With the opportunity of the release of Tarot's new live album/DVD, "Undead Indeed", Solid Rock talked with Zachary Hietala about  the live album, Tarot's 25 years career, their plans for the future and of course, Nightwish...

 

Solid Rock : Second live album for Tarot, due to the celebration of 25 years of existence. The album has already been released in Finland and gone straight to No 1. Were you expecting this kind of success so soon for “Undead Indeed”?

Zachary Hietala : Surely not quite, expectations were high, but no.1 was something you cannot expect. It was just great!

Solid Rock : In what different versions will it be released? What “goodies” should fans expect?

Zachary Hietala : It was clear in the first place that Finnish version includes extra DVD and that Nuclear Blast wanted just the live DVD for European markets. One of the main reasons for that is the fact that  we are known outside Finland mainly of our two latest albums and extra material from early years can be possible for nothing there, who knows? Surely a lots of fans have ordered the Finnish version on line, so they who have been following us all the way knows where to get it.

Solid Rock : I don’t have to mention that the comparison with Nightwish is unavoidable. Do you feel that Tarot didn’t have the attention that they deserved all this time? Do you feel that Nightwish has helped the fans, especially outside of Finland, to discover Tarot?

Zachary Hietala : We have accepted in a  way that we are not going to sell millions, but album after album selling has been better, so maybe after the next one we are going to hit the European charts? Marcos success with Nightwish has helped us a lot, but cannot underestimate the fact that many of our fans became Nightwish fans by us, so both bands are helping each other out, in my opinion.

Solid Rock : Should we expect a new album any time soon? Fans are getting “thirstier”, especially after the great success of “Crows Fly Black”.

Zachary Hietala : It will come, but I cannot tell when yet, it’s just too early to tell. Marco said last time we met that from the beginning of  next year he’s gonna stay here in our hometown we should start to put new ideas together. Me, Janne and Marco have a lot so far and since we have been composing all our material, it will be on it’s way to come out some day soon.

Solid Rock : Have you or Marco ever considered some kind of a “cooperation” with Nightwish? How does it sound as an idea to you? I’m sure that fans would welcome it with great excitement.

Zachary Hietala : Emppu did the split solo with me on Traitor, but I think we have so different styles. It’s not a very good idea to start doing songs together. In Nightwish Tuomas do the composing and demoing almost by himself and in our band we three are doing everything together. Actually there’s some bits and pieces Marco brought to the Century Child album, which were composed by us, but never get them worked properly in our material, so Marco tested them with Tuomas and they got great songs out of those ideas.

Solid Rock : Will we have the joy of watching you perform in Greece? I think it’s about time, after all these years.

Zachary Hietala : Hopefully yes, we haven’t played in  your beautiful country yet, so maybe the next album opens the doors to get some gigs there.

Solid Rock : Do you have some message for the Greek fans and the readers of Solid Rock?

Zachary Hietala : Keep up the metal!

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