2024: Interviews promoting Yesterwynde

[Moondance]

In a recent interview with Swedish Rock Magazine, Tuomas has indeed confirmed three things:

• "The Day of..." is set to be the next single. Looks like I was right on the money for this guess. The theme for the single is "1984", which I can assume that it is the George Orwell book it will be about.
• "The Children of 'Ata" will feature vocal parts sung in Tongan by guest vocalists.
• Tuomas has stated that the band is not going to stop touring completely, but will start touring less after the hiatus is over.

I might have missed a couple of other details. If I did, please post what I might have missed.
https://swedenrockmagazine.prenly.com/p/sweden-rock-magazine/2024-06-12/a/nightwish/1295/1472769/52504243

[Fugazi]

Awesome! The article seems to be behind a paywall, how did you manage to access it?

Anyway, I suppose that 'The Day of...' won't be anything like 'You Will Never Be Our God' (Xandria) but it's funny that we get two metal songs somewhat inspired by the same book in the last year.

Tongan guest vocalists? Hopefully they used due diligence and hired authentic Tongans and not con artists. 🤔

[Fugazi]

Another new interview with Tuomas on Rock Antenne YouTube channel. The guy has listened to the new album already. It looks like the interview covers some of the same ground as the Sweden Rock article.

Some highlights:

• "The Day Of..." is synth heavy with an 80's vibe. The song is about controlling people with fear, with an optimistic message hidden beneath.
• The album requires time to absorb but it will be rewarding.
• The album booklet includes many old-time photos with band members added-in.

[Fugazi]

Off The Record With Nightwish (Tuomas Holopainen) - with Bear Wiseman

A few tidbits:

• Tuomas has no regrets about regarding his career, and he wouldn't go back and change anything.
• The song 'Something Whispered Follow Me' is about the meaning of life.
• Tuomas is asked to comment on the band members. He describes Emppu as carefree, Troy as positive, Floor as passionate, Kai as amiable, Jukka as grounding.
• He describes 'The Children of 'Ata' as an unexpected standout song in the album.

[Fugazi]

Interview with Nightwish — “Grew old enough and healthy enough to pass the seed. Generations and generations and thousands and millions of years… incredible, and beautiful.”

By Laureline Tilkin - August 11, 2024

https://tuonelamagazine.com/interview-with-nightwish-grew-old-enough-and-healthy-enough-to-pass-the-seed-generations-and-generations-and-thousands-and-millions-of-years-incredible-and-beautiful/

Also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGuUmt51h_U

Some highlights:

• "Without spoiling any details, to me, the album is very optimistic, even the song “The Day Of…” has a very optimistic message behind it. What Floor does in that song is acting to be somebody else. She’s the preacher of fear, the fearmonger, and then we get children in the choruses who say how things really should be. When they both join together for the last chorus, that’s when the magic happens."
• "If you want to get the full experience, listen to “Yesterwynde” from beginning to end, preferably with lyrics and artwork. [...] The starting point for me in doing this album was that the songs are there in that particular order for a very good reason. We were really careful with the gaps in between the songs, all the little details are there to make it all cohesive, and one big experience."
• Yeah, the band immediately said after hearing the first demo that “The Day Of…” has to be a single. Then, a bit later came “Perfume of the Timeless,” and then Floor wanted “Lanternlight” to be the third one. It’s going to come out on the same day as the album with a music video.
• "Well, the plan for the near future, is to finish AURI 3, which should be mixed next February. Then, we’re going to do a tour with AURI in the Fall of 2025. What happens after that, I really don’t have a clue."

[Fugazi]

"Nightwish will probably celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2026" - Interview with Tuomas Holopainen

Some highlights:

• The topics covered by the last 3 albums reach the other band members more that the personal stuff Tuomas used to write about before.
• No thought has been given yet to the next Nightwish album (theme, songs), but there *will* be an 11th NW album eventually.
• As the interview title suggests, the label has discussed celebrating the band's 30th anniversary in some way next year.

[Fugazi]

Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish satisfied with the “Yesterwynde” album: “I Don’t Want to Complain About Anything Anymore”

Riku Juutilainen and Hannu Juutilainen - 20.8.2024

https://metalliluola.fi/interview-tuomas-holopainen-of-nightwish-satisfied-with-the-yesterwynde-album-i-dont-want-to-complain-about-anything-anymore/

 

Probably the most insightful interview so far, here are a few excerpts:

• We had Troy sing all the songs in one take to a click track, and we began rehearsing with his vocals in our in-ear monitors. Hearing the vocals during the arrangement phase opened up new creative possibilities. Even though it was Troy’s voice, it was sung willy-nilly, in a rough, impromptu manner. We could still hear the melody, the lyrics, where the vocals come in, the chorus placement, and so on.

• Unfortunately, these demos I just mentioned won’t be released. I doubt Troy would want fans to hear them. There are no bonus tracks on the album, and there isn’t a single Nightwish song that hasn’t been released in some form.

• The choir featured in “Yesterwynde” is what we call the Tallis Choir, named in honor of Thomas Tallis. He was a renowned medieval composer. We aimed to capture an ancient, medieval atmosphere. It was a very challenging recording and the most difficult thing to get done during the Abbey Road sessions in London.

• There were 12 singers (in the Tallis Choir), and the intonation was so delicate that it took approximately two hours to sing “Yesterwynde”. For these professionals, that’s quite a long time, as they usually get it done by the second or third take.

• I took a big A4 sheet of paper and made a drawing on it. Throughout the time I was composing “An Ocean Of Strange Islands”, that drawing remained on my music stand. I won’t reveal what was in that drawing, though.

• I was aware that ["The Day Of..."] would provoke discussions and conflicting feelings, but that’s precisely what music should achieve. The core idea of the song is that humankind has been frightened by apocalyptic and terrible events for tens of thousands of years, yet here this planet still is. -- We should always remember to challenge those in power – whether it’s politics, religion, or the media.

• This song ["The Children of ʻAta"] is perhaps the biggest positive surprise for me on the album. During the songwriting and rehearsal phases, it was very good and had potential, but it really took off, particularly through the orchestration and choir recordings. -- Meeting the Tongans was fascinating, particularly because their leader, Hanalee Vaike, insisted on meeting with me the day before the recordings. [...] It was clearly so important to her that she wanted to meet the person daring to fiddle with their story. I assured her that this project was approached with the utmost respect. It’s such a beautiful metaphor for the state of the planet and human kindness, and we wish for the world to know the story of these boys. [...] They were also very strict about who sang what. In Tongan culture, women aren’t allowed to recite certain prayers, and vice versa: they cannot participate in chants. They were very precise in the studio, ensuring that this person sings that part and that person sings that part, so everything was done correctly according to their traditions.

• None of the songs and stories on this album had a place for growls.

• Jukkis (Jukka Koskinen) took on the major challenge of playing the fretless bass at the end of “Sway”, an instrument notoriously difficult to keep in tune. The parts he plays there are just brilliant. It’s one of his highlights on this album.

• It was difficult for me to imagine anyone other than James stepping into Pip’s role. Fortunately, he had the motivation and time to do it. Whew! We chose Abbey Road because almost all the other studios in London have closed, except for AIR Studios and Abbey Road. AIR was fully booked for the rest of the year by Netflix.

• Janne Pitkänen, also known as ToxicAngel, couldn’t get involved this time [with the album design], so he passed the torch to Pete. We didn’t know each other at all. Janne said Pete is absolutely brilliant – just as good as he is and even much better. He’s a great guy and a great artist, he appreciated the themes of the album, and we had excellent harmony. [...] I directed Pete to draw the cover by hand so that it would look old. I also told him that the cover must have a clock going into infinity. Those were the approximate guidelines I gave Pete. I also asked him to sprinkle in a few Easter eggs from the album’s lyrics.

• Regarding performing, I don’t dare to comment on anything because we’re busy. The honest answer is that none of us know. We’ve signed a multi-album deal with Nuclear Blast, so there will be albums.

• In 2026, Nightwish’s 30-year history definitely needs to be celebrated in some way. Just this August, we were discussing with the record label what that could be. Most likely, there will be some sort of anniversary release.

• [About Marko and Tarja performing Nightwish songs] I don’t mind, why would I? People are free to cover others’ songs as much as they like. Perhaps they have felt that the people attending their concerts want a nostalgic trip to Nightwish as well. I see this as a win-win situation.

• We filmed it (the [Kitee] concert) just in case because it was such a special event. We don’t have any plans regarding what, or when anything will be released, but the material is there.

It's definitely worth reading the whole interview though.

[Fugazi]

Interview with Nightwish mastermind Tuomas Holopainen (10.08.2024)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4IvKyxL1X8

Nothing really new, content similar to previous interviews. Auri album in 2025, Auri tour end 2025. Possible Darkwoods album in the future, if stars align.

[Fugazi]

Interview with James Shearman on Metal Fusion.

[Fugazi]

Troy speaks to Belgian Jasper.

Nightwish’s Next Chapter: Exploring Yesterwynde! INTERVIEW!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d92TmMmK9z4

Of note, Troy sort of suggests Nightwish could return to the stage in 2026 for their 25th anniversary, in a more affirmative way than anything Tuomas ever said up until now.

[Fugazi]

Troy on A&P Reacts:

Troy Donockley (Nightwish) Explains The Tapestry of "Yesterwynde"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MWw27SpajI

[Fugazi]

Floor & Tuomas talk about the new Nightwish record on Thomann Music.

[Fugazi]

"Things have always been ****ed up."  - How death, cancer and a whole pandemic helped make Yesterwynde the most optimistic Nightwish album yet

By Dave Everley ( Metal Hammer ), 23 September 2024

https://www.loudersound.com/features/nighrwish-yesterwynde-feature-2024

Despite an unbelievable amount of personal setbacks, Nightwish rallied to make one of 2024's best metal albums. Here's how

 

Tuomas Holopainen was a teenage misanthrope. Growing up in the small Finnish town of Kitee, he had the regulation all-black wardrobe and the soundtrack to match. “I did not use to be an optimistic person when I was younger,” he says. “I loved black metal and all that. But I started to come to the realisation that things have always been fucked up, but we’re still going for the better despite the horrible things that are going on in the world.”

We’re sitting in a suite in an upscale Berlin hotel, as mid-morning traffic flows along Potsdamer Platz several storeys below us. Literally as we talk, unthinkable things are happening all around the world: war, abuse, torture, murder, wilful destruction of the climate. The grim realities of humanity in 2024, basically.

But right here, right now, all that seems a long way away. Not because Nightwish’s keyboard player and band leader is in epic denial mode, but because his band’s 10th album, Yesterwynde, is charged with emotion: hope, beauty, positivity and, yes, optimism.

It’s an unexpected choice on more than one level. Aside from the rolling catastrophe that is the 21st century, Nightwish themselves have been battered by turmoil over the past few years. Their last album, 2020’s Human. :II: Nature., was released during the first, intense throes of the pandemic, scuppering their plans to tour it. When they did return to the road in May 2021, it was without longtime bassist Marko Hietala, who cited a mixture of long-standing depression and disillusion with the music industry for his decision to leave the band.

On a personal level, things have been no less turbulent. In 2022, singer Floor Jansen revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer (she was given the all-clear following surgery). In June 2023, the singer – pregnant with her second child – collapsed with exhaustion following a Nightwish show in Finland, prompting the cancellation of two subsequent solo gigs. Amid all this, Tuomas’s father, Pentti Holopainen, passed away in 2021.

Other bands may have buckled under the battering of the last few years, but Nightwish – and specifically Tuomas as their chief songwriter – have taken a different path. Rather than wallowing in trauma, Yesterwynde pushes back against it. The 12-track album covers a lot of emotional ground across its 69 minutes, but the overwhelming sense is that, honestly, everything is going to be OK. “Yesterwynde has a very optimistic vibe to it,” says Tuomas. “It celebrates life and humanity and mortality. The important things.” 

Yesterwynde begins and ends with the sound of an old film projector starting up and winding down. It suggests a movie is playing out in between. What exactly that movie is, Tuomas Holopainen isn’t letting on. “It’s something different for everybody,” he says, smiling but evasive. Musically, Yesterwynde is everything we have come to expect from Nightwish, only more. One song, the hyper- dramatic An Ocean Of Strange Islands, features over 600 studio tracks and sounds like it. Another, The Children Of ’Ata, was inspired by the real-life story of a group of teens from Tonga stranded for 15 months on a remote island in the Pacific, and features five indigenous Tongan singers. Elsewhere, Yesterwynde features two separate choirs – one classical, one kids – and three different orchestras, all recorded in London’s prestigious Abbey Road Studios, naturally. There are no side-long epics – only two tracks, An Ocean Of Strange Islands and first single Perfume Of The Timeless, stretch beyond eight minutes – but it still feels bigger, bolder and more grandiose than anything else out there right now.

But amid the dramatic power and intricacy, there’s the emotional core that sets Nightwish apart from every corset-clad knock-off that has followed in their wake.
That emotion is conveyed by both the music and Floor Jansen’s career-best vocal performance (as on the two other Nightwish albums she’s been involved in, the Dutch native is joined on singing duties by multi-instrumentalist/resident Brit Troy Donockley). Loss, grief, the existential fragility of humanity and the hope it inspires: it’s all there.

There’s one problem. Literally seconds before we step into the lift to go up to meet Tuomas, a rep for Nightwish’s label makes it clear that he will not talk about the death of his father. On the one hand, this is understandable, even admirable – privacy is a scarce commodity these days, and there’s something to be said for not laying everything out for public consumption. On the other, it’s frustrating – death and birth both play into the big, interlocking themes of Yesterwynde, namely the passage of time and the unfolding of history, and how both make us aware of our own mortality.

This is clearest of all on the album’s closing track, Lanternlight, a moving yet celebratory lament for those who are no longer with us. ‘Gone is the hurt, the wait / Gone is the warmth of day,’ Floor sings. And later: ‘To the meadows I go / I’ll be waiting for you.’ Tuomas won’t say whether it was inspired by the death of his father – “I lost something very dear to me a few years ago, and this song was born out of that emotion,” he offers opaquely – but it’s hard not to join the dots.

“The major theme of the album is time – going back in time, recognising your own mortality,” he says. “Connecting to the past.” The past seems appealing, given how shitty the world is at the moment. “Yeah, it is,” he concedes. “But it’s also incredibly good in many ways. And in many ways it’s better – the innovations of science and medicine, the child death rate... A small example: would you rather go to the dentist today or a hundred years ago? “I want to emphasise that I’m not immune to the bad stuff that’s going on in the world. I’m aware of it and I do everything I can to help. But I think it’s good for our mental state to recognise the good stuff. And I think that we have the chance as a species to survive and get together. That’s the core message, the essence, of Yesterwynde.”

Like so many things, Yesterwynde was born out of the pandemic. The seeds for the album were sown after the tour in support of Human. :II: Nature. was postponed due to Covid. “Suddenly I had nothing to do,” says Tuomas. “So I thought I’d better start writing songs for the next Nightwish album.”

For Floor, the experience of making her third Nightwish album was unlike that of making Human. :II: Nature. or its predecessor, 2015’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful. “It was different for me,” she says. “Not bad, not at all, but different.” It’s a few weeks after we met Tuomas in Berlin. We’re sitting backstage at Muziekgebouw, a concrete concert hall in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, where Floor is due to play a show in support of her 2023 solo album, Paragon, later this evening. She’s not alone: her eight-month-old baby daughter, Lucy, is here too, unknowingly sitting in on the interview and letting her mum know when she’s hungry.

Just like many things that emerged from the pandemic, Yesterwynde began in isolation. Tuomas began writing the songs at home in Finland while his bandmates were busy dealing with their own lives. The rest of Nightwish knew he was writing something, but they didn’t know what. “He didn’t email us saying, ‘This is what I’ve written today,’” says Floor. “He doesn’t like sharing snippets, he likes to share the whole thing. But we knew he was inspired.”

The first time Floor heard the new songs Tuomas had written was during Nightwish’s festival run in the summer of 2022, after touring had properly resumed. “Imagine us all gathered in a hotel room, everybody has brought a drink or two, or three, sometimes the minibar is emptied,” says Floor. “Tuomas would play us the music – we didn’t listen to all the songs at once, that would’ve been too much. He’d explain what the songs were about – he’d start off by telling us very little, letting the music speak for itself, but he’d start to go into the depths of what inspired him.”

At this stage, there were no vocals on the record, just piano melodies in their place. But Tuomas would sometimes sing along as the demo played. Floor made voice recordings on her phone to help her understand what the songs were about and ensure she could connect with the emotions in them. “I’m sure he hopes I never put them on the internet,” she says playfully.

Floor’s personal circumstances meant the recording process was different too. Her pregnancy meant she was unable to join the rest of the band at the campsite in Kitee they’ve used for several albums now to rehearse the songs for Yesterwynde. It also meant she recorded her vocals at home in Sweden, where she lives with her husband, Sabaton drummer Hannes Van Dahl (Tuomas was there for the sessions).

“I was pregnant, and before that there was the cancer, and then I had my baby and I was just really, really fucking tired, so I wasn’t there like I had been in the past,” she says. “The connection to the album is much less than it was before, because we haven’t been spending as much crazy time together as we usually would. That doesn’t mean I don’t give a shit – quite the opposite – but I’m still growing into what it means, and what it means to me.”

What song hit you the hardest the first time you heard it? “The last song on the album [Lanternlight] hit me the most,” she says. “When I heard that the first time – he explained what it was about, this song he wrote for his father – it went straight to my heart. It was so beautiful, even in demo form. I sat there crying.”

Even without the pandemic, the last few years have been a rollercoaster for Floor. There was her well-documented diagnosis with and subsequent recovery from breast cancer, followed by her pregnancy. It culminated in her collapse from exhaustion following a Nightwish show in June 2023, while pregnant (thankfully, both Floor and her unborn daughter were fine). Two solo shows were cancelled in the wake of the latter, though no one would have blamed her if she’d walked away from it all for good.

“No, no, I just had to quit for a couple of months,” she says, meaning the heavy workload. “Did I ever think of quitting for good? No, never.” Hearing her talk, it sounds like Floor is in a unique position: a key part of Yesterwynde, undoubtedly, but also someone with a little distance, who is still learning its deeper meanings. What does the album mean to her right now?

“To me, it’s a continuous awareness about the beauty of the planet we’re on and the positivity of us as a species. We get all this negative feedback about killing the planet and hurting each other, and all of that is unfortunately true. But there’s also a lot of beauty to it – humanity has achieved amazing things throughout history, and we should remind ourselves of that. That is sometimes forgotten in the speed of the life we live today.”

For all Yesterwynde’s against-the-grain optimism, Tuomas Holopainen is as aware as anyone of the grim realities of the world in 2024. That was brought home in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when there were fears that Russia’s neighbour, Finland, could be next.

“Not fear, but an awareness,” he counters. “I haven’t felt afraid, not once, even though I live less than 10 kilometres from the Russian border. But we have such a good defence that he is not going to come after us.”

He seems equally unflappable when it comes to matters closer to his band. Earlier this year, original Nightwish singer Tarja Turunen – who was acrimoniously and very publicly fired from the band in 2005 – and former bassist Marko Hietala reunited to tour together and release a joint single, Left On Mars. If it feels like a slap in the face for Tuomas, he hides it well.

“Honestly, I don’t care at all,” he says. “It doesn’t move me in any direction that they have found each other. They can play and perform as many Nightwish songs as they want, it doesn’t bother me one bit.” Have you spoken to Marko since he left? ‘A couple of times.” Are you on good terms? "Yes. There’s no bad blood between us. His leaving was his decision. I was actually quite taken by the fact that in the first interview he gave after he left the band, he said, ‘Don’t anybody dare to put this on Tuomas. This was my decision.’”

You’ve talked about the passage of time. Do you miss the friendships you once had with Tarja and Marko? “I remember the best of times we had, with Tarja and Marko. I’m filled with nostalgia and warmth when I think about the latter half of 2004, for example, which was one of the best times Nightwish ever had, right after the release of the Once album and the European tour. It was just wonderful. But my life is in such a good place at the moment that it’s no more than a whiff of nostalgia.”

That sense of nostalgia is threaded through Yesterwynde, linking the past to the present. But what about the future? For Nightwish, that future seems to be tinged with a degree of uncertainty. In April 2023, they announced in a statement that the band would not be touring their next album – a huge deal for a band whose epic live shows match the grandeur of their music. That decision still stands today. Tuomas is insistent that there will be no live shows in support of Yesterwynde, though he politely but firmly refuses to reveal why.

“The reasons are personal, we’re not going to go into it, but it was something that had to be done for this band to continue,” he says, cryptically. “There’s no bad blood between the members, nothing like that. We just have to take a long breather.” Are there any plans to do anything around the album? A live stream? “We will have something planned, which is not playing music but something else.” Which is? “I can’t say, because we don’t know right now,” he says, unconvincingly. “But there are still things happening.”

Backstage in Eindhoven a few weeks later, Floor is equally unwilling to divulge the reasons behind the decision, though she seems to have a slightly different view of it. “The whole idea of not touring... it’s not mine,” she says. “I wish we could continue, but it’s a mutual decision. Everything with Nightwish, we’ve done with 120%, but if you don’t have the energy to do that, it’s better to take a break.”

Not having to tour for months on end does have its upsides. Tuomas says he’ll spend the time working on a new record from Auri, the side-project featuring his wife Johanna and Nightwish’s Troy Donockley. Floor will likewise use the opportunity to spend time with her family and work on her second solo album.

Both insist that the lack of a tour in support of Yesterwynde doesn’t mean that Nightwish are coming to the end of the road. Tuomas points to the fact that they’ve just signed a new deal with their label, Nuclear Blast, as “evidence there are going to be more albums in future”.

“I’ve seen a lot of reactions, people drawing conclusions,” says Floor. “Making an elephant out of a mosquito, as the Dutch say – making something much bigger than it actually is. It’s not the end of the band, I’m not going to leave, nobody’s angry at each other. There’s a lot of drama been added to this – it’s bad enough that we’re not playing, but there’s nothing more to it.”

In many ways, making such a monumental album as Yesterwynde, and then opting not to tour it, is a very Nightwish thing to do. This is a band who have always followed their own path, even – especially – when it’s flown in the face of popular trends. They’ve watched nu metal, the NWOAHM and the mid-00s emo scene rise, fall and rise again while their own career has followed an unbroken upwards trajectory.

But Nightwish exist entirely in a universe of Tuomas’s own creation. Ask him if he listens to Sleep Token or any of the crop of modern bands currently taking metal in interesting new directions, and he shakes his head.

“No. I don’t listen to music at all anymore, practically. I haven’t for 10 years. I enjoy silence much more these days. Maybe I had an overdose of it for the first 35 years of my life. I’ve heard of the bands you mentioned, but I don’t actively listen to music at all. Though I just heard that My Dying Bride are coming out with a new album. I’ll definitely check that out,” he adds wryly.

Earlier, he’d talked a little more about the imaginary movie that starts and finishes at either end of Yesterwynde. Or, more specifically, the one that runs in his head.

“It’s a very unique one,” he says after a moment’s pause. “I’ve come to realise how incredibly lucky we are to be alive. It’s ridiculous, the odds that we are all here. We should celebrate it.”

[Fugazi]

Floor in a long interview on The Charismatic Voice.

They discuss some of the technical side of voice performance. Also how Floor dealt with recording the new album only 6 weeks post-partum.

I'm not sure what is Floor alluding to when she says that 'we gave a fake reason' why they're not touring anymore (1:21:10), and that it's for personal reasons. I thought nothing else was said about their decision than 'personal reasons' right from the start?