Home Featured MARKO ‘MARCO’ HIETALA Reflects On His Decision To Leave NIGHTWISH

MARKO ‘MARCO’ HIETALA Reflects On His Decision To Leave NIGHTWISH

why did marko leave nightwish, MARKO ‘MARCO’ HIETALA Reflects On His Decision To Leave NIGHTWISH

Former NIGHTWISH bassist/vocalist Marko “Marco” Hietala recently reflected on his decision to leave the band back in January 2021.

At the time, Marko said 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 He has since been replaced by bassist Jukka Koskinen of WINTERSUN.

Speaking with Finland’s Chaoszine, Hietala discussed how he eventually came to the realization that leaving NIGHTWISH was the right thing to do. Marko said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It was a long process. Of course, the COVID year that was there, where I had a lot of time for soul searching, it obviously gave me the last incentive that I need something else, that if I just continue with this I’m just gonna get sicker and sicker. But, of course, it’s a process.

“I’ve been chronic depressive since 2010 [or] 2011, so I’ve been on a permanent medication ever since,” he revealed. “Sometimes you get used to the meds [and] you will need more. We did raise [the dosage] during the years also, but it just didn’t work. And now that I started to do… I had psychotherapy for over four years now, and then I also talked to psychiatrists and some doctors and did that also in Spain. Then my psychiatrist here in Finland said that I should do these ADHD neuropsychological tests, which I then did in Spain. And, okay, I got it.”

Hietala did make note that he “had been thinking about” leaving NIGHTWISH “for a while” before making his eventual decision. “Because I had a lot of weight. And I tend to… With the attention disorder, it tells me that when there are lots of trouble, then the disorder makes it into a real chaos,” he explained. “There’s a shitload of stuff coming and going and no peace anywhere. And for a year or two, I was already waking up every night at three o’clock to bad dreams and anxiety. So I’d say that the whole process probably started already with my former divorce [in 2016]. That was a very sad time when you think about your kids and your broken homes and all that. And then, when I started to get clear from that, then there were, well, all kinds of things. I don’t really wanna go any deeper to what kind of things I’d gone through, but I’d gone through enough.”

Marko also denied that his mental state at the time resulted in a diminished role for him on the band’s latest studio album, 2020’s “Human. :II: Nature.” “I think the original idea was to have that… we’ll do a couple of [solo vocal appearances], or one solo for me and Troy [Donockley], and the rest Floor [Jansen], and then the harmonies; that was the idea originally for that,” he said. “So I don’t know if it affected. I think it was sort of as planned. But at that time I already had serious trouble with concentrating and serious trouble with a constant black cloud over my head.”

Hietala revealed to Finland’s Iltalehti that he has not kept in touch with his former NIGHTWISH bandmates since his departure.