CarolEscapist, can't wait.

Новое интервью с Туомасом, credits goes to Kristian from Nightwish official forum.

Hi guys! I was one of the lucky bastards attending the first listening session in Germany, and the day after I did an interview with Tuomas for the Danish magazine that I write for. As I looked at it I really wanted to post it here, since I know that some of it might be interesting for a NW-fan. It also a way for me to share (almost) everything that Tuomas said since I had to cut maybe 30-40% for the written interview (which I hate as a NW-fan)

It is not entirely in chronological order. I am the composer of my own interviews, and I always arrange quotes a lot according to themes, interest and importance. This is the order that everything appears in the interview, except what I had to cut, and except what I write as explanatory or structuring text of my own - but fans don't need my explenations and descriptions, so this is just the quotes.

Hope you like it...

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OUTLOOK ON LIFE:

Tuomas: This album is much more positive than Dark Passion Play. On the other hand I dislike the word ‘positive’. For me the album is basically a celebration of life and existence, but this celebration also includes a lot of darkness, sorrow and melancholy. There is a lot more light at the end of the tunnel this time compared to the last album. It is also about fantasy, beauty and love, even though I’m not trying to be a love guru or anything.

Has your outlook on life maybe changed since Dark Passion Play?

Yes, I think it has, with help from the works of Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau. The purgatory we went through after all the hassle in 2005 has really opened new worlds for me. Reading some of this literature has really opened my mind. In a way I have gotten this sense of oneness, and that everything is connected.

This interconnectedness and unity was really what Walt Whitman was all about…

Yes, and I am finally beginning to understand what he means by it, and it is a really comforting thought. Everything happens for a reason, and what is all this talk of good and evil, vice and virtue. He is totally right.

What is so comforting about this oneness?

Just the philosophy that everything is part of the same. Everything in this cosmos is made of the same onehundred-and-something basic elements. The fundamental love is so unconditional and wordless. I am not speaking about love between two people, or love for some God. I just feel that it is in everything, and that is so comforting.

This might be a bit personal, but perhaps you don’t feel so much like a bird in a golden cage anymore?

Yes, that is very precisely put, because I did four years ago, but perhaps not so much anymore. At least the cage is open. Maybe I’m still in there, but the door is open.


IMAGINAERUM:



Before I ever wrote the first song I had the idea, that we would make 12 music videos with one plot that would become one long story, but the original ideas was not to have any actors or dialogue. Just the band and some animations. I had a real clear vision and story for each of these videos, one in a smoky jazz club, another with a living snow man, all these different themes. Then I introduced the idea to Stobe, and he agreed that it was a great idea. When I had written all the songs and played the demo he said at once that we had to make a full-length movie. So this idea of making a dramatic Hollywood-move is all his.

We have already heard some comments that this is just an egoistic story about us. This is not at all an autobiographical move, it is just a movie about the power and strength of imagination, memories and forgiveness. Those are the basic themes, but since it is a Nightwish movie there has to be these references, and the main characters are called Tom, Anne, Markus and so on. Stobe has done a wonderful job when it comes to making coherent story that still incorporates the original themes and ideas I had. He just wrote the story around these things. On Wednesday I fly to Montreal where we shoot the movie, and I really look forward to seeing the set up, the scenes and the costumes and everything. The shooting actually starts tomorrow, and they have 18 days to do it.

As you said the movie is not autobiographical, and the story is all Stobes. Still, all these references will make some people draw conclusions about you and think if this might be the ultimate truth about Tuomas Holopainen. How do you feel knowing that people will do that?

They are free to do so, there is nothing I can do about it. I understand Stobes point that this is a Nightwish movie, and that there has to be some references to the band. Still, the main character is 75 years old, how could he be me?

Yes, but still it will make people think of you. The main character is a song-writer called Tom and all that. Doesn’t it make you feel naked in a way, and how do you feel knowing that it will make people draw some conclusions that you maybe never intended?

For a long time I disagreed with the director about calling the main character Tom. I thought it was a bit naive. But he insisted on making these references, and I get the point. I still want people to understand that it wasn’t our idea. I even told him that I didn’t want the band in the story of the movie apart from the small band clips. Again he insisted that we have these little parts in the movie. I even have one line.

SONGWRITING:

You have often said that you are the kind of song-writer who can’t finish a song unless you have some idea of feeling of the song….

I can’t just sit down and jam, that’s the problem. It doesn’t work for me. If I just sit down and try to come up with something that sounds good. I need a theme or a feeling to begin with.

OK, so what I wonder if it changed something for you, or maybe even helped you, knowing that all these songs would be turned into different movies as you thought at the time?

It was pretty much the same as always. Before I have also always had a specific idea before I wrote the individual song, but this time it was even more concrete because I had 12 ideas to begin with. For example, Storytime is about the flight with a snowman, and I imagined this five minute long video in my head. Then I thought about how this woild sound, and then this melody ‘dee-dee-dee-dee-deee’ came to me.

Things get ever more ambitious. This time we have a movie. Do you feel like you have to beat yourself every time?

Very strongly, yes. You want to challenge yourself and do something different. It should be more and more every time. It makes it all so much more fun. I don’t want to get bored making the same album again and again, and all of us like to play with new ideas. It is very fun to try and come up with new artistic moves and go in depth with that, challenging yourself and the fans.

Did you consciously try to come up with new elements for the music?

Yes, that too. Most of the time is just about letting the mind flow and run with it, and telling a story in the right way. Still, for example the jazz-song “Slow, Love, Slow” is very consciously done, because I imagined this story in a smoky jazz-club, and I’m a big fan of Twin Peaks and the music. We just said, ‘OK, let’s try this’. All my life I’ve loved the atmosphere of jazz, but I have never been able to listen to an entire album, ‘cause I just don’t get it all the way. It is not my cup of tea, but I get what it is about, and that it is music in its purest form, just as black metal is.

It has been a while since I read Whitman, but it seemed to me that the spoken part of Song of Myself was lifted directly from Song of Myself, but the final lines about “All I am is smoke and mirrors” and the “G to E minor” part was definitely not Whitman. Did you add something yourself?

All of it is actually my own, it is just written in the same spirit as mr. Whitman. I was just trying to make my own little “Song of Myself”. It is actually spoken by more than 20 different people [like family of the band members and such, I later heard]. The lyrical content is so different from anything we have ever done, so it was a nice experiment. It is a real deep, personal catharsis. I just wanted to make this long poem without having to think about poetic structure or melodies, and just let flow in the same way as Walt Whitman. He wrote about the world as he experienced it, and I try to do the same here.

PIP WILLIAMS / ORCHESTRA

Pip Williams does so much more than just conduct your music for an orchestra. Could you briefly describe his role, also on Imaginaerum?

Yes, he does much more than just write down my thoughts. He has a lot of different ideas for the individual songs, and he is an invaluable guy. What happened was that we made the demo last summer, where I had a lot of orchestral arrangements with keyboards. I sent the demo to him, and then we talked with each other at least 1-3 times a day over the next four months, just throwing ideas back and forth. He said ‘we need this obo-part here’ and I said ‘Yes, but it should be here” and so on. He contributed with a lot of his own ideas. For example, the C-part in ”Scaretale”, the circus part, which I could never have Imagined.

So the orchestral arrangements are much of a Holopainen/Williams-collaborative effort?

I would say that it is pretty much fifty-fifty. Something very important is that I want the orchestra to sound as a keyboard I could play if I had 10 hands. I don’t want it to be everywhere just because it is cool to have an orchestra. It is very important that it fits and is a part of the big sound. I don’t want it to sound too artistic or too fake.

Still, you can find critics who thinks orchestras are a bit too much, and even Nightwish-fans who liked it better on Oceanborn and Wishmaster, when you were more of a band, and your keyboards were much more prominent…

I understand that point of view, I really do. This is still what we want to do. We love the sound of the orchestra and the big arrangements, so I can’t see why we should dump it. It is extremely important to keep the dynamics in the individual sing, and we have really done our best to make have variation and dynamics on the album. There is also many small parts and little details everywehere in the music.

Do you think there is a limit for the use of orchestra?

I don’t know if there is a limit. Some parts of Once and Dark Passion Play already sounded so phenomenally big, and we didn’t think it could be topped. We don’t aim for making everything as big as possible. That is a stupid thought. We just want it to sound like something that really gives you the shivers. It is not about epicness, it is about feeling.

Anette:

Anette is an established part of the band now, and she has been in the band for several years. On Dark Passion play she came in after the songs were written. Has it made a difference on Imaginaerum that you maybe know her vocal style better?

Definitely, and at least I can hear that. I knew what her strengths were and what her weaknesses were, and then I just tried to avoid those. We have also toured together for two years, and known each other for five years, so there was a much more relaxed feeling when she came to the studio to sing. It was completely different. A funny thing is that 50-60% of all vocals, both Anette and Marco, is from the demo more than a year ago. We recorded the demo at the summer camp in a small room and just said “sing it like you want”. It took her three days, and we were all blown away, we were like “what is happening here?”. Six months later we went to the studio and did all the vocals again, and thought that this is good, but something is missing. That’s why we ended up using the demo, and the same applies to Marco. It is about the magic of the first take, and that there is no pressure on you when you’re recording a demo. When you say that you have to do your best there is some pressure on you. She had also just broken a rib when we went to the studio, and I don’t think she had recovered completely.

Did she contribute with some vocal lines or melodies of her own this time?

The original idea was that she would join our summer camp for both months and then go through all the arrangements, but then she got pregnant, and she stayed at home. So no, she didn’t contribute so much of her own. Her job was the interpretation. Hopefully we can work closer together the next time.

Speaking of strengths and weaknesses, what do you think her strengths are?

I know her scale now, and what part of the scale she sounds best. I think she is best in the lower end. You can really hear that on “The Crow, The Owl and The Dove”, for example. Her improvisational skills are really good. What you hear at the end of “Storytime” is all her own. This whoa-whoa-thing. It is a very Swedish thing, like Abba or Roxette or something.

Both you and Anette were quite open about the fact that there was a lot of stress within the band in 2008, I think it was. In your mind, what was the most important factor behind that situation?

I’d say that there was just one big reason, and that was the tour schedule. It was hard for everyone, but especially for here because she was under a lot of pressure constantly. Almost everyone collapsed at some point. It was very stupid of us and the booking agents. No one really thought about it. We were just so excited with a new album and a new singer. Lets do this, we thought. People just started falling apart. Her, other band members, some of the technicians. Everyone was constantly worried about Anette, how is she handling it, how are our fans treating her, are we gonna get shot on stage?



Was it also maybe because she really didn’t know what she was getting into back then?

No, she didn’t, and she also admitted that after a few months. She herself said “I’m sorry, I just didn’t know that it was like this, and I don’t know if I can go through with this. I am doing my best, but this is too hard”. How could she know? She made it, and I give her a big plus for that. The low point was that show in South America in 2008 where she broke down and left the stage.

Was there something from the audience that night?

Yeah, on the first line there was maybe 5-10 people doing like this [not-so-polite-hand-gesture] and waving “Tarja” signs. That was the low point, and then it slowly got better.

LYRICS:

I think that there has been a shift in your lyrical style from the first albums to the later ones, from Oceanborn-Wishmaster-era and onwards. The later lyrics are maybe more direct and more personal. Were you trying to do something different on the earlier albums?

It has always been about writing the diary of my life and what interests me. Oceanborn and Wishmaster were more fantasy-oriented, and Dark Passion Play and Imaginaerum are very personal, especially Dark Passion Play.

Is also maybe just because you are more comfortable being personal than you were back then?

Yeah, that is right. The songs are just born from moments of fascination. For example “Turn Loose The Sawns” was born from the moments, when I was visiting my grandfather when he died in just ten minutes, and my grandmother was just lying next to him, just caressing him and saying “goodbye my love” and “see you”. It was an incredibly emotional moment, they were both over ninety. What she did was check his teeth and warm his toes, and it is also in the lyrics of the song. It thought that it was so beautiful and weird at the same time. It really gave me the shivers. I had never seen a dead person before. It is moments like these the sings are born from.

DON ROSA, THE FUTURE AND WOLVES IN THE DISTANCE:

You have said many times that Don Rosa’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is one of your favorite stories, and that you had a dream of making a soundtrack for it. I also remember seeing or reading an interview where you said that you had actually met with him and talked about it. Is something actually happening, or is it still just a dream of yours?

Something is actually happening. I met Don Rosa when he visited Helsinki last spring because I have good contacts at the Donald Duck-company in Finland. I met with him personally and told him about the idea. If everything goes as planned I will concentrate on that after this tour. It has been in my head for 10 years, and I just want to get it out. That will probably be early 2013 when I will take a few months and get it done. It is a very strange idea, but I think it will work. Make a soundtrack for “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck”, which I think is the best Disney-story ever. He was a bit skeptical regarding rights and all that, ‘cause Disney are really strict about that. If it is necessary I will just change the title or something. You can always write “Inspired by..” or something.



And I guess the Nightwish-stamp won’t be put on it either…

No, I want to do it alone, just with the use of orchestra. Maybe some vocals here and there, but otherwise I imagine it as more or less instrumental.

So will there be a separate song for each chapter in the story, or…?

I have not given it that much thought yet, but for example the first chapter takes place in nineteenth-century Scotland, and that of course suggests bag pipes and something like that, and then he goes to the west, and maybe there will be some country music or something. Actually I have this plan of going to Disneyland in Orlando for two or three months and just do the whole thing there.

Do you ever wonder what you will when Nightwish is over, no matter if it will be in 10 or 30 years?

I sometimes do, yes. I have my dreams. I am sure that I will make music for the rest of my life in some way. Maybe it will be music for other artists. I would love to write a book some day. Something involving creativity. I also had this dream of opening a sort of wilderness-camp, where you could take Japanese tourists hiking or something. That’s the kinda thing I would do, if I didn’t have music.

Do you still hike a lot?

Yes, actually last week I went hiking for four days in Eastern Finland

Lapland? Karelia?

Yes, Karelia. Lieksa. Four days, about 50 kilometers. That was a lot of fun…three days actually. Two nights and three days.

What is it that you like so much about hiking?

It is the purification, and that everything is so simple. It requires an extra effort to do the most simple things. Going to the toilet when there is no toilet. Taking a shower when there is no hot water. Finding the right place to get water, and cook it before you ise it. It gives you a lot of perspective.

For me it is also a lot about the simplicity of everything…

Simplicity is a good word. Food never tastes so good as it does after a long days hike. I like the physical aspect of it as well. I like to do long walks and be really beat up at the end. It’s a wonderful feeling.

It also takes your mind of everything else…

It does. It does, yeah. Then there is just the beauty of nature. The first night I put on a fire, went into my sleeping bag, and I heard the howling of wolves. So it was one of those magic moments. I got a bit scared, actually. I had never heard the howling of wolves before.

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уже перевожу

Ох, шикарняцкое интервью)) И как раз вовремя, я уже стала подыхать без новой порции хоть какой-нибудь инфы

Hevein писал(а):

but since it is a Nightwish movie there has to be these references, and the main characters are called Tom, Anne, Markus and so on.

Очень хорошее интервью. Читаю и понимаю, как соскучилась по видео интервью Туомаса. Когда разговор получается таким интересным, очень хочется еще и видеть, как он это говорит.

Braenn писал(а):

Hevein писал(а):
but since it is a Nightwish movie there has to be these references, and the main characters are called Tom, Anne, Markus and so on.

еще дровишки для хейтеров

Lana писал(а):

очень хочется еще и видеть, как он это говорит.

а еще услышать, что за мелодии он напевает, а то как-то непонятно

Интервью одно из самых лучших и интересных из всех, которые вообще были, как по мне. Очень спокойное, расслабленное, чувствуется, как волнуется и в то же время как доволен Туомас, как ему хочется поскорее показать нам Imaginaerum

Hevein, а мне эта деталька наоборот почему-то больше всего понравилась))

Хаха, это его "dee-dee-dee-dee-deee" xD

Hevein писал(а):

Tom, Anne, Markus and so on.

и еще там будет чудище заморское по имени Tar-Tar.

Kettu, если уж заморское, то Марчелитто.

Перевод интервью с Туомасом выложен на сайте, пардон за задержку

Еще у меня есть небольшое интервью из Terrorizer (5 баксов за журнал выложила, а статейка-то тьфу размером). Оно, видимо, должно идти как бы в паре с тем ревью на альбом, что они уже выложили в своем блоге. В целом, там ничего нового, разве что Туомас немного говорит о канадской съемочной компании, с которой сотрудничают Найты (Caramel Films) и о бюджете фильма, точнее, о том, что всего он составляет почти 4 млн, 1 из которых Найты в итоге выложили из своего кармана, а остальное выжали из спонсоров

завтра вечерком накидаю интервью и запощу на сайт для коллекции

Nightwish USA сделали интервью с организатором американских туров группы. Его имя John Finberg. Работает в First row talent.



http://nightwishusa.com/Interviews/InterviewJF.html

Насколько я понимаю это свежий материал.

Сегодня прямо день интервью и статей какой-то!

http://www.nelonen.fi/uutiset/kaikki/kotimaa/nightwish-k%C3%A4ytti-miljoona-euroa-elokuvaan видео интервью с Холопайненом


http://www.iltasanomat.fi/viihde/tallainen-on-nightwishin-uusi-levyjarkale-aiempaakin-mahtipontisempi/art-1288419827841.html?ref=rss обзор альбома от IS

http://www.voice.fi/index.php?mw=Nightwish+Tuomas%20Holopainen&option=com_sbsarticle&tmpl=blog&cid=30839&cat=1 обзор от канала Voice

http://www.mtv3.fi/viihde/uutiset/musiikki.shtml/1408315/nightwishin-uusi-albumi-yllattaa отзыв от сайта MTV3

Похоже сегодня альбом слушали журналисты Финляндии. А в четверг у Туомаса и Анетт будет PR день в Швеции.

Надеюсь, на англофоруме найдется добрый человек, который переведет все это поскорее... *_____*

ShadowWolfSmith писал(а):

А в четверг у Туомаса и Анетт будет PR день в Швеции

Похоже, я даже знаю, где именно он будет Сходить что ли на разведку...

Cailleach, DO IT! FRIGGIN' DO IT!

Обзор альбома от портала Stara http://blogit.stara.fi/chaostube/?p=11464 снова на финском

Обзор от Noise http://www.noise.fi/blogi/?p=6007

Статья в Karjalainen http://www.karjalainen.fi/Karjalainen/Uutiset_maakunta/nightwish_esitteli_uuden_levyns%C3%A4_7464967.html мдаа много чего есть на перевод для финнов)

Обзор от Kaaoszine http://kaaoszine.fi/nightwish-imaginaerum-kappale-kappaleelta/ Ещё обещают видео интервью с Туо. Иногда я жалею, что Найты не из англоговорящей страны А сегодня ещё кучу материала на шведском будет блиииин

ого, и тут умудрились Тарью упомянуть. и про самую ожидаемую и длинную песню с альбома написали 2 строчки ни о чем(