Poets of the Fall – Echoes of the Carnival, Anniversary Tour 2026, Interview

Following the announcement of Echoes of the Carnival Anniversary Tour 2026, and in anticipation of a certain singer’s birthday on December 5th, Misfit Heart had to pop her head out into the world again 🥰 and welcome Poets of the Fall back to Center Stage.

Hi Marko,
Long time no see!!! 😍

[Marko] Hi Claire, good to hear from you, hope you are doing well.

[Claire] I am doing very well thank you for asking 😅.

Happy Birthday Marko 🎂

As is tradition on Misfit Heart (although not really followed for the past 2 years) this interview was really meant to be published today on your birthday 🥳 therefore, Happy Birthday Marko 🎂! Today, Decembre, 5th, on this special day, we celebrate not only your Birthday but also Poets of the Fall day. Instigated by our friends overseas at A Poets of the Fall Street Team (USA, region),  the idea is that all around the world, we will play Poets of the Fall music all day long and share it and talk about it and with a little luck, get a few new fans onboard 😁. Even if I end up being the only one celebrating – and in honor of Susan B. who was behind the initiative from the start.

[Marko] Oh, wow, thank you so much, that’s very exciting.

Carnival by the Sea

[Claire] What made you decide to go on tour for Carnival of Rust 20th Anniversary? Is this a trend for the following albums as they enter… What is it, adulthood? at 20 years of age?

[Marko] We’ve had this idea for a while. Carnival of Rust means so much to us, so we’re lucky that going on tour with it’s anniversary fit everyone’s schedule. Tours and everything else we do seem to have a million moving parts, each with a will of their own, so it’s never given that something we plan actually comes through, so we consider ourselvers pretty lucky this was doable. To be open about it, it’s probably not possible to do the same with all our albums, but I like the way you think.

[Claire] You have announced only one date, during the Allas Sea Live in Helsinki on September 4th 2026, how do you decide if it is going to be a full tour or just a downsized one? Do you ever think that way when it comes to touring?

[Marko] Touring is a many-faceted beast. There are loads of different details to consider, from logistics to finance to personnel and more, and some of the moving parts you have no control over. It also comes down to how much time you have with everything else you have going on. One of many factors is also what’s happening in the environment you are operating in, what cities, venues etc. are available to you at any given time. So basically you decide to go on tour and then your wonderful team of professionals goes to work, and after much deliberation and grunting, the powers that be spit out an answer… 42… no, I mean, a tour comes together. 

Battleships burning off the shoulder of Orion

[Claire] Could there be more festivals, maybe outside Finland at some point? If so, where would you like to play?

[Marko] There could. We would love to play everywhere. But as you can read above, it’s not always that simple. These things are usually under negotiations all round the year. If we had limitless time and energy, it would be so interesting to get to visit places we haven’t seen yet, as well as return to the one’s we’ve already played, because going back is always a treat. I don’t really have any places in particular to name, because each place has its own kind of vibe, but I’d like to see the “battleships burning off the shoulder of Orion”.

[Claire] Your limit is the sky and beyond 🤭. I like that!

[Claire] About Echoes of the Carnival, a great title for a Blu-ray, wouldn’t you say… although we talked about this before, now I feel there is something more brewing alongside a new album (?)… so I am asking again. Since you will play an unreleased song from Carnival of Rust, it is a good excuse to make a new release of Carnival including this song, with maybe a special edition including the Blu-ray of Echoes of the Carnival. What do you think?

[Marko] As far as I know there hasn’t been any talk of a blu-ray from our HQ.

[Claire] 😭

Mental Versailles

[Claire] Self-served question as my heart belongs to two other beautiful cities aside from Helsinki… Will Paris and Copenhagen wander in the Echoes of the Carnival tour next year?

[Marko] Haha, sneaky. It’s, of course, classified information, but I appreciate the devotion. To be fair, I really can’t comment on upcoming shows until I can, says management.

[Claire] It is a lot of fun to get to see you guys play in many places. We see new cities, meet old friends and make new ones… you bring us together. We’re all connected through your music, that’s beautiful!

[Claire] Have you ever visited Copenhagen and Paris again? If so, what did you like best? Did you ever go back to Versailles?

[Marko] Both cities are absolutely superb. We’ve visited and played both many times. In Copenhagen we found a really nice pizzeria on a calm side street and the calzone I had was to die for. Paris, Montmartre, especially has a nice vibe to it. I like the numerous cafes, the plein air artists and the view over Paris from Sacre Coeur. And yes, Versailles, I’ve only ever visited it that one time, but it’s quite remarkable.

[Claire] Remarkable indeed. My friend and I went there a month or so ago… we wondered at how mind boggling the ways of your mind are 😉, and sang in the gardens.

About Hello Cabaret

[Claire] I am nothing if not stubborn 😂 so, what could I say to make you consider adding “Hello Cabaret” to the setlist at least once and preferably to a gig I will attend 😂?

[Marko] Hello Cabaret is definitely one of my personal favourites. I’m sure I’ve said this before, I really love that song, and would love to sing it live. It’s one of the rare ones we’ve never had the chance to play live yet. I think we’ll consider it, but no promises.

[Claire] You may have read the article I wrote about the song this weekend, where I mentioned the wolves and more particularly these two verses:

It’s a brand-new day of running with the wolves
It’s a brand-new day for running with the wolves

What can you tell us about these verses and what do wolves represent for you?

[Marko] I don’t often go into explaining the lyrics, since I’ve already distilled so much into the lines that it’s like opening a Pandora’s box to start analyzing them, but you’ve hit the gist of the matter here, so I’ll try it this one time.
The “of running with the wolves” line has this sense of having already run, you’re in it, the choice is gone, the paws are already pounding the earth beside you. Do you regret or do you rejoice? Meanwhile, “for running with the wolves” hints at the choice still ahead, that moment of deciding whether you’re going to slip into the trees and join the pack or stay safely on the path. And of course, wolves carry all that delicious imagery of the feral, instinctual, slightly uncaring side of the human id, the part of us, and society, that can be wild, sharp-edged, and not always polite about our attitudes toward others. But then again, it can just as easily be about freedom, the belonging, the running wild, the sense of being one’s true self alongside others who understand that same untamed spark. 

[Claire] What a treat! Thank you Marko.

[Claire] There is this moment in the song, when you let out these raw emotions, and this gets me every single time.
How do you manage to express what you feel that way and at the same time make it so incredibly relatable that we feel like we are in your shoes when you’re singing it?

[Marko] Nice one. As for that moment of raw emotion, all I really know is that, as a songwriter, it’s rewarding to try and convey feelings honestly enough that they find their way into someone else’s chest. If it ends up being relatable or puts you in my shoes for a second, I’m just glad it works. That’s the magic part, and I never take it for granted. 

[Claire] In our last interview, you said about Hello Cabaret:
” As a singer, one might add, that the song is written so that you “hover over your passagio” throughout the entire song in different vocal modes. I’m usually very light headed after singing it. That’s “I think I need a nap now” -kind of lightheadedness.”
Do you still feel the same way when singing this song? This would definitely need to end your setlist or close to it, right 😅?

[Marko] Truth be told, I haven’t sung it in a while, so I’m sure stepping back into it will be a fun little challenge. I still suspect it’s the sort of song that leaves you pleasantly lightheaded afterward, the “wow, that was a ride” kind of sensation. And yes, it’s definitely the type you’d place at the end of a set… or at least close enough that you can dramatically bow and then go hunt down a glass of water… if not Beaujolais.

[Claire] Such attention to details in everything you do… very nice.

Setlists

[Claire] Last time, you tweaked your setlists with a few songs for most of your concerts. I thought it was a cool idea, do you think you’ll renew the experiment? What are the challenges of having different setlists from one concert to the other?

[Marko] The challenges of having a changing set each night are many. There’s only so much time each night to play, which makes it tough nut to crack how to fit in all the songs we want to play and what’s usually expected of us to play. Sometimes the same time constraints don’t allow for a changing set, because changing just one song can end up changing the entire set. It’s certainly a fun idea to have changing songs in the set every night, because it keeps things fresh for us as well, but it can also be stressful and confusing and it does take a lot of preparation to have them ready to go, for just that one evening. It’s also not a bad idea to keep playing the same set, once it’s painstakingly rehearsed, since it’s then honed to a sheen, and it’s usually still a bit different from night to night, even though the basic structure is unchanging.

[Claire] You did it to some degree on the last tour which with your explanation above makes me even more appreciative of the work behind each gig. Amazing!

“What are Dreams if not Light to let you see the beauty of shadows”

[Claire] I would be remiss if I did not ask you about the upcoming new album. What genre will it be? What theme have you chosen or is it a free ride? Have you been freed as you expected from the trilogies? How did that spark your creativity?

[Marko] Well, for starters it’s really early days, but the magic is there. It’s really invigorating to once again be swept away by the currents of melody and harmony, charged by the voltage of words. This time around though we decided to just write the music and let it take us where it wants to go, instead of trying make it to conform to a preordainded mold, which can, of course, be a worthy cause too. I think that reflects the way we seek approach life in general, so… works for us.

[Misfit] One last from me for the road:

“What are Dreams if not Light to let you see the beauty of shadows”. I know what it means to me and represents in my heart, thank you for that, but I’d love to know: Where is this coming from? What does it mean to you?

[Marko] This is one of the themes we’ve been using as a guide throughout our years of writing music, and a kind of modus operandi. As it puts together the polar opposites and looks at them without judgment, dismantles the usual ideas about good and bad, right and wrong etc. it’s in your dreams, your actual dreams, as well as in your daydreams, where your fears and your wishes give you direction. Also just the fact that once you take note of the shape of shadows, you may come to see them differently. It can give you new perspective to be fully immersed in life.

[Claire]  Lovely notebook, by the way!

[Marko] Thanks, glad you like it. I have one as well. I’m glad we have one out that’s our own, since I’m always looking for a piece of paper to write on.

[Claire] Got two of them, one for English and one for French 🤭.

The power of lyrics and what inspires them

[Claire] I asked two of my readers if they had something to ask you and indeed they did.

Erika asked: Lyrics can be so powerful, has there been a song that you heard and immediately thought, “this is so incredibly beautiful!!”? If so, which song and why?

[Marko] Oh my, there have been so many. In my opinion lyrics can be intensely evocative and throw us from one reality to another in a heartbeat, and have us lapping at the pool of our emotions. I can think of many such songs, and not settle on any one in particular. Take for instance Sailing Ships by Whitesnake, to me this feels like a relatable story, I can literally see the shore and myself, or someone I can picture myself singing to, standing on the shore as if their life’s story is being told. There’s a great sense of potential and dreaminess and an entire world painted there in just a few words. there’s also a sense of love and belonging, of unity with others and the feeling of being a part of something greater. Together with the wonderful music of the song this becomes irresistible to me. Hope that makes sense.

Ana asked: What inspires your lyrics the most, personal experiences or rather the observation of others? And is it easier to write a song when you are struggling or when you are at your happiest in life?

[Marko] To me, the inspiration for writing lyrics comes from momentary snippets of life. Minute experiences or revelations, sometimes prompted by huge upheavals in my life. Other times it comes from something I read on a wall or heard through the wall. It’s like the static on a radio, an then you catch a wavelength that let’s something through, a line or a few words. Or it’s someone else’s shared experience that really impacts and sticks with me, and I cling on to that for dear life and ride it. It can come from anywhere and be almost anything. I find writing lyrics can be both exhilarating and a massive struggle.

[Claire] Thank you for your time Marko 😊
Have a fantastic day!

[Marko] Thank you!
You have a wonderful day as well.

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• Go get your Poets of the Fall Notebook here:  Official Poets of the Fall Shop
• Go get your tickets to Poets of the Fall Concert at Sea Live Helsinki, 04th September 2026