Nightwish
By: Justin Donnelly
 While the use of orchestras is very much commonplace within metal these days, there are few that have pushed the boundaries as far as symphonic/power metal act Nightwish.The five piece Finnish act (Led by operatic vocalist Tarja Turunen, and supported by guitarist Emppu Vuorinen, bassist/vocalist Marco Hietala, keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen and drummer Jukka Nevalainen) literally pushed themselves beyond the confining limitations of their previous four studio efforts, resulting in the bands biggest, and most successful release to date in 2004’s ‘Once’.
While on tour in Germany, I caught up with Nightwish’s creative mastermind Tuomas Holopainen in Braunschweig (Where they happen to be playing a gig later that night) to find out just how successful ‘Once’ has been since it’s release in June 2004, how the album has altered the bands current tour plans (Which is set to include Australia) and just which musical direction Holopainen can see Nightwish taking in future.
“At the moment, I’m very happy. The biggest dream for me to ever come true was when I had the final master copy of ‘Once’ in my hands. When I heard it, I thought it really was the best effort that I could have done at that time. I was a big highlight for me last year to have the album finished, and to be that proud of it. From the fans perspective, I think they had very high expectations from us on a musical level, so I really wanted to do my best, without any compromises. That’s why we hired the best possible orchestra (Who were the London Academy Of St. Martin In The Fields Orchestra) and choir that we could get. That was also the reason why I had (Native American) John Two-Hawks perform on ‘Creek Mary’s Blood’. We didn’t want to make any compromises on ‘Once’. I also wanted to meet my own expectations. That to me is always the most important. It’s always the quality of the music that matters to me. Of course we wanted to be able to top the previous album (2002’s ‘Century Child’) in sales too, and be able to tour some new places, which we had never been able to do before with that success. Fortunately, all that happened, so we couldn’t be happier.”
While Holopainen’s musical expectation have well and truly been met, it’s in sales that Nightwish have really made an impact as well.
“Everything has been doing so much better than we could have ever expected. I mean the sales for ‘Once’ worldwide are somewhere around eight hundred and fifty thousand as of right now. Who knows, maybe by the end of the year it could be closer to one million. It seems so absurd for this kind of music! (Laughs) I’m not complaining though. I think it’s awesome.”
As mentioned before, the increased sales of ‘Once’ have mean that Nightwish has made inroads into territories that once seemed distant to the band, and therefore make touring something of a new challenge rather than treading over familiar ground.
“For the first time ever we toured the U.S. last August, and that was very good actually. We also did our first tour of the U.K. And in a couple of weeks we’ll be touring Japan for the first time, with Australia straight after that. So we’re finally hitting these hard markets. There has always been a really good success in Scandinavia, central Europe and South America, but it’s the bigger markets like Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. that have been really hard for us to break into. But finally, something is happening in these countries. It helps enhance the touring experience. I wouldn’t think that there’s any chance for Nightwish to sell any more albums in Germany (Where the album has gone platinum) or Finland (Where the album has sold triple platinum), so of course we want to extend into other territories and spread our wings. Otherwise it tends to be the same time and time again.”
What is not so well known amongst fans is the simple fact that with every new territory that the band plays in, it brings out a nervous disposition within Holopainen.
“I’m always nervous. It’s part of my basic character. I’ve been nervous all my life. I come from the countryside, as the rest of the band do, so this performing in front of big audiences with all these public appearances is something quite weird for me. It’s something that I’m still trying to get used to after all these years. I still find myself getting nervous every night before playing a gig. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, because you always get an adrenaline rush before going onstage when you feel a bit nervous. Of course it gets easier when you do long tours and a routine of sorts is there. But when you’re performing in a new place for the first time, at the beginning of a tour or even after a long break between tours, it can get really hard! (Laughs)”
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