Source: imperiumi.net
Author: Tero Lassila

Nightwish, one of finnish metal's brightest stars, has finished their fifth album Once and is heading out for a long world tour. Nightwish continues their world tour until December 2005. Naturally with some breaks - there are two family men in the band. The band arranged an impressive and a bombastic album release consert in the end May in their hometown Kitee. I met Nightwish's composer-lyricist-keyboarder Tuomas Holopainen a few days before the expected gig.

Kitee is at the moment turned upside-down because of this big event. Some audience members and guests have came all the way from South-America. Why did you want to do the album release show, that also starts the world tour, here in Kitee?
- Only one reason for that, we are so proud of our roots. As a band we're from Kitee and it's always great to come back.

From what I gather your recent album Once doesn't have a special theme like your earlier albums have had?
- No theme. It has 11 individual stories. From my own diary pages to Native Americans' history. Some fantasythemes and some stuff from the life of Karhu-bar. Real life events from side to side. The album doesn't have a common line, not lyrically nor musically.

How do you think the songs will work live? You do have an orchestra with 52 people and a massive choir playing on the background. How will you make it work live?
- Background voices will come from a minidisc. The songs have worked in practice damn well, so no problem there. But using the minidisc is a must, because I think it's cheating to perform the songs completly different than they are an the album. And since we don't have the chance to bring the orchestra for obvious reasons we have to use the tapes and I play as much keyboard as possible. You can't always play everything with two hands.
-And first off this most certainly isn't playback, since there are five people playing and singing the whole time live. What is added on top of that is just some spice. And secondly this isn't an easy desicion. People might think that it's easy to do a gig with those tapes, but they just make it harder. They leave less room to improvise. The drummer has to always match the click. If Jukka (Nevalainen) misses one click the whole song goes wrong.

What would you say about your singer's Tarja Turunen's voice? It was took almost to the extreme on Oceanborn but hasn't the more classical style now been left on the background?
- Yes, intentionally. Everyone got tired of listening to it. We did three albums with that style and agreed with Tarja and everyone else, that we'll try to look for a new touch to it. Tarja is an extremely versital singer and is able to do almost everything. So we wanted to use different tricks that she could sing. On Century Child it was pop from start to finish, but on this new album we've taken back a bit of the lyrical singing from Oceanborn. Singing loud and high again. I think Tarja's performance on the new album has been uncredible. You can hear relaxness, happiness, skills, feeling and sensitivity differently than any of our previous albums. The girl did her very best.

What about Marco Hietala's singing? That has also apparently took further than on Century Child.
- Well, there might be more of it than on Century Child. Marco sings solos and duets with Tarja on four songs and backgrounds on a few. It's sort of a tender subject. You'd like to use it more, but the power in Marco's voice dissappears if you use it too much in Nightwish. That's why you'd better slow it down a bit. It brings an excellent add to a few songs, like a shock effect. But Tarja is the face and voice of the band.

In the early spring you shot a video for the song Nemo with Antti Jokinen. It's definetly a world class video and the best you've done so far, but wasn't it also an attempt to conquer a bit of America and even get on MTV. But what happened?
- Well, it has snow on it and MTV won't show it during the summer. There is a way to get around that. For example, if the album goes to number one in Germany they have to show the video. They do play it on Viva, though. MTV is so full of shit, that who cares.

Absurd amount of money have been spent for promotion and for the video. Is sky the limit now?
- The money that has been spent, has gone to good use. Someone might think, that we have some foreign producter to get a fancy name there, but we have no such thing. Every cent from the 200 000 euros has gone to good and necessary use.

And what do you think about the sum of money that Nuclear Blast has used to advertise and promote Nightwish? Lot of money has been used and the promotion has been done in many different directions.
- It's very flattering and promising. When I saw the marketing budget I could only wonder. Hope it pays off.

Once hasn't came out while making this interview, but I bet many are curious what Nightwish's future will bring. The composermaster Holopainen hasn't used all of his creativity yet. They're not returning back to their roots, so the next album won't be campfire music.
- I really can't say, because I haven't thought about it at all yet, but I'll have to start making songs and see what comes out. You can make something bigger than Once. You can get more out of the orchestra and choir. Now the orchestra had 'only' 52 musicians in it. A half more of that and a ten times bigger choir and listen what that sounds like. But I really can't say anything at this point.

Nightwish has resently gotten some unrelevant critique on their homepage's forum. You told before that you have stopped going there.
- I did stop and didn't go for several months.But with this new album the temptation grew too big and I have looked what people think. I took a few months break when I didn't go there at all. Some people there focused on the inrelevant part of the band and the critique was so out of line. I got the feeling that these people thought they own the band and aren't happy with anything we do. Nightwish is a dear child of mine and if you had an infant of your own and someone came up in the street and said 'That's one ugly baby' - you don't get pass it just like that.

What is your opinion on the success and position of finnish metalbands in the world?
- Many of finnish metalbands have their own identity. At least if you listen to some of the german bands, it's that one band times ten and that's the local music scene. Finnish bands have invented their own things. HIM has this love-metal, which is new. Nightwish has this thing, which hasn't been named by anyone. Apocalyptica has their own thing, fine cellos. Waltari has some very weird stuff. Amorphis is good. Everything sounds great, but everyone has their unique thing. Us Finns have metal in our blood!

What are you planning to do next and what do you want to say to Imperiumi's readers?
- I'm going to bed to get some sleep. And hello to Mape and thanks for Once's review. It was the most flattering thing ever. I'll print and frame it on my wall for sure.