to be.

Marko talks to audience after Lift:
Marko: Hey Provinssi!
Marko makes audience sing.
Marko: Thank you very much for coming here everybody, we've had a great time. Did you have fun?!
Audience screams.
Marko: Brilliant! And hey, remember to take care of yourselves, so you can take care of each other! Right?
Audience screams.
Marko: Ok! Thanks, and have a great evening!

Thank you so much for saving all these articles and interviews for us. Especially thank you Dark Side of Light for always translating them. It's a pleasure to read this stuff.

As always: thank you much for your translation DSoL.
Can't wait to download that huge file later.

Lol thanks. And... I edited a bit, so read again.
(New, added stuff.)

DSoL, you should know we owe you so much...

Eh, come on now. None of you owe me anything. Just makes me happy that people like to read these.

WOW! DSOL! You are the master of translation! I LOVE IT! You have no idea what it means to those of us who don't speak Finnish, to read about our favorite band and singer, in English and get the gist of what they are saying! The translations seem so perfect to me, it's very special. And razor is correct, we do owe you so much!

And to comment on the column, Marko Saaresto – Spice up your life with mistakes: It reads like a narrative poem. That's how I read it anyway. I really enjoyed reading that the most . It actually reminds me of another narrative poem that I love very much .

An oldie from 2008 (thanks to serinde and her list... it's been somewhere on the back of my mind all this time but I haven't gotten around to continue with the older interviews).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax3vU0FOGSU

In part one

Male interviewer: Marko from Poets of the Fall, how are you feeling right now?
Marko: I’m feeling quite strange. I haven’t really slept a lot lately, so… what I say may turn out weird. But it doesn’t matter.
Male interviewer: Let’s hope it doesn’t.
Marko: Yeah.

Female interviewer: Hey, Poets of the Fall has been a huge success, you’ve sold platinum, you’ve toured a lot, you’ve won awards. I have no experience of what that kind of a thing is like, so can you tell me how does it feel to be a success?
Marko: It feels really good. It’s one of those things that you sometimes stop to think for a moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0BoATBpin4

In part two

Marko: You get these strange moments, like flashbacks, like “I’m in Hamburg, what am I doing here?” And then you start to think about how you’ve done all the work by yourself to get to where you are. And you’re here now and the club is full of people.” That’s when you feel like you’re hallucinating, and you just feel how cool it all is.

Male interviewer: I read that the band went to India and apparently the treatment you got there was somewhat royal. How does it feel like when people treat you like you’re something huge?
Marko: It was… you know… for someone who’s not used to it, it was… When you’re the kind of guy who doesn’t mind taking care of himself, who is quite happy with having to wash his own dishes and so on, basically someone who has his feet on the ground pretty well, like everyone in the band is… And Finns in general aren’t used to anyone serving or pampering them at all times. And over there it happens all the time.

Like we asked if we could have some plastic trash bags so that we can clear up our rooms from all the pizza boxes that had piled up. But instead, 11 guys just walk in and start cleaning up our rooms. They don’t bring any trash bags, they just take the boxes out of the room. And they were Sikh with turbans on their heads, and we were like… Almost panicking when they all came in.

And then there was like… we asked if we could wash our clothes somewhere. And this guy came over and was ready to start washing them for us! At that point we started to try and tone it all down a bit, like “hey, hey, it would be enough if you just bring some washing powder, we can wash our own laundry”. You know, if we have to. So it’s really freaky that some guy just comes in, like “I’ll wash your boxers”. You know, like… “Oh no you won’t!”

I understand now what you meant on Twitter about this being too lol not to translate. Funny one. Thank you so much.

Thanks for the find once again, serinde!

Metrolive July 10th 2012
http://metrolive.fi/videot/video/9275/poets-of-the-fall-laulaja-intiimina-tykkaan/

Interviewer: You’re looking a bit scary, you look like The Joker now, after your gig. How are you feeling right now?
Marko: After a gig I always feel pretty good, like right now too, just great. We had a really quick show, we didn’t have a lot of time for it. But it’s great fun, you get to give all you can right away, all that which you would normally give during an hour, and hour and a half.
Interviewer: Aren’t huge shows already a tradition already? Cos you were just a while ago in Moscow and…
Marko: Yes, we’ve done pretty big concerts already over the years. They’re always fun. It’s great for me to see when many people have come to see you, that they’re interested. It’s fun to look at people eye to eye from the stage and see who’s singing along and who’s having a good vibe.

Interviewer: Isn’t it a lot calmer here in Finland? I mean, did you have some kind of a riot case somewhere abroad?
Marko: Pardon?
Interviewer: Didn’t you have some kind of a riot case somewhere…
Marko: No, we haven’t really…
Interviewer: No, it was the security guards!
Marko: Yeah, security guards. We always have them there, and it’s good so that we can get around in peace and so. But it’s kind of upsetting to have an armada of them around you, everyone wearing suits and with a button in their ear. It’s kind of funny, when you’re not used to that kind of stuff.

Interviewer: You had some tiny fans asking for autographs just now. I imagine they’re not exactly the major target group for you?
Marko: Let’s just say that every fan is in the target group. Music is such a personal experience that it doesn’t matter what age you are or where you come from or anything. So if you like the thing, the music, then you are in the target group.

Interviewer: What are your plans for the summer?
Marko: I don’t know what I could tell of my personal plans… I get to have a bit of a holiday this summer, luckily, it’s always fun. With the band, it’s pretty much all about waiting to see what goes on outside Finland for us and we’ll do promotion and during the autumn we’ll have a lot of gigs coming up and so.

Marko: Let’s just say that every fan is in the target group. Music is such a personal experience that it doesn’t matter what age you are or where you come from or anything. So if you like the thing, the music, then you are in the target group.




As usual: kiitos paljon DSoL

Thanks again DSOL! Love reading these interviews!

Where do you get your fabulous list serenade? You always find awesome stuff!

Hehe.....I love when there is supposed to be a "target" group....never paid attention to that stuff

@Snow I just went through all the interviews ever posted, linked, saved etc and checked which weren't translated yet - in other words I was gravedigging here a little

Wow! That's awesome @serinde! You are so good at finding awesome stuff!

Okay, I just finished going through this whole thread, reading all those articles and such. I really have to thank you for finding, recording, translating all those stuff. You're all simply great!

I just found an old interview from 2008 that apparently was not posted (on this site anyway) until May this year. I don't know if it is in this thread already, but I'm faily sure I have not read it before. If it was posted here already I apologize. Nothing new for most, but a nice read: http://blackwaterproject.net/?p=61

Thanks for posting it,redbossfan!! It surely was one of the nice ones.It's great to see that even their past interviews can catch your attention after such long time ..and yeah,it was posted here back on page 17!