During a recent interview on Brazil’s Ibagenscast, former NIGHTWISH bassist/vocalist Marko Hietala was asked if he would consider to participate in a reunion of the band’s original lineup, be it for a tour or new creative endeavors.
“Hmm, I would consider it,” he responded (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “But I think that the organization there would have to be looked very carefully into it and some of it would have to be dismantled. Because the business side and how the people there work, they are one of the big reasons why I left.”
“In all the bands that I’ve been [in], I found out that I’m probably the most kind of courageous person there is and therefore also I have the inner strength to be the most honest and most fair and the one who upholds the justice between the people and taking care of everyone most,” he continued. “And that is something that I saw, the last years, were lacking. So, these kind of things would have to be taken care of. But I mean, [NIGHTWISH] was a big part of my life and I always, always backed up the music that we did because I love to do music that is versatile and ambitious with a lot of all kinds of atmospheres of all the world, from sensitive and soft into the big and pounding metal and all that.
“So, musically, I have no regrets at all. I’m happy and proud to have been a part of it. But, yeah, the organizational situation and the attitudes and who talks to whom and about what, those are things that I would totally dismantle and make into a transparent situation.”
Marko left NIGHTWISH in January 2021 explaining in a statement that he hadn’t “been able to feel validated by this life for a quite a few years now.” He has since been replaced by bassist Jukka Koskinen (WINTERSUN), who made his live debut with NIGHTWISH in May 2021 at the band’s two interactive experiences.
Hietala also talked about the possibility of him ever reuniting with the band in a last year’s interview with Mexico’s MB Live, where he said: “I don’t really think so. I mean, the guys and the ladies, they weren’t really aware how deep my troubles [with depression] went. I did try to talk about them quite a lot, but also since I wasn’t totally aware.
“The only thing that I had was that I talked to my doctors and psychiatrists every now and then. And then we would try some different pill or a combo of these pills and all that. And they never just went all the way through. They would stop working at some point of time because, yeah, we were trying to medicate symptoms.”
Hietala also admitted to experiencing a significant degree of “pressure” during his tenure with NIGHTWISH.
“Yeah, about the business and the way, how it goes and the change of companies and daughter companies and all that,” he said. “And how it goes is that everybody’s looking to get a penny from your a*s. And it’s really boring. But then again, you kind of have to live with it if you’re gonna be doing this and recognize how much you have opportunities to influence and change things. And so far the copyrights and musicians rights and all that, they are not up to the level. And, of course, with these days of the heavy right-winger populist politics and all that, they’re not really caring about those, but they do care about them companies who can, again, a penny out of my a*s.”
