Metal Heart (Germany) February 2005

Patty

Metal Heart (Germany) February 2005 (tłumaczenie red_wine)
Music of the future

Pain and mental grief are named by many artists as a creative motive but only a few have put it in a nutshell as clearly as Nightwish-mastermind Tuomas Holopainen. “All of my songs can only be composed of the greatest of pain” it says in the song ‘Beauty of the beast’ which is written by him. And from this point of view you can expect something really big from the next album of the band which has been reduced to a quartett for the moment. This next album could possibly beat Century Child with its emotional depth and tragedy.

For sure such suppositions are pure speculation at the moment but it is a fact that Tuomas drew back to the loneliness of his Karelian home after he made the departure of singer Tarja Turunen public with an open letter in the internet. There he works on new songs protected from the tremendous public interest by the management and the record label and you can be sure that he will let a huge part of the painful happenings of the last twelve months slip in the new compositions.

The situation now has a lot of similiarity to the circumstances when Century Child was written because before this album was made there was a massive crisis inside the band. The tension between Tuomas and the bassist Sami Vänskä got unbearable, so as a final result Sami was kicked out of the band. And Tarja wasn’t sure for a long time if she would still sing in Nightwish after finishing her singing studies.

But what sorted itself out back then became the beginning of the end when Tarja invited the guys to her hotelroom in December 2004 in Canada and told them that the successor of ‘Once’ was definitely going to be her last album with Nightwish and that a concert-tour afterwards was out of question because as a classical trained singer she couldn’t cope with the strenuous conditions of a heavy metal tour which made her fall ill more often than normal.
Tuomas’ doubts if there was any sense in recording the next album together after these signs got confirmed a short time later – on December 20th. “Her attitude became clear to me when she told me that she doesn’t need Nightwish for her career anymore and that she could leave the band at any day”, the keyboarder remembers. “That was the coldest shower that somebody ever gave me but it showed exactly what she thought the months before: that she sacrificed her classic career for a bunch of drunk punks. After that I thought about the whole development constantly – 24 hours a day, seven days a week. How could she think that way? We decided to wait what would happen in the next months, how everything would go on. Probably we were hoping for a wonder until the end – but it didn’t get better, just even worse”.

The communication between the two parties froze more and more and before the final bang Tarja and the rest of the band hardly exchanged a personal word for almost a year. The beautiful Finnish woman told afterwards that she tried often enough to discuss about the excisting problems but she only met with deaf ears. "Actually we never really talked to each other", Tarja states. “Probably we all needed a theraphy.”

From Tuomas’ point of view everything looks a bit different. It wasn’t the guys who blocked the conversations. In the recent past there rather was no chance to work one’s way to Tarja because she was completely under the influence of her husband and personal manager Marcelo with whom the rest of the band admittedly had its difficulties. “I do not criticize Marcelo in his role as a husband but as Tarja’s personl manager and as a business man who interfered far too much with the band’s interests”, Tuomas emphasizes.
“He has so much influence on Tarja that even the answers to e-mails and text messages that we sent her came back in English written by Marcelo. She trusts him blindly in every case regardless of what we, our manager Ewo Rytkönen or anybody else said and all the time he was standing between us like a massive argentinean wall. “
Tuomas can name enough examples like the sold-out show in Norway which almost had to be cancelled because Marcelo told Tarja had to practise for her solo-concerts, meet with friends and go to the cinema. “During our last tour in Great Britain she didn’t appear at any meet and greet with fans and when our manager Ewo asked Marcelo he usally told that she was too tired or that she just had to buy some new shoes", Tuomas goes on. "It was like that all the time. No meet and greets and when a seven year old girl at the airport of Porto Alegre (during the last common concerts in South America in the middle of October) waited for an autograph next to Tarja she just stood there and didn’t write any autograph at all because she was said to be too ill again or whatever; so this seven year old child started to cry. That’s what I meant with my letter when I mentioned some duties that you have up from a certain point of your career towards the fans no matter how ill, tired or pissed you might be. You simply owe these people to give up a part of yourself and you just can’t say: ‘Oh, I’m feeling too sick to write an autograph’ or ‘I’m too tired to do an interview’. This is not acceptable in any case and to witness this behaviour every day pissed me off enormously.”

In the meantime some fans have reacted annoyed (to express oneself carefully) to the split of Nightwish and their former front woman while Tarja is in the focus of everything; a lot of people want to blame her for everything and she was attacked with nasty death threads.
But as expected Tuomas hasn’t been spared reactions like that. “I got a few letters and mails of people who were extremely pissed off and of course I know what happened to Dimebag Darrell. I suppose this guy shot him because of some connection with the seperation of Phil Anselmo. That was one of the resons why I acted that openly and directly within my letter because it is important to us that the motives for our actions will be really understood."

After all the fans should try to understand both sides, just to make the start into their separate future easier for both Tarja and Nightwish; for although no side wants to deny a possibly reunion completley – at the moment this seems to be more than unlikely. “Sometimes these sad things just happen. We are only humans as well who make mistakes. But no one of us will disappear from the scene. We just won’t belong to the same band anymore. Tarja will go on with her solo-career and Nightwish will go on with a new singer”, Tuomas makes clear and emphasizes that the new singer hasn’t been found already despite contrary rumours in the boulevard press – the band hasn’t even started to look for the singer. “The only thing I can tell about this is that I didn’t make up my mind in a too detailed way about this matter, but in my opinion the new singer doesn’t necessarily have to be a clone of Tarja, so there will be a completely new beginning”, the sensitive Fin reflects. “There will be no fundamental changes because the feeling and the ideologie behind the band are still the same. All the songs that I’ve written so far are typical Nightwish-songs, with a few surprises. Actually I only wish that we regain the joy of playing together in the studio and at gigs and that I can be sure that every member of the band is there with his whole heart. Last year it was not like this anymore. So I really hope that this feeling will come back with the next record.”

The colleagues’ opinion about the Nightwish-split:

Ville Valo (HIM):
I think it is better this way. Tuomas is a very talented songwriter and musician and for Tarja Nightwish was more like a project. I read an interview with her where she said that she had absolutely no clue what the lyrics are about. That tells a lot about her participation in the band. Let’s just wait what is going to happen. When Paul Di’Anno left Iron Maiden nobody expected that the band would go on – but then Bruce Dickinson came.
The way everything happened was of course quite rude for her but I suppose the guys drank ten bottles of vodka before they decided to publish everything in the internet. That would be the typical behaviour of a normal finnish guy. In general I think that the two sides are both guilty and innocent in the same way in this situation.

Lisa Schaphaus (Xandria):
What happened there is really sad. But the saddest thing about the whole situation is that a really personal argument took part
in public. I really wish all the (ex-) members of Nightwish the necessary calm to make up their minds. In general I do not really like to give my view on this matter. That should be up to the people who know a lot more about the situation and/or who got to know the band members personally.

Carmen Elise Espenaes, Midnattsol:
When I read about Tuomas’ letter in our message board I first thought that the whole thing was a joke. But one day later Alex Krull told me that everything was true. I was really shocked because I had never heard of any conflict inside the band before. I cannot judge what really happened there but I know that it was really bad for my sister when she got to know through the internet that she was fired from Theatre of Tragedy. I don’t know if Tarja expected something like this. Still it is fair towards the fans to give an official explanation. Nightwish will go on being successful because Tuomas is a musician with his heart and soul. I also hope that Tarja will have success and will be happy on her way.

Liv Kristine Espenaes Krull, Leaves’ Eyes:
At the weekend when Nightwish parted company with Tarja we played at the Metal Female Voices-Festival with Leaves’ Eyes. So we didn’t hear about the happenings first. When we came back home we were really surprised. The guest books of Leaves’ Eyes’ and my homepage were full of entries by fans who heard the rumour that I should be the new Nightwish singer from now on. Alex and I thought this was supposed to be a joke. But then suddenly a journalist from Finland called Mastersound-office. So we got to know that Tarja really was no member of Nightwish anymore and that the rumour that I would be the new member of the band was going round in Finland. It is a pity that Tarja and Nightwish will go their separate ways now and in my opinion it is sad for both sides. I wish them all the best for the future.

Tony Kakko, Sonata Arctica:
Tarja sent me a text message early in the morning where she thanked me for the support over all the years and told me that she was kicked out of the band. I knew that there were great disagreements which had an influence on our tour plans some time ago as well. But despite all forebodings that something may happen after the show this step surprised me. It was clear that this would make quite a stir but I still believe that it was the easiest solution.
Nightwish will go on with a new singer and the music will be as great as before because Tuomas is a genius. I’m anxious to see how Tarja’s career will develop. She has a huge fan base all over the world so the main conditions are there. Anyhow I wish all the best for both sides.

Christofer Johnsson, Therion:
Tuomas acted absolutely right because by only telling Tarja’s firing was because of personal reasons he would have caused a lot of stupid rumours. I admire his honesty and I’m sure that there were a lot of things he glossed over for the public. For sure Tarja once was a kind girl but like a lot of people she lost the ground under her feet when the success got too big. And being managed by your husband is not a good idea most of the time.
Last October I met the guys at a festival in Mexico-City. I realized that Tarja didn’t talk to anyone of the band members until fifteen minutes before the show. When I wanted to visit the guys backstage some jerk opened the door who looked like a drugdealer right out of a seventies-movie and he looked at me with this ‘I decide who is allowed to talk to the band and who isn’t’-expression. I was sure that this had to be her husband/manager Marcelo who seems to think of himself as highly important.
Nightwish will be off well without Tarja because to be honest she had a great voice but thousands of other ladies are able to do what she contributed for the band. She should finally make clear to herself that she became a star because of Nightwish – without the band she would be a normal opera-student. It won’t be easy for the new lady in the beginning but I still believe that the climax of Nightwish’s career still lies in front of them because they owe their success only to Tuomas’ songs.

Cristina Scabbia, Lacuna Coil:
For me everything was really surprising especially the moment that it happened. I never got to know the band personally because we only played a few festivals together and my knowledge is restricted to the things I read or heard from others. This is not a good basis to form a judgement of my own. Moreover I’m more interested in the music and not in rumours about arguments, love-stories or anything like that.
I really hope that both sides can do what they really want from now on. Nightwish will not have many difficulties to find a good replacement for Tarja although it is difficult to build up the same good chemistry with a new line up.