Tuomas dla antenna.nu wrzesień 2005

czarnycharakter

Nightwish's latest album Once has been an immense world wide succes for the band and the following tour has brought the Finnish rockers all over the world, where they have played nothing but sold out shows. Recently they returned to Denmark for the second time and before the show in KB Hallen, Henrik and I got the chance to have a chat with Nightwish-founder Tuomas Holopainen about the ups and downs of touring and about the future plans for Nightwish and for Mr. Holopainen himself.

You have been touring for almost a year now. Are you getting tired of it and looking forward for it to end?
Actually we have been touring for about 18 months now. But to be honest, it is a weird thing because I haven't felt really exhausted at any point. So it has been a lot of fun. Of course sometimes you are a bit more tired and sometimes you have more energy, but never ever has it felt like "I want to go home, I want to quit." I haven't counted the days until the end. I wouldn't mind doing more shows.

What has been your best experience touring and what has been the worst?
The best overall is definitly the shows. Even if you have had the most fucked up day, the 1¸ hours on stage pretty much cures it. That is always the best part. The hardest about this whole thing is the travelling, being away from home and the social pressure that you have to cope with all the time. It is not the playing that is hard, it is everything around it, like all the waiting.

Do you have any favourite songs to perform live?
"Definitely the songs that we haven't played that much. All the songs from the new album, Once, and the Pink Floyd cover "High Hopes". That one is a lot of fun to do. At the moment we are practising the Indian song, "Creek Mary's Blood". But we are not going to play it today because it is still on a rehersal state. On the other hand I couldn't care less about playing "Wishmaster" or "Sleeping Sun" anymore [laughs].

In the so-called 'Tarja's break', you have been playing cover songs like Megadeath's "Symphony Of Destruction" and Pink Floyd's "High Hopes" as you said. How do you choose which songs to cover?
They just pop up. It was really hard after "Symphony Of Destruction" because that was just the perfect cover song. Three or four days before the show where we were going to play a new coversong, we still hadn't decided which it should be. Then Jukka came up with the idea of "High Hopes". At first we thought that maybe it was blasfemi to do that song because Pink Floyds are really, really "up there", but it actually works pretty well.

The last time you played in Copenhagen was the first time you performed "Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan" live. Since then you have played it at all the shows. How do you think it is working live?
Actually it is working really fine. Everything comes from the minidisk except for Tarja's vocals. But we have played it ever since. The audience really seems to love it. It gives a little exotic touch to the setlist.

The Once-tour has brought you all over the world. What country was the most exciting to play in?
My personal favourite was Australia. That is pretty much the furthest you can get from Finland, so there is a big exotic value in that country. If you want to play further away from Finland, you have to go to the moon! Not that that wouldn't be a nice idea [laughs]. But it was fantastic because you really don't know what to expect and then you see all these people over there and it was just great. I loved the country, I loved the people, the culture, the scenary, just everything.

You opened this year's Wacken Open Air as the main name Thursday. How did you experience that?
It was one of the best shows of the whole tour, it was really good. Everything just clicked and it was awesome. Of course the weather wasn't that good, but there were like 30000 people there. The main thing was also that I think it was the the third time we played at Wacken and the previous two shows were really bad. I don't know why, we just didn't pull it through the previous times.

You played in Copenhagen this February at a sold out concert in Vega. This time you have been moved to a larger venue. Does this mean that we will se a bigger stage show tonight?
Actually I am already feeling regrets that we didn't bring the pyrotechnics here. It sucks. But I think the lighting set is a bit bigger and the setlist has changed a little, but that is pretty much it.

You have had some rather big names supporting you on this tour like Nocturnal Rites in Sweden and Sonata Artica for the forthcoming show i Helsinki. How do you feel about that?
It is really flattering. For instance the day after tomorrow, September 25th, we are playing in London and our support act is Paradise Lost. At first I really couldn't believe it. I was the number one fan of Paradise Lost ten years ago when Icon and Draconian Times came out. Back then I thought "This is the best band ever". And now after ten years, in their homecountry England, they are supporting us! I can't really understand it.

How do you feel about your final show in Helsinki to be sold out so fast?
Again I can't believe it. I guess it is some kind of a record for a Finnish band. But I am already shit scared about the whole thing because there is so much involved in that one show with all the live-dvd recordings and everything. We only have this one chance to pull it through so let's hope everything works out fine. But it is also going to be the biggest spectical that we have ever done with screens with this movie stuff playing in the back and the biggest pyro ever, the biggest lighting ever. The Indian guy John Two-Hawks is also going to be there for when we do "Creek Mary's Blood".

Will the dvd only be the show or can we expect to see a lot of fun stuff from the tour in general?
I think we already made total fools out of ourselves in the previous two DVD's, so this one is going to be a bit more serious. I don't think there is going to be a Deleted Scenes in this one. Enough of that already.

What are you looking the most forward to when you get home?
First of all, peace. That I can actually unpack my luggage without thinking that I have to pack it again in two days. But most of all I'm waiting for the songwriting process. Finally I will have some peace and quit and time to finnish all those ideas I have been gathering during the past couple of years. That I am awaiting the most.

Have you already started working on the new album or do you intend to take a break before doing so?
I have started. I have two completely new songs already and I have a whole lot of ideas and song titles, lyrics and melodies and all that, but I just need my solitude to bring that all together. But it is working out fine.

Is the new album going to have some overall theme?
I'm not quite sure yet [laughs]. I can't say anything concrete about it. I don't think the style is going to change that much from what it was on Once, but there are going to be some new surprises. Once again.

Do you find time for all your other projects like For My Pain or is Nightwish taking up all your energy at the moment?
At the moment Nightwish is taking up all my time, but I have already booked myself in a couple of sideprojects when this tour ends. We are going to do a new For My Pain album next Spring and there is a couple of little things that I don't want to talk about yet, but that I am also going to be involved in. It is really good for your head to do something totally different for a while. I get a lot of ideas for Nightwish as well when I'm doing something different, something that I am not that involved in. Where I just go and play my keyboards on the top of something that someone else has written. It is really different and it is a lot of fun. So I have promised myself in three different of sideprojects at the moment.

You recently shot a new video for "Sleeping Sun". What was the reason for you doing that?
Well, the record company came up with this compilation Highest Hopes, it was their idea and they wanted to promote it with one song and they chose "Sleeping Sun". And for some understandable reasons they didn't think the previous video was strong enough so they hired this German guy, Joern Heitmann, to direct the video. When I saw the manuskript for this video on paper for the first time, I was terrified. There were battlescenes, we had to wear armour, we had to do swordfighting. The ultimate cliche for a metalband. So I said "No way". But then Joern Heitmann talked to me on the phone for half an hour and he actually got me convinced. Because he is the same guy who has done all the Rammstein videos and they look really, really good. So we had all the faith in him. And it actually turned out to be okay. Also it was a lot of fun to do the video as well [laughs]. So no regrets.

Who would you the most like to work with in making music?
Hans Zimmer. I have actually been trying to reach him through email. We have the same publishing company and I have also told them to please send him our music. I think he has got our latest cd, but I haven't heard a word from him. Anyways that would be the ultimate dream. To get him involved in some way.

All your lyrics seem very personal. How does it feel to perform your songs in front of so many people and to hear them sing along?
That is a really good question and I have been wondering about it myself. It sort of brings you some kind of pervers satisfaction when you open up yourself to the whole world and the people sing along and feel maybe the same way. So it is all about sharing your pain and sharing your emotions. It feels really, really good.

Your lyrics are also very cryptic. Is that intentional or is it just the way your mind works?
It is just the way my mind works and maybe a little intentional as well, because I try to avoid cliches until the end. People are making songs about love and death and emotions all the time, but there is also so many ways that you can do a song about love. It is the ultimate cliche, but to do it in a more cryptic way so you don't understand the whole point after the first five times you have listened to the song, that gives it a richness. So I'm trying not to be so obvious.

Do you feel the same about all your songs or are there some you are less proud of?
Actually I have kind of grown to be more mature in that way that I can stand behind every single song I have ever done. I am not ashamed of anything anymore, not even the ones from the first album, Angels Fall First.

When you choose the songs to go on the album, do you think about if there are enough songs where Marco sings and stuff like that? How do you divide it between the two vocalists?
That is something I want to be really careful about, because Nightwish is a femalefronted band, definitly. Marco brings up the extra spice, but we don't want to use him to much. The strength of his voice lies in that it is used correctly. Only in a few songs. So I'm really careful about that and I will be in the future as well.

How do the five of you prepare for a show? Do you need to be alone or do you have some sort of social rituals that you do?
It is pretty much the obvious stuff, just bullshiting and talking with the guys, having a few drinks and maybe a little bit of solitude just before the show, at least for me. The last three minutes before the show I need to go through the setlist in my head and think about what is happening and all that. But we have been doing so many shows now that the level of rutine has grown to be so big that you don't need that much concentration any more.

How do you feel about the downside of fame? Is it easy to cope with all the attention and all the fans or does it get to much at times?
I have to be honest and it does get to much at times, because like I have said many times, being a public person has never been a dream of mine in any way. I don't really enjoy the publicity that much and the social side of this work. You have to be awake all the time and all that. So it is something that you kind of grow into. You have to educate yourself to live with it. But it is getting a bit better eventhough it is still the hardest part in this job for me.

Has this whole worldwide succes with Once changed Nightwish as a band and changed you?
It hasn't changed. We are still the same idiots, the same rednecks as we were before. It is kind of incredible actually. It doesn't matter how big the venue is, we just go there as ourselves and play the show, no matter if there is 50 people or 50000 people. Nothing has changed actually.