There was an four-page interview of Poets of the Fall in a finnish magazine Suosikki. Since I was bored, wanted to put my english skill for a test, and am really without any life, I decided to translate it for the non-finnish speaking people. It's not perfect english, nor an perfect translation, and I'm sure someone could had done it a lot better... but still, I hope it gives something to someone.
So here are Olli and Marko answering to questions that were sent to them by fans/readers.
And here are the pages
1,
2,
3,
4
(Thanks to Johanna for scanning
)
In the protection of Paperinik/Duck Avenger:
Poets of the fall[/size]
Marko, could you give me an advice on how getting my english grades up?
Marko: The most important thing is motivation. If you don't have the motivation to study on classes, a good way is to move, for example, to England, where you have to use the language. In case you don't want to, or you just ain't old enough, to move abroad, you can also
gather information of an subject that is interesting you in english. And little by little the words and the grammar will stick to your head, while you browse the texts with an dictionary.
It's also great, if you have friends whose motherlanguage is something, that makes it more practical to use english with them. Then you learn the language by accident.
Olli: You don't need to have an excellent skill in languages or for example an tremendous musical giftedness to reach a certain level of capability. But to go above that certain level accuires a "natural talent", but you can get really far with just hard work.
How do you spoil yourselfs?
Marko: with candies, coke, pizza and movies, plus the kind of free-time when you don't have to answer your phone
What is the worst sin you have done in your home?
Olli: A couple of things came to my mind, but they are too "dirty" for me to tell them. But there was this one time I was vacuuning, and I broke the light screen of my father's electronic organ, when the organ chair fell on it. I then told that it was the dog that made the chair fall.
Marko: I have done almost exactly the same thing in my friend's house. I managed to crash down two bookshells with all kind of valuables. We too blamed the dogs for this.
What do you think is the best and the worst of your songs?
Marko: Our worst song is Carnival of Rust... well no! I better not say anything, someone will anyway miss the joke. It's impossible to say anything to that. We have no bad songs and it's impossible to say the best one, since they are all so good!
What things do you do in the tourbus?
Marko: We stare at the landscapes going by, play instruments, tell all kinds of stories and purpseless trivia.
Olli: Sometimes we watch movies or play. We sleep pretty much also.
Do you prepare yourself before a gig, and how?
Marko: Warming-up the voice is a must. There is no way of going to the stage without that. Sometimes it takes an hour, sometimes five minutes. Depends on how my voice is that day.
Olli: If it's possible, I go to take a sauna before the gig. It relaxes you a lot. Nevertheless, I take it easy for the two hours before a gig.
What has been the most extreme happening in a gig?
Marko: Few times I have accidentally thrown the microphone at a fans head. Once I slipped over so that as I fell, I kicked a fan in front of the stage to shoulder.
Olli: On our first gig, I jumped in the air and my hit my head on the hot lamp above that then went broken.
The most scary thing though, must had been once we in this one gig didn't notice that there was extra structions added to the stage. In between the stage and the structions there was a hole where Marko fell in the middle of the gig!
Marko: For a second I wondered, if this was it now. But there wasn't a note missed of my singing even though of the fall. I pulled it through the gig with honour, although I was bleeding.
I have been a fan of your band since I was 7, and now I'm 10 years old. I wanted to ask,
how is it possible that your band is so wonderful, and how can I go shopping to Tampere with Marko? That would
be the sweetest moment of my life.
Marko: They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you think we are wonderful,perhaps it is because you yourself have such an beautiful soul. Oh, and shopping to Tampere, heh. Well, when you get older you should go and work in some great clothing store, so I can
come shopping there once we have a gig in Tampere!
Poets of the fall, if you would sing in finnish, would your band be called Syksyn runoilijat ((Poets of the fall, and the 'fall' meaning autumn))?
Marko: No, because there are other meanings to the name Poets of the Fall. The question is more about the poetry of dying. About how our time here is short and there are so many trials/misfortunes in life.
Although all of us die, break down and fall, let's do that as well, beautiful and with honour as we can.
Olli: As a finnish name, we have been using
Putouksen Pajatsoa (Payazzo of the fall)
If you'd have to be a woman for a day, who would you be and why?
Marko: What's for sure, is that I wouldn't want to be any woman that was giving birth that day.
Olli: That's a very difficult question. I can't really say anything to that. What first comes to my mind, is that if I transfered into a woman, I would have to look at her boyfriends.
Where have you come up with the ideas to your marvellous music videos?
Marko: They have born in collaboration with me and the director. First we go through ideas together, from which the director writes a script that we then improve together 'till it feels right. With Carnival of Rust and Lift the first scripts were already so good that you just started waiting for the moment to get to the actual shootings. With LutS, we did probably like 11 different versions of the script, before it found it's right form.
Our three latest videos have been done by Stobe aka Tuomas Harju.
As a child, what did you want to become when you grew up?
Marko: At some point I wanted to be Robin Hood. After that I wished to be Peter Pan, since he could fly. Later on I wanted to be a ninja! At some point, I decided that I would after all become either a sprinter or speed skater.
Olli: Compared to Marko, I clearly had boring dreams. My father is an engineer of his profession, and at some point I also wanted to be an engineer. I must had thought that it was so much fun that dad got home already at five and could spent so much time with me because of that.
And that was enough to make me want to become an engineer. At some point of primary school I wanted to become an economist. Even at the second grade of highschool I was going to go to university or to maritime education. At the end of highschool I suddenly realized that I wanted to do this music thing. After that, my dreams haven't changed anymore.
Marko: At some point I also started to hope that I would become a rockstar. At that point the dream was more in the stardom part itself. Nowadays I'm not interested of the stardom itself, but of the music.
What's you favourite character in Donald Duck?
Marko: Paperinik/Duck Avenger!
Olli: Same here! It was so cool when it finally came clear that Donald, who normally is just the world's most average guy, is still a superhero every now and then.
Marko: Normally Donald is a loser, that doesn't succeed in anything, but once he is Paperinik,he can do anything! The reader can sigh in relievement there. And I still really like how the Paperinik's are drawn: at a deep blue sky only a thin, yellow crescent and the nightly Duckburg, where Paperinik is jumping with his spring boots!
Do you have nicknames?
Marko: I have always been just Marko. Olli has been called
Taivaan lahja (Gift from Heaven's). Captain we call Kapu or Käpy (cone)
Olli: In comrehensive school there was three Olli's in the same class, so we each had to have our own nicknames. I was called Tuksu for a long time, which was an variation of my last name. In the end there was million variations of it, like Tukari, Truksu and Trukadi.
How does it feel like to be the favourite band of middle-aged women?
Olli: Heh, there is a bit of an attitude in the question, coming through the lines... Honestly though, I wouldn't have believed that our music could touch such an vast age distribution. It's wonderful that people like our music and we don't want to value our listener with what their age is. We just find it so great that we are meaningful for so many, different
people.
Marko: It has been also fun to notice that our music works only not over generation boundaries, but over culture limits as well. As funny as it sounds, one of the first countries to even publice our album was South-Africa! In Europe we have been playing in many places, and there has also been fans contacting us from, for example, China, India and Australia. So I have a strong hunch that our music also works among other people than just middle-aged women.
Marko, do you ever sing Il Divo in shower? (your singing teacher wonders where you have disappeared...)
Marko: That's pretty funny... I guess the one asking is the daughter of my singing teacher. But regards to that direction, and I am still planning on coming to singing lessons! I do sing in the shower, but not Il Divo! Because of the echos, shower is an excellent space for singing. Lately I have been mostly doing some "lip trill'. It's the hardes practise I've beed doing, and nowadays it's my favourite.
((I didn't know how to translate this, but I guess it's some lip trill where he does some "buzzing" sounds, or something))
Olli: I have heard you doing that many times in the tourbus also!
Marko: In the tourbus the both guitarists might play just one likki
(I don't know what this
is in english) 600 times in a row, so I can do a little "buzzing" there.
Olli: Yeah, you can buzz! It's pretty positive nevertheless.
Which ones do you prefer, cold or hot showers?
Olli: Hot, absolutely.
Marko: Same here. I once tried that hot-cold shower-combination, but it didn't work out at all!
Do you party a lot in your free-time?
Olli: I can honestly say that not at all!
Marko: When we practically have a gig every third day, and on a gig we are practically in the center of the party, that is quite enough.
What are you afraid of?
Marko: I once write to lyrics of a song about this. I'm afraid that dreams would lose their meaning.
If you could choose, which of these would you be for three days:
Tarja Halonen (president of Finland), Katja Ståhl (executive editor of the magazine) or Jone Nikula (a guy from music business, best known for being one of the judges in the finnish Idols)
Olli: I would be Tarja Halonen. I would enjoy of good service for three days and might even make a state visit to somewhere where it's warm, like to some rich arab-country.
Marko: In this job you have to so often be diplomatic with your answers, so I could be Jone Nikula and then I would shoot at least as direct comments as that guy normally does. Jone has reached the kind of an great position that he can say his opinion almost about/to anyone.
I'm sorry for the possible trillion million typos there. 
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