Tuomas Holopainen (Nightwish)
September 2007
Well, let's start with Tarja... is there any legal battle going on with her at the moment?
I think it's all settled by now. I mean I haven't heard anything about it in a very long time and I kinda like cleaned my hands from all of that. so let the managements have their fights if there's something. But I don't think there's anything anymore. I think all things were settled.
Do you have any contact with her?
No, we don't. The last time I've heard from her was at the end of 2005.
Do you think you'll ever speak again in the future?
Let's hope so. But it was kind of like a really ugly divorce I guess. You don't have much to say to your ex husband or ex wife. If I would meet her on the street I would definitely say hi and buy her a cup of coffee. Let's just have the time pass by and we'll see what happens.
Have you heard the album she released last year?
Yes. She was kind enough to send it for us. I'm not a big fan of Christmas songs to begin with, so that was the problem.
And have you heard the song she sung for the Nuclear Blast compilation?
I haven't heard it, to be honest. I haven't heard the song Marco sung either. I'll have to check them out.
Well, let's change subject. I bet you had so many applications to fill in for Tarja...
We had about 2000 applications from 55 different countries. Out of those 50 were promising enough so we sent them an instrumental CD of the previous album, so they could sing on them. Out of that 50 we met 10 in person. That's the statistics for you.
Were there any professional singers applying for the job?
There were some but we made an agreement not to mention anybody by name. I think it's not fair to talk about that.
Did you enjoy listening to all those CDs?
It was a lot of fun actually because they were so diverse singers. There was a lot of crap, there was a lot of in between and there were a lot of good ones as well.
Out of the last 10 how did you end up choosing Anette? How close it was?
We had a really long serious conversation in the end. There were a couple of really good ones but now when I look back at it I think in the very end the decision was quite easy. You just had to follow your heart because there were really nice girls, really nice voices, but in the end it was all about the matter of heart.
Were there any singers in the last 10 that had similar voice to Tarja?
No, because we were searching for something completely different. We got a lot of applications from girls with opera voices but that was the only thing that we knew for sure that we didn't want to have a similar kind of classically trained operatic voice. We were searching for something completely different because we thought that we would take somebody like her, she would always be a cheap copy of Tarja no matter how good she was. So, the only sensible thing to do was to find something completely different.
Was Anette in any other bands before?
Yes, she was in some other bands but they are not active anymore, so she was on the free market.
What if she had a band?
Well, it just would have needed to be discussed with the schedules. It's such an independent thing with all the candidates. It's really hard to say.
She's a Swedish girl living in Sweden. Isn't there a problem with the location?
Absolutely not, because it's less than two hours flight away. Back in the beginning of 2001 Tarja was living in Germany for two years and we were still doing a lot of shows and it was never a problem. The world is a small place with good connections.
And how about communication issues?
She's studying Finnish all the time and she's getting really good at it. Of course she already knows all the swear words and some bad words. (Laughs) She's always learning new words and communicating with us. Let's say in about a year she can be really fluent in Finnish. I don't think my Swedish is that good. (Laughs)
Tarja was singing Finnish on a few occasions... how about having a Swedish song one day?
Why not? Actually we were talking about it one day. Who knows? It's a really blessing that with this band you can do almost anything, even the weirdest thing and it will still go through.
How about rehearsing? Did you already start them?
Yes, we actually started rehearsing two weeks ago and that will go on for the next two weeks. It's looking really really good at the moment. I'm especially satisfied with the way she's doing the old songs because we were a little bit afraid of how they would sound and work out but we really like her interpretation. It's something completely different which will be a huge shock to the fans but let's give it a chance.
It sounds interesting...
It will sound interesting, yes. (Laughs) The opera has gone. The thing is that I feel that the opera was already gone after the Wishmaster album. I mean Tarja didn't sing in the operatic way after Century Child so I don't think the change is that radical as you might think.
Some people might say that the operatic voice was a limitation to Nightwish in a way...
I don't know. It was a very distinctive sound of the band and now maybe the vocals are a bit more approachable. We're gonna lose a lot of fans with Tarja gone but hopefully we'll get some new ones with the new singer.
Was Anette ever touring before?
Not in this scale. It'll be something completely new for her. But she has been doing a lot of shows just been singing all her life when she was doing a main role in a musical. A few years ago she was doing like 40 shows in a row, so she knows pretty much what she's up to. But going on a tourbus for five weeks in a row she never experienced anything like that. Let's just hope that she'll cope with it.
Touring together with crazy Finnish guys...
She's a crazy Swedish girl, so I think we'll fit together fine. (Laughs)
What is that you like the most about Anette?
It's a combination of so many different things. I really really love her voice. It's so natural, so story telling like, there's not an single made up decoration in it. That's what I love about her voice. It's so real and pure. Her personality is also really charming. She's maybe the most open person I've ever met and she's really easy to get along. She has seen a lot of life, the ups and downs of everyday life, so she has also a really good self esteem. I don't know what kind of personality is still hiding there that we haven't seen but I'm pretty sure that doing the next two years together we'll see that side as well.
Right now you are in Holland on a promo tour with the new album. How about the initial reaction of the media people?
It's been incredibly good. It's something I never expected. I've just done about 280 interviews so far and I've only heard two really really bad, negative comments from journalists, so the percentage is quite high, which is really encouraging. And also most of the fans are being really open minded. Of course there's a whole bunch of Tarja fans who spit at us when they see us from now on. Let them have it their way. The reactions have been really good. The new single went gold in two days in Finland and it's also kind of encouraging. It's an exciting time, so pretty much anything can happen.
278 good reviews speak for themselves but how about the two really bad ones? What were they criticising?
Mainly the new singer. There was one guy who was saying that Anette has ruined everything that Nightwish was ever about and now we are nothing, just an ordinary heavy metal band. It really divides opinions. Some people really like the fresh new voice and some people totally dislike it. They think the distinctive characteristic of the band has gone down the drain with Tarja.
The songs were written quite long before you had Anette in the band. Did you have to adjust them to fit her voice?
No. I have to be honest about this: we didn't have to change anything. She was able to sing every single line and note that I have planned for her to sing in the studio. There was not a single compromise we needed to make.
The album has less female voice than in the past and more of Marco's. Was it your intention when you composed the songs?
It wasn't intentional, it just something happened in the studio. The main reason for this is that while we were in the studio we realised that there are so many lyrics in the songs that cannot be put into the new female vocalist's mouth because they deal with things that are not appropriate for her to sing. That's why we had Marco singing those. For example the songs Bye Bye Beautiful and The Poet And The Pendulum. Also there's the song called The Islander and it's a song composed by Marco and he wanted to sing it by himself. So, yes, Marco has a bigger role on this album but this wasn't planned.
As for the music, how would you compare the new one to the other Nightwish releases?
For me it's a pretty natural sequel to the previous album Once. You can hear the same elements with the really hard stuff, the punching guitars, bass and drums with a big orchestra, choirs, symphonic elements. Hard stuff, lots of ballads, so I think it's just the natural evolution from the previous album. Maybe Dark Passion Play is a bit more diverse, so the extremes of the musical styles are a bit more present.
Is there any meaning behind the album's title, Dark Passion Play?
Yeah, there is but I leave it up to the listeners to decide themselves. I think the richness of music and poetry is up to the people's own interpretation. I don't really want to reveal my own. There isn't really like a conceptual theme because all the 13 songs on the album, they all have their very own individual story behind it. Maybe like if there would be three words to describe what the whole album and the whole Nightwish is about it would be Dark Passion Play.
Did the split up with Tarja influenced any of your lyrics?
Yeah, in one song. Bye Bye Beautiful. It's kind of like a farewell song to her. And it's not a song about hatred at all. It is not as aggressive as it might sound when Marco is singing it. It's kind of like a bittersweet and sad farewell song about why did this had to happen, this incident where nobody in the end is innocent.
Glad you mentioned this song because Bye Bye Beautiful to me is like part two of Wish I Had An Angel. Both songs are with huge hit potential...
Yeah, that something that happened by accident. I always try to do new things and never do the same song twice but I have to agree with you that Wish I Had An Angel and Bye Bye Beautiful sound like sibling songs. (Laughs) But they have a completely different story behind them. Bye Bye Beautiful is gonna be our next single.
Are you also planning to shoot a video for it?
Actually the video has already been made. Its a performance video. It's something quite funny and ironical. (Laughs) It's something you would never expect that we would do. It's gonna be a real shocker. You're gonna fall off your chair when you see it. (Laughs) On the other hand the video for Amaranth is typical Nightwish. I think that's the best video we've done so far with beautiful scenery and some nice symbolism behind it.
The album starts off with a long epic song The Poet And The Pendulum. How come you chose this as the opener?
Because there's a song called Meadows of Heaven and we really wanted that to be the last song on the album. It's really like the ultimate finish for the album. And when you have a long song like The Poet And The Pendulum I think it needs to be either the first or the last track of the album. But since Meadows of Heaven was the last we needed to put that for first. It is my favourite track on the album.
What other songs you rank among the best on the new album?
It kinda changes but at the moment it is Meadows of Heaven, Sahara and The Islander. I can't wait to play most of these songs live although I don't think we will play Meadows of Heaven because of the choir and the so many ethnic instruments in there.
You have some Celtic influences on this album...
It's kind of like a result of the systematic thinking of what kind of elements you haven't used before. When I was starting to do songs for the album I thought that Celtic stuff is something that we never used in Nightwish before so let's give it a shot. I've always enjoyed the sound of bagpipes, low whistles. They turned out to be really nice in the songs we used them.
The album was promoted through the Internet with watermarked downloads, still it was leaked pretty early. How do you feel about this?
I think it sucks big time. Not so much because of the record sales. I really think that people will buy the album anyway. But it kinda takes the mystery out of the album because people are getting the album piece by piece, bits here bits there, and they are listening to it in bad sound quality without the cover and lyrics. So, it's like tearing the whole thing apart in advance and that's what really bothers me the most.
Do you think labels can do anything about this or you just have to live with it?
You can always do that you don't send out a single promo CD to the journalists before the release but that's a really bad option as well, so to be honest I don't really know what to do.
You're involved in the project For My Pain with whome you already released an album some time ago. Can we expect a follow up anytime soon?
I really don't have a clue. I mean everybody who was involved in that band is really busy these days. Either with their own bands or their personal lives or their everyday jobs. We have been talking about doing another album, we just cannot find the time. I really like the album we released. For My Pain is not dead and buried so anything is possible. But I don't think anything will happen in the next year or two at least.
What can we expect from Nightwish as far as touring go?
We're gonna start the tour in the beginning of October and the plan is to do shows until the fall of 2009. So the tour is gonna take about two years. We have the US and the Scandinavian tour dates already confirmed. Then in January we'll go to Japan, Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan which will be followed by a really massive European tour in February/March/April.
If it was up to you what bigger band you would go on tour with?
Hm... Metallica? (Laughs) Because they are still the biggest band of all times for me. That's the band that started the heavy metal era for me, so I owe them my life and I love the band.
How often you see them live?
I've only seen them twice in my whole life. The last time it was about a month ago in Helsinki. It was a great show.
And for closing... how do you see your personality changed over the years?
I have become more humble, I have become a bit more cynical but other than that absolutely nothing has changed. That's the way I feel but you need to ask people around me, they know it better. (Laughs)