Better Off Without The Drama | he frontwoman may have changed, but the “soul” of Nightwish remains the same, says Holopainen (left).
DETAILS
NIghtwish
w/ Sonic Syndicate. May 16 (8pm). Starlite Room (10030-102 St). Sold out.
Breakups are a nasty, shitty business.
Especially band breakups. Most especially when they’re announced via a public, open letter on the band website, and result in a media fallout the likes of which a metal band has never seen before—in Finland, anyway. When you live in a country whose population is a mere five million, word and rumour get around mighty, mighty fast. (Coincidentally, Finland also has the world’s highest number of metal bands per capita. No joke: the Finns love their metal.)
Here’s how it all played out. In 2005, after enjoying eight years of iconic status in the Eurocore scene, Nightwish founder Tuomas Holopainen and the other members of the band posted an open letter on their website sacking their diva frontwoman Tarja Turunen—a classically trained, operatic-style soprano. Predictably, uproar ensued. Not only was the band risking the loss of Turunen’s not-insignificant fanbase, but they also had to prove Nightwish itself could survive as a live act without her theatrical presence anchoring the show.
“Tarja was so good at doing her own thing that we thought it would be no use to find a copycat,” explains Holopainen. “If we would have found another operatic singer, she would have always been considered a copy, no matter how good she would be.”
Enter Anette Olzon, the former singer for Alyson Avenue, a rock chanteuse whose mezzo voice represents a marked departure from Nightwish’s previous sound. “The idea was to find someone who would have the equal power to [Turunen’s] voice in a totally different way, and I think Anette is doing that perfectly,” Holopainen says.
But when you’ve established a strong fanbase in the metal community, never mind a legion of followers who drank up Turunen’s gothy, symphonic vocals, bringing in an easy-on-the-ears rock singer could cause quite the upset. The band’s first single following Turunen’s departure, “Amaranth,” has received more than a little flak from metal loyalists, who’ve accused the band of sounding too—ahem—“pop.”
“You know there’s nothing wrong with that,” Holopainen says. “You can say it’s a pop voice, or a rock voice. People have this weird urge to categorize everything. If a song sounds good, if it gives you emotions, that’s all that matters. Who cares if it sounds pop or metal or black metal or whatever?
“I mean, [‘Amaranth’] made a really good first single because it’s so annoyingly catchy. But it’s a bit cheery and poppy, and overall when you listen to Dark Passion Play it’s, in my opinion, the darkest material we’ve put out. It might give you the wrong impression of what the album is about.”
Indeed, Holopainen wrote the new album in the months following Turunen’s dismissal, and intended it as a requiem to the departed Turunen. “I wrote all the songs when the media hassle and the drama was at its height,” he says. “They were like the only haven for me to escape from all the crap. By far it was the most difficult thing that’s ever happened in my life. But writing songs has never ever been so easy as it was this time. It might be a bit exaggerated to say that the album saved my life, but it was very close to that.”
With 130 musicians on loan from The London Philharmonic Orchestra and The Metro Voices Choir, Nightwish entered Abbey Road Studios in London, and emerged with their 75-minute Dark Passion Play last September. The album, which holds the record for the most expensive album in Finnish history, went platinum in Finland the day of its release. (And remember: Finland’s not that big, so everyone and their grandma in Helsinki knows all the lyrics already.)
As for the chemistry of the new line-up, Holopainen laughs at the drama of the past. “This is like a marriage between five people on wheels,” he says. “You know, a relationship between two people is hard enough. But it feels like more of a band now, like there are five equals up there goofing around. It’s a lot of fun. I hope we can keep this lineup together—at the end of this tour I won’t have to start writing stupid open letters anymore.”
Joking, Anette, he was joking.
