Lisa wrote:
Radio Nova Wednesday March 21st 2012
Host 1: Nnn… nnn… It’s 8 minutes past 8 o’clock and today is the when Poets Of The Fall’s Temple of Thought is released. And from that album the song Cradled in Love has been playing on our station a lot. Today we’ll also play some other song but first… Marko from Poets Of The Fall. Good morning and welcome.
Marko: Good morning.
Host 1: Was this a little… didn’t go quite smoothly, this whole thing.
Laughter.
Marko: We’re all still all sleepy in the morning. Just wait a moment, I’ll just have the whole thermos bottle of black coffee and then we can chat.
Host 2: Marko, you were… We were just counting, it must have been early February when you visited last and that’s when Cradled in Love was released and started playing on the radio. Now it’s the end of March and now the whole album full of music has come out and will be in shops today. So what has been going on in between? Ari [the other host] noticed that you’ve lost weight [Marko laughs], so it must have been a tough time this last one and half months.
Host 1: Terrible stress.
Marko: Yeah, terrible stress over creating the album. It always happens at the end of the process, yeah. For us the last minute panic is a lovely red whip which flogs us so that pretty much every one of us forgets to even eat at that point. For me to keep check on what I eat has been a personal choice. But yes, a lot of things happen after the first single comes out. Did we even… we even recorded some vocals and guitars in a frantic pace while wondering if we’ll even finish the album on time.
Host 2: What is the deadline? If you know the album has to come out on March 21st…
Marko: So on February 29th it’s out of our hands.
Host 2: This is exactly what I meant. After that your part of the work is over.
Marko: So that there’s time for…
Host 2: You can’t add anything to it anymore. Like, excuse me, I’d like to…
Marko: Yes, it’s… exactly. On February 29th it went to print so by that time you have to have the booklet done and videos and merchandise and the finishing touches, the mixes and all… Captain has done a crazy night and day production work boost at the end so that he can check every single thing. We’ve gone through the songs and commented on them and fixed them up and commented and fixed them up.
Host 2: And after that you went to a vacation.
Marko: I went to the airport, slammed my credit card on the counter and told them to send me somewhere please.
Host 2: And they sent you to Paris.
Marko: They sent me to Paris.
Host 1: Where can you get cards like that?
Marko: From the bank, good man!
Laughter.
Host 1: But you need to have some credit to get one…
Marko: Oh yes, there’s that… I put it on the credit card, we’ll see who ends up paying it.
Laughter.
Host 2: Now let’s see if…
Marko: The artist pays. [It’s a famous punch line from an old Finnish comedy show Kummeli.]
Host 2: The artist always ends up with the bill, yeah… We checked out your website and since you originally got started from the world of video games, back in the day.
Marko: Yes, in a way, our first single was…that we got…
Host 2: A real breakthrough.
Marko: Yes, yes.
Host 2: In Max Payne game.
Marko: Two.
Host 2: Yeah. So, even now in the new American Nightmare, Alan Wake adventure, some of your music is in there and one song is on your album as well. Have you come to the conclusion that the game industry is a good way to…
Marko: It’s a very good way…
Host 2: To get your music out there.
Marko: …to distribute your music. And since we’re in the happy position to get that thing working so well right from the start, it has worked well again and again, the collaboration with the people who create these games. It’s a lot of fun. There’s the creating the game, thinking laughing about the story and tweaking it and it’s not only about “here’s some song”. We let them know when we’re working on the new album and they ask us to send them songs and they hear some kind of a half-finished version and they decide it fits and they take it and it’s ok with us. They just pick something and take it. But in some situations, like the new Alan Wake, they’ve been composed to fit the game and the story and how they work together. The lyrics are written to fit the story of the game and…
Host 1: Wow.
Marko: You find…
Host 1: I was just thinking about which way it goes.
Marko: Yeah.
Host 1: Interesting.
Marko: Yes, it goes both ways.
Host 1: You have music elsewhere too, in other games.
Marko: Yes, soundtrack music and rock and Poets Of The Fall music.
Host 1: Yeah.
Marko: But also like… it’s cool to be able to make music as a cameo or for other artists and people don’t know who wrote it. You just create music.
Host 2: So are you players yourselves? Do you play video games?
Marko: Yes, we play them.
Host 2: Since you’re so close to games.
Marko: I think I’m the last guy in the bunch to have discovered it, but once the graphics became so evolved that they’re cool also I, as an über-visual and demanding swine, was able to play and spend my time… and by God when I get started I can spend 2 months at it from morning ‘till night.
Host 1: It easily goes to that.
Marko: Yes, it becomes 24/7.
Host 1: Which games?
Marko: Anything with swords and magic.
Laughter.
Host 1: Swords and magic.
Host 2: Swords and magic.
Marko: All kinds of Oblivion and Fable and…
Host 1: Bombs of smoke.
Marko: There has to be wizards.
Host 2: Every time you’ve visited before, we’ve gotten into talking about your popularity outside of Finland. And with your really fine website, there are all kinds of stories in Finnish, English and German. I made this observation when I visited and read some things and in the Finnish version the description of the beginning of the band was very short in the Finnish version and the English version for example is so much longer with details about you putting everything at stake and moving into your parents’ basement.
Marko: I really did.
Laughter.
Marko: And that’s where I played video games 24/7.
Host 2: But you’ve presented it as this “American Dream” type of a story… is there a reason that in Finnish…
Marko: I can’t tell it? In my mother tongue it comes too close, can’t tell it in Finnish.
Laughter.
Host 1: This is how it came and that is how it went.
Host 2: Or somehow… I was thinking if there’s something…
Marko: The profoundly Finnish way…
Host 2: …like this is how things are done in Finland. It’s nothing special, every band starts from a garage.
Marko: No, the real reason I think there’s more text in English is because we first write them up in English. Out main language… when you think that you have fans from a hundred different countries, English is the first language on our website. Everything is first produced in English and then translated into Finnish and German.
Host 1: Yeah.
Marko: And well…
Host 2: The basement is left out from the translation.
Marko: Yeah, the translation…
Host 1: It’s so difficult.
Marko: We have a really brilliant person who translates them into German. None of us really know German well enough to do it, so we don’t have to take care of it. And when we have to translate it into Finnish, we just get lazy.
Laughter.
Host 2: Such an excruciating explanation…
Marko: Isn’t it?
Host 2: I was already deep in the Finnish mentality and soul scape…
Host 1: All the gaming takes up your time.
Marko: And Finns are very good at English and they read it from the English site anyway, so…
Host 2: I would urge you to do anyway, because it’s much more interesting as a story.
Host 1: We’ve been talking about dangerous childhood this morning and about how children are over-protected these days. How about your childhood? Did you do anything stupid?
Marko: Every day.
Host 1: Mmm.
Marko: Mmm.
Host 2: You’ve been allowed to fall from the tree and carve with a knife and…
Marko: Oh yes, I could do a Lethal 3 and tell what this scar came from and that scar… There are plenty of them to be had. I’ve jumped off cliffs after climbing them up, you know, like “Shall we jump? Yes, let’s jump!”.
Laughter.
Marko: You know. And we did like… we had an Indian [Original Americans] war going on with real spears, we threw sharpened spears at each other. I once got a really good shot to my eye. My best friend threw the spear straight at my eye. I can still see very well.
Laughter.
Host 2: But you wouldn’t have a memory like this without…
Marko: A cherished memory.
Host 1: Hello to you too. But luckily you still have your both eyes intact.
Laughter.
Host 2: We’re going to listen to some Temple of Thought now… So what do you say to Kamikaze Love?
Marko: Alright, let’s listen.
Host 2: Because apparently it’s going to be a single in Germany.
Marko: Yes, it is.
Host 2: Who decides these things?
Host 1: Kamikaze… which track is it? Number 4?
Marko: Number 4.
Host 2: Yes. Who decides in which order and in which country the singles are coming out?
Marko: It’s like… We make suggestions and then we have people in different countries that we collaborate with and they have a good sense of their own territory, the tastes in music and so on and we decide together.
Host 1: Mmm.
Host 2: But when it comes to Finland, you haven’t yet decided on the second single, the one that will follow Cradled in Love.
Marko: I don’t think we have it decided for sure. We’ll see.
Host 1: This could be a good hint.
Marko: This could be.
Host 2: The album is in the shops, Temple of Thought by Poets Of The Fall. Thank you Marko for visiting.
Marko: Thank you.
Radio spoof.
Kamikaze Love.