With eight million record sales, five number one albums, and thirteen number one singles under their belts, I think it's fair to say that Nightwish are Finland's most successful ever musical export. Headliner catches up with synth player and composer, Tuomas Holopainen, and bassist and vocalist, Marco Hietala, during the recording of the band's new album...
Your symphonic rock is obviously catching
on... You’ve been going since the ‘90s, and
you’re still going strong...
TH: [laughs] Yeah, it’s probably because there
is such an abundance of elements in our
music! We made our first demo in December
1996, so we’ve been going 17.5 years so far,
which isn’t bad, I guess! It was just supposed
to be a side project at the beginning, and
no-one in the band expected it to take off
in the way that it did. We all had different
ambitions: I wanted to be a biologist; the
drummer wanted to be a computer engineer;
and it was just a hobby that grew much, much
bigger than we expected.
MH: I should point out that I joined the band in 2001, when it was all going quite well, so I knew exactly what I was jumping into! I’ve had musical ambitions since I was a kid, but as Tuomas hinted, we do all come from different musical backgrounds.
Is that important, do you think?
MH: I do, yeah, or the music risks becoming
inbred. We have classical influences, rock
influences, and we like certain pop songs too,
so there’s a lot of open-mindedness in how to
approach our music here.
What’s your take on digital technology?
TH: When everything went digital, we had to
do everything cheaper, as suddenly we weren’t
getting as much from the labels! But what
digital does do, is provide immediacy; it brings
everything to your home. I’ve been buying albums from iTunes, and haven’t thought of
going to a record store, but what I’d really like
to see is the quality of digital recordings to
improve, and to see more digital albums where
you get a digital picture and get to see the
lyrics, too. These are the things that I’m
really missing from digital downloads, so they
should be made easier to get hold of. Also,
something should be done about Spotify
and other streaming services; we need more
competition in that sector, a company that
carries out this service, and actually pays the
artists correctly!
You’re busy making a new
album at the moment; how has your approach to production evolved?
MH:
Actually, we have
always produced the albums ourselves as a band, and we have had the
same engineers since we started out for mixing, mastering, and
recording. It’s never really been our thing to go to LA with a high
class producer and try and find a new sound. I think over the years
there is a big confidence in the band that we can do this ourselves
and take hold of the ropes, keep it together ourselves and preserve
our integrity. First, we have to like the record, and then it’s
great that the people have continued to like the songs, too.
TH: It’s also super cool that we have never had any pressure from the record labels. They have never suggested that we should use a specific producer or studio.
You’re all Genelec users.
Can you tell me a bit about your relationship with the brand?
MH:
Well, here’s the
thing. At the end of the ‘80s,
I went to train in a recording studio, and at the time, I really fell
in love with the Genelec stuff. Also, the guy who mixes our albums is
a sworn Genelec user, as is our mastering engineer, as is our
recording engineer! [laughs] I had the luck of living in a town in
the middle of Finland, just 90 kilometres from Genelec’s HQ, and
some of the Genelec workforce were actually my neighbours, so we got
to talking about the equipment, and ended up doing a kind of
collaboration. It’s one of those deals that is really welcome, as
Genelec is a brand that is respected for an actual reason. You hear
the sounds perfectly out of any Genelec speaker, and the clarity when
you’re mixing with Genelecs is just unparalleled. There is no
better word for a Genelec sound than honest; it tells you what is
there, if there is something missing, or equally if there’s too
much stuff going on. I find it very important, but I am an audio
freak anyway, so... [smiles]
Which models do you use?
MH: We have an 8040 DSP set as our nearfields,
and then the Genelec guys brought us some
1037s, and they are HUGE babies! Sometimes,when the evening goes long enough,
it’s very nice to hear stuff out of those
speakers, as you can feel the huge sound
pressure that comes out of them.
What needs to change in today’s
industry?
TH: For me, the biggest downside of the music
industry today is that people don’t listen to
albums anymore. I mean, the kids out there are
not buying them and listening through; they’re
not reading the lyrics out of the booklet,
because there often is no booklet; and this
reflects that people perhaps are not making
albums either, anymore. They’re concentrating
on single songs, and filling the album with crap.
So this is a very concerning trend for me both
as a musician and as a songwriter.