NIGHTWISH Mainman Says Next Album Will Be 'A Bit Brighter' Than 'Dark Passion Play'

U.K.'s Terrorizer magazine recently conducted an interview with NIGHTWISH mainman/keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen. A few excerpts from the chat follows below.

Terrorizer: You've done it. The [last] show [of the "Dark Passion Play" tour] is over. You're officially on "holiday." How do you feel?

Tuomas: "I didn't sleep on the night before and I didn't sleep last night either. You know it's a weird thing, two years on the road and then the final show that you're like shit-scared of and really excited as well. And then it goes as well as it did it's just such a relief and such a sensation of sadness at the same time that you don't really know how to be. It's like you have been in the nicest prison on earth for two years and finally you're free and you don't know what to do. Yesterday's show [at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki], I think it was top three we ever did."

Terrorizer: So, then it's back into the studio, right?
Tuomas: "Yeah, well first, in about two weeks I'm going to go to the Mediterranean to do a sailing trip with my dad, with my uncle. Kind of like a family thing, yeah the boys at sea that's it. It's going to be fun, in the Mediterranean, in Turkey and Greece, and after that it's going to be a week and then we go to Australia for six weeks, after that it's almost Christmas. Then in January I'm going to go to Orlando to visit Donald and Goofy and Mickey and the pals again after that..."

Terrorizer: So... after the annual cartoon intake, then what?

Tuomas: "Yeah after that I start working on the next album 24/7 and we have already booked a rehearsal place. That's going to be happening in July/August next year then we'll have September off and we're going to enter the studio beginning of October so that's the plan."

Terrorizer: Last time around you went into the new album with so much up in the air, who would be the vocalist on it being the biggest hurdle you had to get over. Does it feel like a different process this time around? Are you happier about heading back to the writing desk?

Tuomas: "Much much happier, so much more light at the end of the tunnel. I have a very clear vision of the next album already, which feels really weird but I have all the song titles. I know how many songs there are going to be. I have four songs done already even though it's still pretty preliminary, the whole album, but I have a good idea what it's going to be like and uh, it's still going to be metal but I think it's going to be a bit brighter than 'Dark Passion Play'."

Terrorizer: Brighter — more pop songs? No more long epic symphonic compositions? They must be a sod to write.

Tuomas: "No, they come much easier for me. I remember 'Creek Mary's Blood', that's eight-and-a-half minutes, that came out in two hours. 'The Poet And The Pendulum' in just a couple of days, same thing with 'Ghost Love Score', they just come up naturally, I don't know. But then again a song like 'Nemo', I couldn't get it together. I worked for months and months and it's only four minutes."

Terrorizer: Ten years on did you guys think you'd be headlining Hartwall like you did last night?

Tuomas: "I never thought it, none of us did, for anything like this to ever happen. I was studying biology in university and I was supposed to be a mad scientist. Jukka was doing computer studies in the university and Emppu was working in a carpet factory or whatever. Everybody was doing it just for fun and we had our own pace and then everything just got out of hand. We dropped out of school and started doing it 24/7 and this approach has had its advantages and disadvantages; disadvantages being that we have always been really naive but the plus side is that it's always been really sincere at the same time because we haven't had any expectations, [and] there has never been any posing. You know, it's not like we try to achieve anything else than just the pleasure of playing and free booze."

Terrorizer: Do you ever get pissed off with the fame?

Tuomas: "Yeah, I actually do, you have to be a bit more careful here than in other countries with what you do. I can't piss in the street publicly. Well, you can always say it's a matter of choice of career but sometimes, it's like two weeks ago there was a three-page story about my house and they had actually hired a helicopter to fly over the house and photograph it. This kind of stuff bothers me a little bit, and they have the directions of how to get to the house."

Terrorizer: Is this something that has affected a lot of metal musicians in Finland?

Tuomas: "I think that HIM and THE RASMUS, maybe, there was a big story about RASMUS getting a new car yesterday. But no the media has been quite kind to us actually, sometimes it hurts a little bit, especially this house thing when they had actually come to my house to film it with directions and everything, so that's a bit too much."

Rad the entire interview from Terrorizer magazine.