Pre-listening session at Finnvox Studio for new
Nightwish album, "ONCE". 27th of March 2004
Article and all pics by by Luxi
Lahtinen
In
mid March I got an invitation from Tuula Salminen of Spinefarm Records
to a pre-listening session of Nightwish´s forth-coming album at the
famous Finnvox Studio. How could I turn down such an invitation? Of
course I didn´t, and I went there by 11.45 AM on the 27th of March and
soon noticed that I was the first person there - besides 3 fine ladies
from Spinefarm Records who kept me company for a short moment. I asked
from one of them whether Tuomas Holopainen was somewhere near by and at
that very moment he stepped into the room with us and I decided to take
advantage of this ´golden opportunity´. I went to Tuomas and politely
asked him whether he might have a few minutes to talk with me while
waiting for the others to arrive. Being a true gentleman like Tuomas is
by nature, we found ourselves soon sitting around a table on the other
side of the big room and I started inquiring some things from him
concerning their anxiously waited new album titled ONCE.
So Tuomas, how would you say this new album ONCE differ from your
previous album CENTURY CHILD as wholeness?
Well, how could I put into words? I would say that CENTURY CHILD was
more or less kind of a "proto type" for this new album even if
I naturally couldn´t be aware of that at all. On CENTURY CHILD we used
a full orchestra for the first time just to give more depth into our
songs and added a bit heavier aspects into them, too. But on this new
album ONCE, overall we have doubled all these elements; brought both
more heaviness and orchestrated parts into our new songs. Our new stuff
on ONCE mostly is based on very riff-laden song structures as well as we
have never used this many classical orchestra parts for our songs as we
did with the songs for ONCE. I could also say that ONCE is kind of a
sequel to CENTURY CHILD, but everything on ONCE has been done better and
in a more massive scale.
How did it feel to start making songs for your follow-up album?
Knowing that CENTURY CHILD was so well received in every corner of the
world and it received rave reviews in almost every single magazine
worldwide. I bet starting thinking and eventually writing new stuff for
ONCE under those circumstances simply must have caused at least a bit
pressure on you because you obviously want to top yourself as a song
writer as far as follow-up albums are concerned, correct?
Yes, that is correct indeed. Of course there´s always some pressures
haunting there behind your previous successful attempt to make a great
record and making ONCE differs rather radically from everything what we
have done earlier. Making ONCE has been really hard task to make; we
have been spending time to make this album longer than with any of our
other albums, but I still think that the experience we have got out of
this all has also been the most rewarding to us all in all. We had
absolutely enough time to make this album, so we didn´t have to rush
any things for ONCE as has happened with the making of our previous
albums. Right at this moment I feel very good about our new album. I
have to say that I have lots of confidence toward this new album of ours
and I feel very proud of being a part of making of it even if no one
would buy it. It still was worth making, that´s for sure.
Excuse me, but it sounds pretty ´odd´ to me when you said you
didn´t have to rush things in the studio to make the album done ´coz
nearly 99% out of all bands kind of tend to rush things when a deadline
for some recording in a studio is almost reached, bands simply have this
strange tendency to run out of their time in a recording situation for
some reason or the other...
He-he... as strange as it may sound to you, we have been 5 months in
the studio, making this new album. We entered the studio in the mid
October 2003 and during the X-mass time we had only one week off from
the recording of ONCE. But otherwise we have been recording the album
daily up to this very day; sometimes more intensely, something a bit
less intensely.
When you had a clear enough picture in your head for how the songs
would eventually turn out, did you ever feel, even a few times during
the whole song writing process, that the musical steps you have taken
might be too much for some Nightwish fans to handle? Possibly way too
drastic changes musically compared to your previous stuff, maybe
crossing the line a bit too much for what´s accessible Nightwish stuff
and what´s not from the Nightwish fans point of view?
Actually
I wanted to do an album where each single song could be like a
soundtrack in miniature. When I was composing songs for our previous
album CENTURY CHILD, I realized that´s the thing for Nightwish I really
wanted to do ´coz overall to do something where we are good at and feel
comfortable for us. And now when I listen to songs on our new album, I
feel very strongly about the stuff we have done for this album. There´s
a very strong ´soundtrack´ish´ feel in each song we have done for
ONCE and I´m really happy how the whole album sounds like. Also,
there´s lots of tiny little surprises here and there in our songs on
the album. I think it´s kind of nice to wake up people every once in a
while and do something different musically for each new album you do.
For example one song has been sung in Finnish ("Kuolema Tekee
Taiteilijan" ), then we have one a real Native American Indian in
one of our songs as a guest ("Creek Mary´s Blood" ) and then
there´s even a song on ONCE which is almost a "danceable techno
Heavy Metal song (?)" where this certain metallic beat rumbles
through the whole song. With this type of ´surprises´ we have spiced
some of the songs on ONCE...
Last time we talked, I recall talking a little bit about Marco´s
contribution for the song writing of Nightwish in the future, too. Has
he participated in the song writing of ONCE and how much did he
become involved with that?
Marco gave me a couple of ´raw sketches´ on CD-R, containing some
plain riffs as well. I checked them through and ripped a few things out
from it and there´s one song on the album that Marco has done almost
completely from the beginning to the very end by himself and that song
is the last song on ONCE called "Higher than Hope". Also Marco
did one riff for one other song on the album, so I could say that
Marco´s involvement with this album is more visible than on our last
album CENTURY CHILD. As for me, I still have done all the lyrics for
this album, though.
What
about Emppu; what was his role with the song writing for this new album
of yours then?
Emppu did one riff for one song too, and the rest has been done by
me.
But still as I assume that even if both Marco and Emppu had come
up with a respected bunch of cool and useable ideas for ONCE, you were
again so-called the main ´filter´ at the end of the tunnel who
selected the gold out from a less valuable metal, so to speak...
Yes, I agree... it was my duty to be this main filter again to look a
little bit after what kind of stuff I wanted to get in for this album.
If I remember right, Emppu introduced 3 riffs of which I wanted to use
one for this album and Marco introduced a couple of song structures plus
3 riffs to me and from those I decided to use one of Marco´s song
structure in whole for ONCE and one of his riffs as well.
Now when you have been playing and hearing all these songs on ONCE
like a few hundred times or so, can you already tell whether one of them
has grown as your own favorite song for some reason or the other?
I have to tell you that right from the very beginning, since that
moment I got this certain song completely finished, "´Creek
Mary´s Blood" is the one I consider as my own highlight of my
whole career as a song writer. I feel like this song has got something
very personal for me; there´s lots of great moods and feelings going on
in that particular song and I have to say that I also feel like I´m
pleased with that song most. Of course there´s always a chance that my
favorite songs off the album may change daily, you just never know. For
example the first single song off the album called "Nemo" felt
really damn good in the beginning as a song, but nowadays I kind of want
to wash my hands from it simply because I have heard it so many times.
"Creek Mary´s Blood" is still my favorite off all the songs
right now.
What type of song is it musically? Is it an ´epic´ song or
something alike...?
Yes, it is indeed! It clocks in at the 9-minute mark and another
lengthy tune on ONCE is "Ghost Love Story" is about 10-minutes
or so... These two songs are the longest songs this new album and the
rest of the songs are like 4-5 minutes in length.
I read from your website that you even did one song ("Kuolema
Tekee Taiteilijan") in Finnish for the first time in the entire
history of Nightwish. What made you end up trying out one song in your
native language of Finnish?
Well, it was basically just an experiment more than anything else to
see how one of our songs would sound like when sung in Finnish. It
wasn´t any kind of pre-planned thing to do at all; more like a
spontaneous idea to find out whether it would work out for us or not.
And it did work out very well in my opinion. The song sounds very good
to my ears at least. It´s assumable one of the best ballad type of
songs that we have ever been capable of churning out, I think. This song
has been made of minor ingredients; there´s only Tarja´s voice, piano
and the orchestra in this song and that´s it. The band doesn´t play in
that song at all.
ONCE will be released 7th of June 2004 worldwide. What kind of
expectations do you have for it and how you expect people will receive
it when they get a chance to buy it from their local record stores?
Hmm... a tough question. First off, I have to say that this album may
be a bit more complex and difficult album in my opinion to be absorbed
by people compared to our previous album CENTURY CHILD, for example.
When people listen to it for the very first time, they probably may get
some confused and mixed feelings out of this album as the stream of
information on this new album may be too much to handle for a listener
at one listen only. So hopefully people can be patient and let the songs
grow up in them a little bit ´coz I can guarantee it will rewarding for
them.
Last week you had a bunch media people from different countries
here at Finnvox in the same situation as a similar pre-listening session
was arranged to them as well. What kind of feedback have you got from
them concerning ONCE?
Most of the feedback that I got from them, was very positive indeed,
I can tell. I was very flattered by some of their comments. On the other
hand, many also told me afterwards that as the sound on ONCE is so
massive and monumental, they need to give a few extra spins to it in
order to get it better absorbed into their minds and enjoy the album at
fullest. But overall people got pretty excited about it all in all as
wholeness.
Obviously after the album is out, you start a massive tour to
promote it and I can even bet many of your concerts have already been
sold-out in advance. Is that correct?
Yes, you are right. Many of them are sold-out already. During this
summer we´ll play at many festivals, then we´ll do our first ever
US/Canada tour as a headlining band and it will last 3 weeks. Right
after that we will come back to Central Europe again, then continue from
there via Scandinavia to South America. We will have a break from
touring from the beginning of X-mas 2004 to January 2005 and continue
touring right after January. Our purpose is to be on road a year or a
year and half to promote our new album, but I guess it´s a bit too
early to say more about our plans for the next year.
That was it Tuomas. Thanks a lot for sharing your time. Now we´d
better run to this pre-listening session with others that's been
arranged by your record company Spinefarm Records.
Thank you, too. Yeah, we´d better to do just that.
And finally the main thing... my short analysis on each track on ONCE.
But please do keep in your minds that all of my comments for each track
on ONCE are based on only one spinning of the album and even most of the
songs were either raw mixes or un-mastered versions (or both), so my
comments about each song do not offer that much in-depth insight into
them by any means. My comments were basically just meant to scratch the
surface of the songs on this new album a little bit and that´s
basically all.
Let my notes guide me and may God forgive me if my notes weren´t
precise and accurate enough...
"Dark Chest of Wonders" (final
mix, un-mastered)
Wow... absolutely one of the heaviest Nightwish songs ever penned
down!! The shredding guitar riffs simply rule in this song; Emppu´s
guitar riffs are some of the heaviest he has ever conjured up for a
Nightwish song. Quite a straight-forward song all in all if referred to
the whole back catalogue of Nightwish songs and kind of a well-chosen
starter for the whole album in general.
"Wish I had an Angel" (final
mix, un-mastered)
Again, Emppu´s heavy and even murderous riffage took me by surprise.
Another surprisingly heavy song on ONCE. The first verse is sung both by
Tarja and Marco together, followed by a chorus which Marco sings alone,
soon followed a duet with Tarja again. The song reminds me of
"Slaying the Dreamer" off Nightwish´s previous album CENTURY
CHILD due to its immense heavy moments. I don´t hesitate a bit by
saying that "Wish I had an Angel" must be one of Nightwish´s
heaviest songs without doubts. I just loved each second of it.
"Nemo" (final mix, mastered)
The song reminded me of a more like traditional Nightwish stuff that
all of us have heard from them with some well thought-out harmonies and
stuff. Having a very catchy and somewhat pompous chorus part which
sticks to your mind like a gum in your fingers, it´s no wonder why they
ended up choosing this particular song for their first single off the
album. Tarja really shines with her magnificent vocal parts in this tune
as she always tends to do.
"Planet Hell" (final mix,
mastered)
A very soundtrack´ish beginning which sounded very epic thoroughly,
with lots of strings and horns (and possibly some other classical
instruments as well... I cannot remember any longer, sorry!) are being
played in this tune by courtesy of The Academy of St. Martins in the
Field that was e.g. used by Howard Shore while recording the music for
the "Lord of the Rings" -trilogy. Marco´s opening up of the
song with his no less than powerful and incredible vocal parts, soon
being followed Tarja´s absolutely tantalizing vocalism, though. It
sounds like the chorus part has been thought out for the song really
carefully again as it´s as memorable and all the way catchy as
something can be in the first place. As a song, it´s overall a
relatively fast tempo song and became one of my instant favorite tracks
on the album. This song really made me hungry for more...
"Creek Mary´s Blood" (raw
mix)
Tuomas´ own favorite track on ONCE. The song itself honestly did
remind me of some sort of a soundtrack for a Wild West movie with some
massive scenes, presenting life of the Indians culture (... or
whatever!). However, on this, Nightwish performs together with a real
Native American/American Indian and a multi-instrumentalist called Mr.
John "Two-Hawks" who is originally from the Lakota tribe. John
plays flute, sings and reads a poem in Lakota language which Tuomas has
made the original text for. The song has a great epic and beautiful
feeling and it´s one of the two so-called ´epic´ songs on the album,
lasting more than 9 minutes. I happened to like the song very much
myself, too. It sounded quite different what we all have used to hear
from Nightwish before. But as whole, "Creek Mary´s Blood" is
a very interesting piece of work from Nightwish, definitely something
totally new and refreshing compared to some of their familiar concepts
as far as Tuomas´ song writing elements overall are concerned.
"The Siren" (final mix,
un-mastered)
This song has a very cool instrumental beginning, supported by a set
of string instruments. Somehow it brought some certain Eastern
sounds/vibes to my mind and the song had quite a varied amount of tempos
in itself and I couldn´t help it a bit, but admire Tarja´s
breath-taking, nearly a siren-like vocalism in this track in question.
No wonder why people generally consider her voice one of the best
amongst other female singers...
"Dead Gardens" (raw mix)
The song represents once again one of the heaviest tunes in the
Nightwish roster. A heavily riff-based song where Emppu doesn´t show
any mercy for his 6-string and the song turns out to be quite a somewhat
straight-forward as a song to be a Nightwish song. Uh... I´m afraid
that´s all I can remember about the song in question...
"Romanticide" (final mix,
un-mastered)
First off, don´t let the title of this song fool you. Namely in this
tune Nightwish keep on pushing themselves toward heavier corners of
Heavy Metal music... "Romanticide" is nothing but a cavalcade
of strongly crunching riffs being churned out from Emppu´s own ´riff
factory´; varying from mid tempos to some unexpected, faster tempos and
Marco´s vocalism reaches a very intensive and even an amazingly
aggressive level. As a song it´s a very heavy and angry Nightwish song
indeed, strongly riff-based and undoubtedly one of the most metallic
songs not only this album, but also compared to everything they have
done in the past. Again, there´s a tiny chance that many Nightwish fans
may get a bit surprised due to some really hectic intensity levels of
"Romanticide".
"Ghost Love Story" (final mix,
unmastered)
One of the tracks on ONCE that has a really strong soundtrack´ish
feeling of a movie, starting straight from the very beginning of the
song which in fact contains lots of heaviness (Emppu´s guitar work
definitely rules overall in this tune!). The song basically develops
like this way: From some less smooth waters of the beginning of the
song, is followed a short part full of calmness and magical beauty from
where the song starts developing again toward some heavier moments that
are soon followed some more peaceful waters structure-wise once again.
What also needs to be mentioned, the song has its orchestrated moments
being played by a bunch of classical string instruments that provide
more colorful nuances and harmonies for the song. A very cool song this
one in my opinion as well...
"Kuolema Tekee Taitelijan"
(raw mix)
This song is both melancholic and sorrowful sounding
"ballad" type of Nightwish song, being sung in Nightwish´s
native Finnish language for first time in the band´s history. Sounded
rather strange to my ears at first because of the used language in the
song, but I got used to it relatively soon anyway. Lots of classical
instruments can be tracked down from this tune, too: cello, harp, some
horns, different strings (I guess!).
"Higher than Hope" (raw mix)
This is one of the two songs that Marco has done from start to finish
for ONCE. The song starts off a simple acoustic part, Tarja joining in
soon with her captivating vocal parts that are followed next by a duet
together with Marco. As the song keeps on developing, it finally ends up
having quite an epic, heavy, and melancholic atmosphere with all these
ingredients in the very same soup. Also, a varied amount of classical
string instruments can be spotted as well. I have to say as whole, it´s
a well-executed song and works out a very good closer for the album. One
of the two lengthy tunes on ONCE.
Official Nightwish Site
www.nightwish.com
Labels
Spinefarm Records (Finland)
Homepage: www.spinefarm.fi
Century Media Records (USA, Canada)
Homepage: www.centurymedia.com
NIGHTWISH Reviews in Metal-Rules.com