Tuomas Holopainen, Mape Ollila dla power-metal.de

czarnycharakter

ower-metal.de
Ricarda Schwöbel

Since the sacking of singer Tarja Turunen, Nightwish isn’t connected with good music anymore but with dramas on kindergarten level. The book about the band by Mape Ollila increased it. The book doesn’t only describe the boy’s and Tarja’s career but also the happenings that lead to the split. The book is only availabe in Finnish at the moment but translations into other languages (including German and English) are planned for the end of the year. In May I met band leader Tuomas Holopainen, who answered questions about Nightwish, the book and the DVD “End of an Era”. Also author Mape Ollila was there.

Ricarda: Well, to start off, I would simply like to know the story behind the book. Whose idea was it?

Mape: It was an accident! I have been following Marco Hietala's career since the mid 80s, even when Tarot used to be called Purgatory. When Marco joined NIghtwish I opened my big trap at the wrong time. I told everyone that Marco is such a figure that he alone would be worth a book and Ewo sorta measured me from chin to toes and then asked "Hm, why don't you write about the whole band? I was instantly like "Hell no! “ and made all those usual explanations why I couldn't do it and I hadn’t the time but then I was persuaded and next fall that would be then 4 years ago. So it was a really long project, but the most important is, that I kept my promise to Ewo.

Ricarda: I think it's really interesting that it started so early because now the situation has changed so drastically in just a few month and of course this was not known back then. But to me it seems that the focus of the book now if a bit more on explaining about how it could come to the split. Of course there is also the history part, but I still see a focus there.

Mape: I don’t see it that way. Well, but the truth is that the band has grown all the time and of course the emphasis on the band's career is on the last album “Once” and whatever happened with it.

Tuomas: Yes, exactly and there problems have already started.

Mape: And when you look at the album sales, as far as I remember there were 3 millions, then one million is just for „Once“, so one third. I haven’t counted the pages, but I think, if you do it then about a third of the book is about the time of “Once”. When I think about it there perhaps is a focus.... (laughs)

Ricarda: Which facts in the book will surprise the fans the most? If there are any...

Tuomas: I think we have so many Die hard fans, who already know everything about the band. Actually I would say, that the book doesn’t reveal anything really new. I think every single fact has been mentioned somewhere else. So that way the book is more of a summary.

Ricarda: A lot of people complain that the book is not neutral enough, that it is reduced to the boy’s view.

Mape: I would agree on that. The last interview with Tarja I have done on October 14 2005, that was a week before she had to leave the band. Afterwards she wasn’t available for interviews anymore – especially not for me. But as I have always said: The book is my version and only one version of the truth. Everyone is welcomed to publish their own one.

Ricarda: Tuomas, I can imagine that a lot of memories have come up when you’ve read the book. Are there any examples that made you laugh or cry?

Tuomas: Oh there are countless examples. Of course the hardest part was the one about last year and the things that have happened. But actually the book made me proud. First of all the idea that someone writes a book about us... that is pretty flattering.

Ricarda: In your childhood pictures you are often seen with animals or just in the nature and you’ve grown up in the east of Finland.

Tuomas: Yes, I still live in the same town, all the 29 years of my life.

Ricarda: So you are a country boy… which is not meant negative…

Tuomas: Oh I am also a country boy in the negative sense. (laughs)

Ricarda: Alright. Do you think that growing up in that area inspired you musically and personally?

Tuomas: Absolutely. I think everything comes back to that. If I was raised in Helsinki for example, Nightwish would probably sound differently. I think the organic part of the music just comes from the fact... (thinks)... that I am a country boy.

Mape: If he had been born in Helsinki, he probably would have been an asshole since Oceanborn and he would have went under already. I have seen people in Helsinki who act like way bigger stars who have actually accomplished nothing!

Ricarda: Yes, me too. But well. In the book had also been written, that you’d been in the US as an exchange student for one year and that this visit had had a huge impact on your musical taste.

Tuomas: Yes I know it sounds romantic, but every word is really true, it was a change through the night. I still remember that when I’ve written my first letter to my host family in Wichita, Kansas and have told that I like every kind of music but not Heavy Metal (laughs). And then when I’ve been there, in Kansas City has been a concert of Metallica and Guns’n’Roses and there they wanted to go to with me. Firstly I didn’t want to go, but then I went with them. And when I saw Metallica, the moment changed everything. The next week I bought all of their albums, at that time as cassettes. Guns’n’Roses after Metallica was just nothing.

Ricarda: Alright then another thing. I have to say it has been surprising to read that you are a fan of the soap opera „Bold & Beautiful“. (everyone bursts out in laughter)

Tuomas: Everyone has a skeleton in the cellar. I am not obsessed or anything. I don’t record the episodes, but when I have the time, I watch it. It really helps to free your head.

Ricarda: Yeah you really feel intelligent.

Tuomas: But I think this is exactly why soap operas are so popular because you feel prior to these people. A psychologist could explain it better, but I think it has something to do with that.

Ricarda: In Finland it’s different than in Germany. If you say in Germany you watch “Bold & Beautiful” you actually say: “I am a sexual frustrated housewife” (laughter). Here are even headlines about the show in the newspapers.

Mape: That should tell you something about the newspaper’s quality.

Ricarda: Yes, probably. Alright on June 2nd your DVD „End of an Era“ is released. On the DVD is the final concert of the tour in Helskinki and a documentation with the title “A day before tomorrow”. Can you say something about it?

Tuomas: Yes it was a last minute decision. Every DVD should have some bonus material, but didn’t have anything but the photo gallery. And there were these two guys, who travelled with us through South America. They actually wanted to make a documentation for finnish TV, but for reasons I don’t know it never happened. Nevertheless we still had all the material and of that the 55 minutes were created. If you ask me the documentation is quite boring, aber anyhow it shows rather good what was going on in the band and that nobody was really happy.

Ricarda: You have already seen the DVD in a cinema in Germany. How was that?

Tuomas: It was really cool, especially the concert part. Everything on a big screen and a great sound system. There were about 50 people and not one of them fell asleep or left the cinema. So it was really promising.

Ricarda: You have already written 15 songs fort he new album. Will there be an orchestra again? The same as on “Once”?

Tuomas: Yes the orchestra is already booked and will be quite the same as on „Once“, also the choir. And there will be some guest musicians. The formula stays the same.

Ricarda: Do you already have a single? You always say that it is very hard for you, to find a single because it is easy for you to write such long compositions, but it is hard to write songs of a lengt of under four minutes.

Tuomas: Yes I know but I don’t think about it when I write a song. But just a few days ago I thought about what I would do if I had to choose a single. I like the songs, I think they are very good, but it will be really hard choosing a single. But you have to pay attention to that nowadays, you have to have a single. But I don’t think that it is fair for the song and not for the album. I hate to edit a song, so that it isn’t more than four minutes long, that it has to be a hit formula. Especially the first single must fit that scheme. Why do you release a single? You release it to promote the album and so you have to pay attention to these things, so that stations play the song. On the other side I also want that the single represents the album. So it is very difficult.

Ricarda: You have also written a very beautiful song for the new Timo Rautiainen album. Did you write it especially for that or could it have been another Nightwish song? Did you work on it differently?

Tuomas: The song was supposed to be only for that album and the only difference was that I knew from the beginning that it would be sung in Finnish. So I tried to make it sound like a Finnish song. With a few different arrangements it could have been a Nightwish song maybe. But well, I am satisfied.

Ricarda: Mape, did you already write another band biography? Is there a band you like to write a biogrpahy for? It doesn’t have to be a Finnish band.

Mape: No Nightwish was my first band biography. And there is no power in the world, the universe, on other worlds and under worlds that could make me write another one. It was a test to see if I could make it. No reason to do it again.

Ricarda: Tuomas there are some people who ask if you like to learn the Lakota language or if you even speak it already.

Tuomas: No I only know my Lakota name. It is a very difficult language and I don’t plan to learn it. Furthermore it is not really useful.

Ricarda: How difficult is it for someone who describes himself as shy and introverted writing such personal lyrics. Even if you don’t write in your mother tongue, English is a language that is far more know than Finnish.

Tuomas: I can’t tell exactly. I just think English is the better language to write. It is really hard for me to write in Finnish. The lyrics for the song for Timo Rautiainen were the hardest I have ever written.

Ricarda: But it isn’t that you feel more naked when you write in Finnish. It is more the sound?

Tuomas: I don’t know, I think it’s the phonetics.

Ricarda: I was also surprised to read that you had the lyrics for 'Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan' in English and Finnish.

Tuomas: Yes, for the case that it wouldn’t work in Finnish.. To me the Finnish language easily sounds corny so I had a back up plan. But I am glad that it worked in Finnish.

Ricarda: You smoke. When did you start?

Tuomas: Very late. I smoked my first cigarrate in the year 2000, back then I was 23. It was really stupid to do so but well.

Ricarda: Alright a silly question: who did you want to marry when you were a kid?

Tuomas: Belle from the Disney movie „The Beauty and the Beast“. She is the woman of my dreams.

Mape: I never wanted to marry anybody and still dont.

Ricarda: Alright the last questions. What do you think about Lordi representing Finland at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Tuomas: Thumbs up! It was the first time, that I voted at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Mape: Ditto.

Ricarda: I think so too. These were the questions. Thanks for your time.

Tuomas + Mape: It was a pleasure