Two Witches

Jyrki Witch: Touring around the world and playing concerts. Seeing new places and meeting people. Making new music is no longer a personal obligation, songs are created if they are meant to be, and the interest in publishing them depends on how well I feel the song succeeds. The most important reason for the band to continue is to perform the songs at the concerts.

Two Witches is considered a pioneer of gothic music and has positively influenced the lives of many fans, does that make you proud?

JW: Pride is perhaps the wrong word, but of course we feel honored if people see us as pioneers. Personally I am humbly grateful that someone has noticed us and that someone has liked our music. It means a lot, if our fans come to tell us that they have been positively influenced by our songs, or us as characters, or our comments or other activities we have done.

When you look back, is there anything you wish you had done differently?

JW: In the early 90s, our German record company Talitha suggested us to move to Germany, but we hesitated and stayed in Finland. In hindsight, we should have definitely tried our luck then and moved to a bigger market. When we finally decided to move to Berlin at the beginning of the 2000s, we no longer had a German record company to support us and anyway the peak years of our popularity were already behind us, so we were about ten years late and wasted our opportunity.

How did it come about to found Two Witches?

JW: Anne and I met at the beginning of 1987 and discovered that we like the same kind of music. Unfortunately, at that moment, there wasn't any Finnish gothic rock band that we could be fans of and go to concerts with, so we had to find such a band ourselves. So, it all started with the idea that we wanted to be fans of a band. But maybe someday in the future we will have our own fans?

Did you ever think you would reach fans all over the world with your music?

JW: At the beginning, we didn't even think that we would ever get any fans or that our music would end up beyond our own rehearsal room. We were already in awe of the fact that we managed to create something like "music" at all.

Do you have the feeling that the gothic scene in Europe is getting older and older and in South America the fan scene is constantly renewing itself?

Marko Hautamäki: Kind of. There are new goth-ish things happening in Europe all the time as well, but it seems to me that the newcomers would rather be labeled as dark indie or simply alternative acts. Maybe the gothic scene is seen as a pigeonhole that new artists want to avoid. Why cater to a small, tightly specified group when you could appeal to a larger mass without changing anything? A lot of "dark" parties also cater to a wider audience with larger variety in the music selection as well. In a way it's a good thing but it also means the "pure" goth parties are getting rare.
Scenes naturally change over time as new influences and people enter. Within any scene, there are always tensions between those who wish to preserve it as it is, and those who embrace evolution. Both sides also have a point. In Europe, the scene is older and thus often leans towards preservation of how it was, or was at least perceived to be, in the past. The South American scene is younger and tends to embrace evolution more readily, which keeps it vibrant but may also lead to evolution in some direction you don't personally like. The gothic metal trend in the early 2000s illustrates this nicely. While it brought new people and also more attention to the scene, many felt it steered things in a direction that diluted the scene's essence. Evolution is inevitable but it might take the scene in directions that not everyone appreciates.

Miss Blueberry: We should figure out how to get new and younger people to events in Europe as well.



JW: That's also a bit of a delusion, maybe it's more that the polarization of favorite artists and goth events has happened between young and older people. Young people in Europe are not that interested in traditional goth events or get excited about old goth bands like The Mission or New Model Army and such, but they have their own scene and new favorites. Let's call it "post gothic" or "nu-goth" or "newest wave of goth" or something else. The older people of scene may not know or be very interested about these new bands like Cold Cave, Boy Harsher, She Past Away, Twin Tribes and the minimal electronic acts, but the young people go to their gigs and they also organize their own events. So, summa-summarum, there are also younger goths in the European scene, but youngsters and elders do not meet very often, because both of them are having their own favorites and events.

Are there any plans for the future?

MH: We have 20+ demos of new material, and we are slowly but surely starting to work on the next album. The specifics are all in the open still but something is happening for sure. Then of course hopefully plenty of gigs in exciting places with exciting people!

JW: The most important plan is to keep the band alive and the wheels rolling. If I could decide, we would do as many gigs around the world as possible. Unfortunately, it never gets to be decided by the bands themselves, it all depends on the fans and the interest of the local concert organizers.

MB: We are preparing a new album, but it will take its own time.

Do musicians or artists have a role model function?

JW: At least popular artists would have a chance to be role models. Unfortunately, only few use their own opportunity and some even misuse it. For example, I hate seeing any popular artists comment on, for example, racist, dictatorship-supporting or other stupid opinions, and then I always wish that they would have only focused on making art. Like, again for example, Morrissey is a bit difficult to understand these days. But on the other hand, popular artists could bring good things to the awareness of their fans.

MB: Certainly, in many ways, starting with such simple things as appearance, hairstyle and clothing. But also in deeper matters. I personally try to show, at least with my own example, that everyone can develop themselves into what they want, as long as they do it while respecting other people.

MH: Whether as a source of inspiration or as a cautionary example, inevitably yes. Anyone with a public enough image does, but to some extent so does anyone in our immediate surroundings. We are pretty simple flock animals in a lot of ways.

Vampires appear again and again in your songs, what makes this topic so fascinating?

MB: I have liked vampire stories and movies since I was a child. But nowadays the stories have of course acquired more and new meanings. It is multidimensional as a subject of songs, as well as a good subject in terms of story and interesting from the listener's point of view.

JW: In fact, I didn't write any vampire-themed lyrics between 1999 and 2019, but for some reason new fans often seemed to find those vampire songs first. It wasn't question about getting tired of the subject, but I started to feel that people only saw us as a one-trick wonder, and on the other hand, I'm interested in many other topics too, from politics to religions, from different cultures to sexual fetishes and love songs to our everyday problems, wishes and feelings. I finally got inspired again to write vampire-themed lyrics while writing my first novel (Unien valtiatar, 2019, released by a Finnish publisher Kuoriaiskirjat) which was a modern vampire story. I don't regret taking a 20-year hiatus from vampire songs, but in retrospect, maybe it affected a lot of people forgetting about us during that time.
All-in-all, vampires and vampirism is a very fascinating theme. You can be interested in the subject only as horror stories or romantic stories, or alternatively see it as sexual metaphors, or something else. Blood itself is already a metaphor for life as a whole and I think most of us would like to live forever as vampires could and the power of seduction sounds like a very useful feature.
The modern vampire literature and movies also present most of the vampires as beautiful, powerful and very sexual beings, some kind of superhumans of the dream world, and of course it is easy for many wish to be like such an image or at least admire it.



Christopher Lee or Bela Lugosi? / Do you have a favorite vampire film?

JW: Sir Christopher Lee. I consider him a better and more versatile actor, and more aristocratic in appearance and style. He also came to Finland as a volunteer soldier during the Winter War in WWII.
My favorite movies are too many to mention. I like both traditional Hammer Production era movies like The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire, Dracula 1972 AD, etc., and later big budget movies like Bram Stoker's Dracula or Interview with a Vampire. One movie that became a favorite in recent years was Only Lovers Left Alive.

MB: I don't have a favorite, I like different styles of vampire movies and my favorite varies according to my mood. But I could mention one film that brings a new perspective to the subject among many of my other favorites, this film is Let Me In (directed by Matt Reeves, based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist).

Do you regret the tour with Lacrimosa, since Anne left the band, or is it just part of the business?

JW: We've always been such a small band that it's hardly worth talking about any business in our case. Especially at that time, when we were just at the beginning of our career anyway. Anne and I are still friends, and all in all, I don't regret that tour any more than any other tour we have done these years. It helped us get new fans and we got to play bigger clubs than we could have done on our own those days. And one thing we all have to remember is that we were still quite young at the time and if you think about how many young couples stay together forever, it is very possible that it would have happened sooner or later. None of the other Two Witches members from the 1993 European tour play in the band anymore, except me, of course. The bassist and drummer left at the same time as Anne at the end of 1993, then Nauku and Toby left in 1998. Things, relationships and interests change more often when you're young.
I continued this band, Anne has her own and for the fans, that's only a good thing when there are two bands to follow.



Do you have an anecdote about Anne (or Lacrimosa)?

JW: A lot, of course. You have to remember that we lived together for seven years, but it's probably better for everyone that I just keep those things to myself.

Anything else you would like to share?

MB: I would like to send greetings to all our fans. Support the bands and go to the concerts, clubs and gothic events, because without your support this scene cannot survive.

JW: Hope to see you all someday somewhere. We would love to play more often in Latin America.

Bites and bloody kisses to everyone,
Jyrki Witch, Marko Hautamäki and Miss Blueberry

The interview was conducted by Michael.
The photos were provided by Two Witches for this interview.

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