Interviews

How do you feel about the gig today?

I'm not in top form,'cause I've been a bit sick - a pretty bad summer flu that just keeps coming and going. So my voice is not at its best. But in general the mood was pretty good, especially towards the end. I just gotta try to relax, and it's going to be all right!

So this was your second festival gig this summer?

We already had three club gigs in May, there should have been five but we had to cancel a couple of them. Last week we played at Myötätuulirock in Vantaa. Now for midsummer we are here, and tomorrow we'll be in Joensuu.

Which one did you like better, Myötätuuli- or Nummirock?

I don't really know. Myötätuulirock was a new and exciting while this place here is familiar to us. Guess I liked the former better, but this one here isn't bad at all either! It just sucks that I've been sick these past few weeks. I mean, there would have been time for it all winter, but of course the flu had to hit me right at the start of the tour!

By the way, congratulations on your #1 hit!

Yeah, strange - after twenty years!

How does it feel?

Weird, but quite good!

Whose idea was it to do a cover version of Blue Öyster Cult's "Veteran Of The Psychic Wars" as the B-track of the single?

We've been playing it at our live shows for at least two or three years. It's been a favorite song to almost all of us, so we had the idea of playing it at our gigs. Tommi's timbre is similar to Eric Bloom's, so he could sing the song, and in time we thought, why not make a recording of it. One thing simply lead to another.

Tommi Salmela has been doing backing vocals and samples for a long time. Why has he only now been made an official member of the band and started to share the lead vocal duties?

That was just a question of time, too. Things developed in a way that I figured I don't have to be up front all the time. In Nightwish I sing lyrics that have been written by another person, and I realized that the songs I write could also be sung by someone else. Tommi has been singing the backing vocals at our gigs for at least ten years and the time just seemed right for it. Perhaps it would have been right earlier already...

Do you enjoy having more freedom on stage by not having to stick to the microphone all the time? 

I haven't been looking at it this way, but sure, when Tommi is singing I am more free to move around. But the thing is actually more that I find myself having to rethink my role on stage.

To quote Metallica, is this string of summer festivals an "escape from the studio" for you?

No, we haven't been that active in the studio yet. Basically we're about to record the demo material for the new album, and then we'll have to see that we get the album done. In fact we've been getting ourselves into a bit of a hurry, as I've been rehearsing with Nightwish, which is also about to record new stuff... It's getting a bit difficult, as we meant to write new songs last winter but didn't get very far, so that was postponed to spring and summer, and now we've been busy every day...

Can you already tell us anything about the new material?

It is... heavy metal! (laughs) It's supposed to be quite tough. We're mostly continuing along the lines of the last album, Suffer Our Pleasures, but things might just get a bit rougher and darker.

You have also released remastered versions of your older albums recently. Do you see Tarot  as something of a "vintage classic", or is the best perhaps yet to come?

That's impossible to predict. I don't really think much about it. We're just a band that has played together for a long time, and we know each other very well. When we come up with new stuff, we play it and that's that. As for the "classic" aspect... it's rather amusing and a bit strange to realize that a song like "Wings Of Darkness" is already twenty years old - has it really been that long?!

As for this year's schedule, do you have any plans to play anywhere outside of Finland?

There are plans for that, but I can't say anything for certain yet. We'll have to get the album done first and have it released in Europe, so it won't be before Christmas. We're not trying to go there without having an album out.

How actively have you been marketing yourselves in other countries so far?

Not much really. But now we have a management and booking agency behind us that has plenty of international contacts and is able to do a lot for us. Their connections, credibility and authority in the scene really count a lot - these guys only need to call some promoter abroad to get us a gig there.

Your own name counts a lot as well these days, especially in countries like Germany...

I'm sure it does in a way, but I'm not consciously attempting to profit from it.

Are you in a way trying to avoid associations between Tarot and Nightwish, or is that irrelevant to you?

They're separate projects that represent different sides of me. If people want to compare the two, that's okay, but I wouldn't do it myself.

You've been a part of the Finnish metal scene from its humble beginnings, how do you view its development?

The development has been totally crazy. In the 1980s, there was a huge wall of skepticism - no-one believed that it was actually possible to play metal in Finland. People would listen to bands like Judas Priest, Accept, Deep Purple or Black Sabbath, but they couldn't imagine anyone in this country could do anything of sorts. There was plenty of prejudice, but we managed to prove it wrong when our first album was surprisingly successful as soon as it came out.

How would you characterize Tarot's role in  the scene today?

Today we are a drop in the ocean... (laughs) There's such a hell of a lot of good heavy bands. Even Stratovarius are already an old band! Well, actually they already started in the eighties, although they only had their breakthrough in the nineties.

Do you think it's easier for young bands today, now that there's a ready-made infrastructure available, or is it more difficult because of the greater competition?

Both. Of course it's easier now that there's an actual scene with record labels, connections and know-how in the field of international marketing. But a band still needs to be good. The more competition there is, the better they have to be if they want to be noticed.

Personally, you're quite actively involved in this scene, not only with your own bands but also helping out others...

I've done all sorts of studio work for different bands, like vocal production, backing vocals and the like. Amorphis' Eclipse was my first bigger production for a well-known band though. I worked as a vocal coach, and we went through all the songs, analyzing the passages and figuring out what worked well or needed to be changed. We did a pretty comprehensive job working out the songs' structures, lyrics, timing, melodies and so on. To me it was very rewarding, for already after the first two or three songs I was getting the feeling that this record could become a damn good one. We stuck to our thorough way of working until the end, and I must say that I still love to listen to it at home. It really is one hell of a great album!

Could you imagine working more often as a producer in the future?

Yes, most definitely! As soon as I can find the time! Now I first have to get the Nightwish and Tarot albums done and then perhaps some gigs, but if I'm available and there's a good offer... Of course in the cases so far, I had heard the demos and known the guys I was working with. If a foreign band, let's say Rhapsody, asked me, I would certainly be ready to do it, but I'd be much more careful in the beginning.

Thank you very much! Do you have any "last words" for our readers?

Well... Heavy Metal is best! And beer, of course...