Michael Night

Studio Journal A, Entry 2 🌌

The month of May ended on a high note for me… literally! Just minutes before midnight on the eve of May 31, I finished writing the music for “Album A,” and the song I completed felt like the record’s lead anthem.

This completed the first step of my preparation process for the album: creating the skeleton of the songs.

When I work on new music independently, the process always changes. Sometimes, I’ll follow the typical formula of:

1. Finishing the actual music and song structure (the skeleton of the song, which you can hum and play on the guitar, and people will know what it is).
2. Arranging the song (organizing all the instruments and effects around the “skeleton,” which give the song life).
3. Recording the live instruments (guitars and bass), and programming drums.
4. Writing the lyrics (perhaps the most challenging part for me, as it is almost fully an emotional, almost mystical experience every time).
5. Recording the vocals. Once this five-part process is complete, I send everything over to be mixed and mastered.

Sometimes, though, I will have a perfectly arranged section with arrangements, perfect recordings, and even lyrics… but only ten seconds’ worth. Given that this is the first time I have challenged myself to create an entire record independently, I needed more organization and clarity of mind, so I chose to strictly stick to the five-step process listed above and complete each step for all the songs before moving on to the next one.

I do not yet have any specific timelines for the final release because, if the past six years have taught me anything, it is that life can be ridiculously unpredictable. But I did have a deadline of completing the “first step” of preparing my album by June 1, and that deadline was met 🙂 This must be what it is when tiny goals are completed, and each one reinforces self-belief. We could all use some more of that, I feel.

Wishing you, the reader, a wonderful weekend, and thanking you for tagging along! Until we speak again 💙

Mike 🌑

📸: Alexander Kolbaya

Happy World Goth Day, everyone! 🖤🦇

I feel that many who had a goth or emo phase that was dismissed as “being dramatic,” and so on were actually navigating heightened emotional awareness, while unknowingly continuing to train the ability to observe, question, and feel things deeply. To notice tension in people, emptiness in relationships, contradictions in society, and to ponder our place in the world, where meaning is found, the nature of relationships, and more.

Considering how society does not really have a clear-cut and widely available system for young people to explore those things, it often felt like being lost in the woods. And the darker art, the black clothing, the music… most of it was something that spoke to that sense of being in the woods and feeling less alone in them.

Many of the emotionally intelligent, empathetic, creative adults I know today were once the kids everyone called “too sensitive,” “too emotional,” or “different.” But in retrospect, a lot of them were simply feeling and analyzing life on a deeper level than the people around them. After some deep inner work, they became the people others turn to when they need to feel understood, seen, or heard.

Maybe some of us never “grew out of it,” because there was nothing to grow out of. Just like the “ugly duckling” was actually a beautiful cygnet in a world that had simply never seen cygnets before, maybe the “phase” was actually us learning awareness and emotional intelligence in a world that instead often encourages escaping our depth, surface-level thinking, and pretending everything is fine. And maybe there is something quietly beautiful about people who never completely lost that depth.

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend. Here are some photos from what was probably the gothiest night of my life: supporting The 69 Eyes in St. Petersburg on Friday the 13th 🌌 The very first one is from Minsk on the same tour, and captured a moment when I was just very lost in the music. Sometimes, being a little lost isn’t so bad.

Mike

Venus and the Moon. Did anyone else see this beauty yesterday?

If you missed it, there will still be a lovely view tonight, in which the moon will move closer to Jupiter.

My dear ones, today is a very special day 🌌

Ten years ago today, on the birthday of my dear grandmother, who gifted me the black ring that I performed so many shows in, my first-ever EP was released on online music stores.

Echoes in the Dark remains to this day what it always was, and what its title represents: not a huge wave of action, not something revolutionary or groundbreaking, but an indicator that something, somewhere, was beginning to move.

Someone once told me that people begin to write and sing when the heart can no longer stay silent. My first steps in music were being taken in 2012, but by 2016, I had a much clearer vision of what I wanted to bring into the world, and I finally gained the confidence to begin performing as a rock artist. I was finally ready to let out ideas and lyrics that had previously remained buried inside me, like “echoes in the dark” waiting to be freed.

While EITD continued to be more of a search for “my sound” than an arrival at it, it nevertheless contains songs that became Nightster favorites during shows abroad, as well as tracks that lyrically capture the spirit of my project very well, including We Are Love and Love’s Afterglow. Despite the title, there was actually an innocence and lightness to the sound that still leaves an imprint on my newer music today.

I am deeply grateful for the decade of life that Echoes in the Dark began. I am grateful for the people it brought into my life, the adventures and growing up that we experienced together, the dreams that came true, the personal growth that was attained, and the Love that was found along the way.

Looking back now, those ten years feel almost as though they were placed there to give me the experiences necessary to someday write about a real, lived journey, and to gain the understanding needed for my songwriting and arranging to truly carry those experiences into the world.

Ten years after releasing my debut EP, I am now working on my debut full-length record, one that still carries noticeable traces of the sound of Echoes in the Dark, while also reflecting everything that was gained since then. I plan for it to be at least twice as long. You can read more about it in my previous post.

It also feels special to me that, on the ten-year anniversary of this record, there is a new moon. It feels like encouragement. Like a second chance. Like Something is acknowledging that these past ten years were for learning about music and about life, and reminding me that if there is a time to begin creating something new, that time is now.

To those who listened to Echoes in the Dark, what were your favorite songs? And would you like for me to tell you what each song was about?

And of course, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been on this journey for so many years. I truly hope that what is up ahead will strike a chord with you 💙

Mike

Studio Journal A, Entry 1 🌌

Hello everyone 😊

Some time ago, I asked you to choose whether you would like me to release some of the songs I have been working on since quarantine in a chronological manner, to use them as inspiration and simply begin anew, or to create one record from my favorite tracks and let the rest become entirely original music. And I have settled on a hybrid of the first and third options!

Most of my favorite and most complete songs came from the quarantine period that I spent abroad in Moscow. All these years, I had a name for the record that I wanted to turn those songs into, but for now, we will simply call it “Album A” 💙

It was my first experience truly trying to produce fully independently and spending all the time that I had in my apartment remembering all the artists who inspired me growing up, dissecting what they were doing, beginning to study cinematic music more deeply, truly deepening my Love for the magic of music, and using what I learned to try to find my own voice.

I am a self-taught musician who does absolutely everything by ear, and the songs and snippets from that period were the first independent steps that I took toward adding more structure to my songwriting.

I have been returning to the music from the period of “Album A” since this past winter, and I really locked in. Reading your replies only added fuel to that fire, and I realized that I was on the right path.

If the final mixed product sounds anything like the demos, I believe that fans of HIM, Linkin Park, Evanescence, Bring Me the Horizon, Spiritbox, and Sleep Token will find something in it to enjoy. So far, it feels more like a nu-metal record with influence from the Finnish gothic and alternative scene of the early 2000s.

The only song that you have heard that I am currently planning to include on the record is “Moonlight.” The rest have no lyrics yet, and two of the songs still need to be completed.

Overall, there is a lot of Love in this record, and that special sense of wonder and exploration when someone first tries to create magic without help. There is a raw beauty that sometimes comes with that. I truly hope that you feel it once it is out.

Mike 🌑

On May 5, 2006, I saw my favorite band at the time, HIM, for the first time at one of Atlanta’s awesome venues: The Tabernacle. HIM were touring in support of their fifth studio album, Dark Light.

The club honestly was perfect for the band. The backdrop they used then, along with the chandeliers and candles they brought on tour and had installed before performing, were merely the icing on a cake that was already in place: a historic 1911 church-turned-metal club, cobweb-covered statues of saints, stained glass windows, wallpaper decorated with towering vine-like ornaments, and an organ in the backdrop.

They had an awesome opening band, Aiden, whose live energy got every audience member truly pumped for the headliners.

Perhaps the most special part of all was that my mom came with me. We had just moved to Atlanta a few months earlier, and I didn’t really have any friends to go with yet. She enjoyed some of HIM’s music, saying that parts of it reminded her of what she grew up listening to. I must say, though, that her reaction to the goth kids going outside for a cigarette was hilarious.

I remember jumping for joy with her when Join Me in Death began playing. Ville Valo was honestly performing unlike any other night I’ve seen him, live or on video. He was screaming, headbanging, and moving with the rhythm, and for someone who was chain-smoking throughout the set, he seemed incredibly present.

At one point, they stopped the song Under the Rose, Ville quietly gesturing the band to play softer and softer. I read later that it was to help a man find his son. Three guys came up to us and started partying with us.

Driving home, I was more excited than I had been in years. I had only gotten into bands two years earlier, and this was the first time I had seen an artist I actively listened to. I already wanted to become a musician, but after that show, my mindset shifted into complete certainty, and my imagination spiraled.

10 years after that gig…
Ten years after that night, I sent my debut EP, Echoes in the Dark, to online stores for distribution. It ultimately became available on May 15 — my grandmother’s birthday. She was the one who gifted me the black ring I wore on all the big shows I played.

20 years after that gig, today…
I am working on my debut studio record. I got to tour with HIM on their farewell tour, and ultimately met my wife because of that. I also had the chance to thank Ville Valo and the band for their influence.

Although HIM’s influence is definitely present in my new music, fans of nu-metal and even symphonic metal will likely find something familiar in it. I loved both worlds growing up: the American nu-metal and post-grunge of the early 2000s, and the Finnish alternative bands.

The past ten years gave me the experience needed to create something I truly love, without feeling limited by inexperience.

Today is also the two-year anniversary of when I returned to the faith that I was raised in, after twenty years of music taking over me completely. And, perhaps most meaningful of all: it is also the 101st birthday of my great-grandmother Vera, whose name means “faith.”

I know I may be rushing a bit by writing this, and I am in no place to tell others how to live their lives. But please consider this: when something truly sets a fire in you, and you are genuine in your intention to work for it and take action, it will always be waiting for you.

Faith means knowing without having evidence. Sometimes, you just have to believe that your journey will lead to something beautiful, while not neglecting the present you have been given today.

I may or may not ever have major breakthroughs in my music life. But the absence of fear and overthinking is filling this music with a Love that I find hard to put into words. And I know that people need to see, hear, and feel what is created with Love.

Because, as some 25-year-old once wrote, Love will carry the darkness away.

— Mike

📸: Unfortunately, I no longer have any photos or videos from that concert. It was a different time, when we lived in the moment and were not fixated on our phones. I will instead attach photos of the Tabernacle. If anyone here happens to have taken these photos, please let me know in the comments, so that I could tag you.

Happy Halfway to Halloween, dear ones:) 🎃

🎃🦇👻🕸️

This year has been filled with very special memories from my life abroad, a time when big shows were happening, connections were being made, and everything was moving fast.

March this year fell on the same days of the week as March 2020, when my band and The 69 Eyes were on tour together. I got to relive each day and mentally thank it, and rather than becoming nostalgic or comparing what was to what is, I felt inspired to create again.

Exactly one week ago marked ten years since I first performed for a metal-loving audience. Some of you may remember that evening at Izvestia Hall with Eluveitie.

My guys and I were preparing to release my first EP, Echoes in the Dark, and we performed those songs live for the first time. I had only recently learned how to scream. I was so nervous, but also full of spirit.

The moment I stepped on stage, I felt as though I had found a long-lost family.

At that first show I was still green, and afterward I spent a lot of time analyzing how I moved and what I could have done differently. But that first cry, of both the soul and the vocal cords, in a place ready to receive it, is something truly special and unforgettable.

It became a beautiful full circle that my last big Moscow show was with The 69 Eyes in that very same hall.

Preparing to release that EP felt like taking the first breath of fresh air in a new life. Stepping on stage with the release on the horizon felt like saying “hello” to the world. No promises, no explanations, just “hello.” It felt pure, primal, and warm.

Ten years later, I feel that same energy again.

In this decade I’ve had so many incredible shows and learned so much, both about music and about life.

Right now I’m working on my debut full-length album, producing it myself and collaborating with a talented person who is mixing and mastering the material.

One of the most valuable lessons of the past decade has been falling in love with music again, above follower counts, above algorithms, above all the things we creatives sometimes drive ourselves crazy about.

I’ll share more about the material soon, but for now I can say this: for the first time in a long time, it feels truly balanced between the heartfelt and the heavy.

Although I’ve found my spiritual home in a different place, there are so many symbols of transformation around this time: Beltane in the Northern Hemisphere, Samhain in the Southern, a full moon, the Moon in Scorpio, major planetary shifts, and the beginning of a new month…

A change lingers in the air.

And I sincerely wish that whatever is moving through the ether right now gently guides each of you toward the life you want.

— Mike

#2016

“Sometimes the greatest masterpiece is not the painting itself. It is the person who refuses to let it disappear.” ❤️

P.S. Guys, I am well, God be praised. This was just a story that moved me.

In January 1891, Johanna Bonger stood in a small Paris apartment holding her baby boy.

Her husband Theo had just died at 33 — only six months after his older brother Vincent had taken his own life.

She was 28, suddenly alone, and staring at an inheritance no one wanted.

Over 200 paintings by Vincent van Gogh. Dozens of drawings. Hundreds of letters between the two brothers.

Everyone around her gave the same advice: leave the paintings with established dealers. Some even suggested destroying them. One art dealer offered to scrape the paint off the canvases so he could resell the blank fabric. Vincent was considered a madman. His swirling skies and wild sunflowers were unfashionable. His work was clutter.

Johanna was told to move on.

She did not listen.

She packed up every single painting, every single letter, and every single drawing. She moved back to the Netherlands with her baby. She opened a guest house in the quiet town of Bussum to support herself. And she hung Vincent’s paintings on the walls so every guest could see them.

Then she sat down and started reading.

She read all 902 letters between Vincent and Theo. And something inside her broke open.

Those letters were not the rambling notes of a madman. They were the thoughts of a deeply sensitive man who saw the world in colors no one else could see. She understood something the critics had missed: the paintings and the letters belonged together. You could not truly understand one without the other.

She spoke four languages: Dutch, English, French, and German. She used every one of them. She wrote to critics. She organized small exhibitions. She sent paintings to galleries across Europe. She faced condescension every step of the way. Male artists and critics dismissed her as a sentimental little widow who did not know what she was talking about.

One prominent artist publicly criticized her, saying she was too emotional and was turning Vincent into a god. Johanna did not flinch. She kept working.

Slowly, people began to notice. Exhibitions grew bigger. Critics softened. Collectors started buying. She sold the paintings carefully, strategically, always placing them where they could be seen by the most people.

In 1914, she achieved something extraordinary. She published the letters between Vincent and Theo in three volumes. Suddenly, the world could hear Vincent speak for himself. His doubts. His love for his brother. His tenderness. His vision. The tortured madman became a human being. And everything changed.

That same year, she had Theo’s body moved from Utrecht to the small French cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise, so he could rest beside Vincent. The brothers, together again.

By the time Johanna died in 1925 at age 62, Vincent van Gogh was world-famous. His paintings hung in museums across Europe. Her son later founded the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which opened its doors in 1973.

Vincent painted the stars. But it was Johanna who made sure the world could see them.

Sometimes the greatest masterpiece is not the painting itself. It is the person who refuses to let it disappear.