TIMO TOLKKI: Gives his thoughts on initial responses to Saana

TIMO TOLKKI has issued the following update on his officiel Myspace blog:

"After I wrote the story over 2 years ago, I knew immediately that it would be a story that would divide people. I have followed a few the disputes, and God knows what that has been happening in the past month, with a certain sense of disbelief and after that with detachment. I happened to come across a review, although I haven’t sent any press copies or MP3’s, that was done by some 20 year old black metal guy:) You can guess what he wrote about Saana. For some strange (insert a touch of irony here) reason he forgot to mention anything about the actual story of Saana. That story includes virtues such as love, respect, tolerance, empathy and kindness that I believe are largely forgotten in todays world. And in record reviews it seems (or maybe because it was downloaded from torrents) Indeed many people are laughing to these values. I think it shows something about how far we have gone and how violent the present circumstances are.

At this point of my life and career I do not care about what people write or say about my music neither I care about praising or idolizing. Still you would not believe how much hate mail I receive daily :) I have often thought why that is the case? I mostly write about peace and love and I receive so much hate. That cannot be a coincidence. I have been blamed of lot of things lately, like leaking my own songs to the net (and of course the people who accuse me dont accuse the person(s) who easily can falsify for example MP3 metadata), threatening to sue my fans because they badmouth me (some guy registered to a forum and claimed to be my publicist and that I will sue the fans who badmouth me and my music), writing a rock opera that is not rock opera (I call it classical rock opera but I leave the debate gladly to those who need it), that I have deliberately made Saana sound "bad" and quickly (it took a year of my life and cost me a 100 000€ that I paid back to Frontiers and same amount with production costs), the "whole thing" has been some publicity thing with Frontiers etc. Some people think that I agree with these people simply because I refuse to comment the rumours. It seems to piss them off because all they actually want to do is to fight. It’s hard to fight with someone who refuses to fight. I don’t usually comment the nonsense that is written about me because I don’t want to have anything to do with evil, but I decided to write a few words to my fans that might be confused.

These are all so absurd accusations to me and I am accustomed that I receive a lot of bad stuff, but with this album its been the worst. You know what it tells me? It tells me that I have done something really important. And that this album is for sure not for everyone. I would say this album is for the people who still have a heart. And there are many still, thank God.

And to close this I can gladly tell you that you people have downloaded Saana during 8 days 9253 times which grosses 112,354.56 US. I cannot say how much this means to me and the message that I am spreading with Saana. Large portion of the money Saana generates will go to a Foundation I will establish later this year that will be dealing with spiritual and environmental issues of our times. It seems there are lots of Warriors of Light out there and you are needed in these dark times. We will keep in touch. Thank you.

Yours, Timo"

You can buy Saana -Warrior Of Light at www.timotolkki.com