Rock Hard-Valhalla

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NIGHTWISH - THE BEGINNING OF AN ERA

Nightwish is, definitely, the biggest contemporary phenomenon of heavy metal. Such popularity can be measured by the recent extra-musical [as in, outside of music] events. The firing of Tarja Turunen and the long process for selecting the new singer, Anette Olzon, were headlines in the press all over the world.

Appetizer

Once again, Rock Hard-Valhalla (*), covers exclusively all these events, from Tarja's departure, through the process of selecting the new singer, to the definitive hiring of Anette. As if that's not enough, Rock hard-Valhalla is one of the first vehicles [huh? lol] in the world to bring [you] all the details of the band's new record, Dark Passion Play, in an exclusive interview with the leader of Nightwish, Tuomas Holopainen. And there's more: all this was written by our reporter Estevão Camargo [weee!], close friend of the band members and their managers. From now on, you'll know facts never before disclosed about the part, present and future of that phenomenon called Nightwish.

INTERVIEW WITH TUOMAS HOLOPAINEN

Well, let's start with the beginning of what we can call a "new era" for Nightwish. As we know, the demo CD Anette sent you was one of the first you received, right?
Yes! Actually, it was one of the first 20 we received, in the beginning of November 2005.

We know that when that CD reached you, you were very surprised with Anette's interpretation of "Ever Dream", having even said that the way she interpreted the song was the best you'd heard thus far.
Definitely. And I can tell you she ended up being the standard for what we were yet to receive. I mean, she just came out of nowhere and sent a demo with only one song, wich was "Ever Dream". So I opened the package, read her letter. played the CD and was absolutely stunned by the material, afetr all, I didn't know what to expect and we still had no idea what kind of vocalist we were looking for. Her voice left everyone in the band impressed! Everything sounded so natural, so easy, so good, that everybody digged it. More than a vocalist, I'd say Anette is more loke a good story-teller. She has a very peculiar way of giving life to what's in the lyrics, because she usually understands what they mean. Anyway, as it was only 3 weeks since the whole Tarja incident, we decided to take things easy and wait for a year, since the last thing we were was in a hurry.

That's good, because I get the impression that even if it was too soon to think of a definite replacement for Tarja, at least you were able to relax a bit in regards to the quality of the material you were about to receive.
Exactly! You can say that was exactly it. In that first moment we had the impression that there were a lot of sensational singers throughout the world, so, we believed everything would be fine (laughs).

In the end, was there another vocalist that made you wonder who would be in the band or was Anette like a black diamond right from the start?
Well, to be honest, from the about two thousand demos we got, I can say that 50 of them impressed all of us enough that we sent them an instrumental copy of "Once", so they could sing some Nightwish songs for us. Then, out of those 50, we chose like 10, with whom we met and played some sogns live, in the studio. In the end, it was a very, very difficult decision, but it was unanimous amongs everyone in the band that Anette should be the chosen one. And I really think we chose the best one.