HI. THIS IS MY STORY.
I’m Markus Nylund from Finland. Been writing songs since 1998. First it started unmechanically, as a way to process what was happening. I was 15 and everything felt like it was falling apart. Or perhaps I just woke up out of my childhood slumber to realise something that is always happening: worlds being born at the cost of previous ones disintegrating.
Until then I had a good childhood, loved sports and video games. I grew up on two continents (Finland and Canada) which kept things interesting. I also loved listening to music and watching movies. I was fortunate to grow up in the 80-90s before the internet ruined everything and killed all the romance.
Sometimes I feel like the young kids nowadays are older than I will ever be. It’s like the modern world killed the youth. You go from age 10 straight to 20. Where are all the rock’n roll icons and geniuses? Modern pop art is a fucking joke. Nobody is really saying anything. Just a bunch of fake plastic dolls with incompetent pimps as puppet masters. Great art has to be threatening to the establishment and our egos. But a revolution is in the air and my music is dedicated to inspiring and igniting this feeling in everyone I come in to contact with.
Anyways, all my obsessive tendencies eventually turned towards the art of the song and I dropped everything else. With a drum machine and 4-track tape recorder, I got to work, feeling ready to take on the world long before I actually was or would. Honestly, I haven’t really stopped since then nor will I ever.
The years went by and so did my fading smile. I woke up (again) in 2008 when I read books like The Power of Now and I Am That. Life was hard at times but so was my ambition and drive. I went deeper and deeper into the mysticism woowoo rabbit holes which in hindsight was a disastrous move regarding success in the music industry. My priority was no longer rock stardom but spiritual enlightenment. This turned out to be a good auxiliary side-gig for the creativity and continues to this day. I had to learn how to smile again which became easier once I understood the punchline of the cosmic joke ie. the human predicament.
For a decade (1998-2008) I had been learning the ropes as a songwriter. Performing. Writing. Recording. Playing with other musicians. Playing solo. Failing hard and proud, a trajectory I would get to know a little too well. I lived like I was famous but without the money, spotlight or bad reviews. I thought I was way better than I really was but I suppose that is part of the game. A man must have confidence in his own potential because if he doesn’t believe in himself, nobody else will either. I had to learn the hard way that sooner or later, life will serve you a piece of that delicious humble pie. Yummy!
The next ten years I travelled around without a plan, just wandering from place to place. Lover to lover. Friend to friend. Every time I found a direction or community (or God forbid some sanity and love), I went the opposite direction because I never quite fit in or felt at home anywhere for too long. What little success and opportunities I had, I burned it all to hell and back. I was being tested by the gods. But I was also the one doing the testing as one of them. Life itself my canvas and laboratory. And sad to say, hurting many in the process. Hurt people hurt people like the saying goes. The primal wound yearning for healing…
As I explored and studied the world and its ways, I continued writing and singing about my troubles and triumphs. I often liked challenging clichés and traditions regarding success, God, work, love, morality, etc and all that “journey not destination” self help “the alchemist” crap. Sorry, maybe it’s real and I just don’t get it. But I gradually learned to curb my provocateurism when I noticed it wasn’t really getting me where I was going. And that most people prioritise safety/security over truth. So I doubled down on the poetry which gives me license to say or do whatever the fuck I want. Everyone is right. The question is: are those who violate the golden rule entitled to its benefits?
Poetry is an eternal union with the supreme unchanging absolute. There is no right or wrong. No rules. No boundaries. No separation. No identity. No religion. No future. No past. No countries. All that dreamworld shit is for other people who are not me. To be a true poet is to be a warrior mystic of the dying Light. We dive head first into the unknown unknowns, smiling. You will understand this when you take your last breath and step into my world. Here is my rational/intuitive twin claim which is the closest thing I have to a religion: Love is the life force that connects us all. Truth is that which is, whether we like it or not.
So here we are now. This human journey has been a wild ride so far. Yeehaa! Wouldn’t change a thing, not even being me because there is no such thing. I am your imaginary friend whose spent the last 6 years living as a recluse in a quiet town on the Russian border. I needed a break from society. From everyone and everything. It was the revolution and enlightenment I was always looking for. And more. But it was time to come back.
I guess you could say my wilderness years are over, for now. So I decided to return to society to share my songs and vibrations with the Earth people. Now I just gotta find y’all and somehow get through these death culture wastelands and zombies lurking everywhere! I know I will make it. And I got my songs to protect me! The Earth needs us now more than ever. Make Earth Great Again! M.E.G.A. children unite!!!!
My new album “Drifter’s Paradise” is the soundtrack for our kind. It’s out Friday, December 20th, 2024. Ten songs that are honestly a much more accurate biography of who I really am and what I’m all about. My songs are the real me. Everything else is just the space between. I am a complete nobody, a messenger at best. A mess at worst.
Still here. Still writing songs. Still bitching and moaning with the best of ’em! Still waking up from dreams I didn’t even know I was in. My music and lyrics are all an ode to fellow dreamers and awakened grumpsters. Go back to sleep! And join my mailing list while you’re at it. Everything I do is an exploration in form so don’t expect anything but the highest potential imaginable. Demand the best from me and of yourself! We deserve no less. I will probably disappoint you and surprise you regardless, sometimes simultaneously. Am I the greatest artist alive? Yes. Am I a terrible human, citizen, friend, partner, employee? Yes. Does it matter? No. Nothing ever did.
(If antimatter and matter were to collide, both would be destroyed, releasing a huge and dangerous amount of energy. This happens because the particles that make up matter and the antiparticles that make up antimatter have opposite electric charges).
Thanks for reading. And as for my PR agent, you’re fired!
Happy halloween. Can I take my mask off now?