NIGHTWISH's TUOMAS HOLOPAINEN: 'My Biggest Musical Heroes Come From The Film Music Genre'

In a new interview with the German edition of the Rolling Stone magazine, NIGHTWISH keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen once again said that writing film scores is something he would like to do in the future. "Yeah, I'm a big fan of film scores," he explained (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "My biggest musical heroes come from the film music genre: John Williams, the best ever, him, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, James Newton Howard, Ennio Morricone, just to mention a few. So I'm really into that stuff. That's the kind of music that I listen to, if I listen to music, which I don't do very much anymore.

"But, yeah, writing a score to a film has been in the back of my mind for 25 years," he added. "But [I've] never been asked, and I don't even know if it would be my cup of tea, because you are really confined to the story and to how the director wants you to write, and I'm not sure if I would be up to that."

A few years ago, Holopainen was asked by Untitled if he would ever write a complete soundtrack for a film. The 47-year-old musician responded: "I wish I could. That has been a dream of mine for years, but it would need to be something that really strikes my fancies. I wouldn't be interested in writing a score for a romantic comedy. It has to be something interesting — a nature documentary for Discovery channel or even a really cool game. I'd love to do [role-playing video game] 'The Elder Scrolls VI', something like that. Anyway, at the moment NIGHTWISH is, by far, my main priority, so that's what I want to focus on for my near future. I can see myself in my fifties doing something like that, though, if somebody's interested."

During the same chat, Holopainen was asked whom he would like to work with, if he could choose anybody. He responded: "Two of my biggest heroes are Hans Zimmer and [Oscar-winning Greek composer] Vangelis, so either one of those. But then again, I want to keep a bit of distance from my heroes. Once, I was in Helsinki and saw Hans Zimmer live. Then I got invited to meet him at a party afterwards but I declined. He's such a big character for me and some part of me wants to keep it like that. A good example of this is that for my whole childhood Walt Disney was my hero; he was like a demigod for me. When I read his biography, the world crumbled. He wasn't a very nice person. For some people, you want to keep the distance. So, to return to your question, if Hans asked for a cooperation, I would definitely do it."

NIGHTWISH's latest album, "Yesterwynde", arrived in September via Nuclear Blast. It marked the band's tenth studio LP, following on from the release of "Human. :II: Nature." in 2020.

In April 2023, NIGHTWISH surprised fans by announcing that the band was not going to be playing any live shows for the foreseeable future and would be not be touring in support of "Yesterwynde".

"The reasons are personal," Tuomas told Metal Hammer magazine. "We're not going to go into it, but it was something that had to be done for this band to continue. There's no bad blood between the members, nothing like that. We just have to take a long breather."

Photo credit: Tim Tronckoe (courtesy of Nuclear Blast)