Interview

What an honor and a dream today to meet Tuomas Holopainen. We’re here to talk about his first and long awaited solo project, “The Life and Times of Scrooge”.
So many questions about it and Nightwish, and enough time to talk about everything! Here it goes!

SBM: Hi Tuomas and thank you very much for giving me a piece of your time. You’re here to promote “The Life and Times of Scrooge”, so how do you feel now that everything’s finished?

Tuomas: I feel very happy, I just listened to the album a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in weeks because I had to take a little distance with it, but it sounds really good, I wouldn’t change a note so I’m very happy.
But the truth is that I haven’t given much attention on Scrooge for a few months now, I’ve been just focusing on doing songs for the next Nightwish album that has been my main priority.

You started thinking about this project about 15 years ago. Why have you waited so much time to realize it?

That was the first time I had some savings to do it, because it was a personal project and I had to pay the orchestra and choirs and everything myself for the studios so finally I had the savings and also because the time, because we had been quite hectic with Nightwish for the past 15 years and there hasn’t really been any pauses. So this time we had this six months where we didn’t really do anything, so I think this was the moment to do it.

Actually did you also need the Nightwish experience to concretize it?

Hum basically it was just a matter of time and money but it also help to have worked with this particular orchestra and the choirs for the past ten years so I knew what they were capable of, I had good deals with the studio, I had a really good arranger in Pip William so that all helped in bringing this project together for sure.

And have you worked in a different way or a different mood in comparison of a Nightwish album?

Not really, it’s pretty much the same thing: I read stories, I hear the music inside my head and I just try to channel it out in the best possible way. On a bottom level, it’s very much the same kind of process that I use when doing songs for Nightwish.

Basically, as you said, you were inspired by Don Rosa story, but what were your musical influences? We have folk elements, with the banjo, orchestral elements or more classical elements.

Well I really wanted it to be pure film music, like a Hollywood soundtrack which is my favorite genre of music. It was wonderful to realize the huge potential that the story has, because in this book, Scrooge goes all around the world from Scotland to Australia, to America, to the Wild West. So the potential of using different ethnic elements and instruments was so vast. I have a good story, so I can use the didgeridoo, I can use the banjo, I can use the harmonica, the uilleann pipes, irish stuff and everything.

It’s really a soundtrack of the story. When I heard the album, I wanted to read it again. I bought it when I was 12 and I read it at least 20 times!

Really? That’s great!

Yeah! I loved this story! Actually why have you chosen this one? You’re a big fan of the Disney universe. Why have you chosen this story or this character?

I chose this story because it’s the one that touches me the most. It’s filed with so much wisdom, morality, wit, comedy; it’s just your perfect fictional story, and what I wanted to emphasize is that even though I’m a big Disney fan, this album is all about Scrooge of Don Rosa and Karl Barks. I mean there are hundreds of different Disney artists who portrait Scrooge in a different way which I didn’t really like.
But this is all about the Mythology that Don Rosa has created around Scrooge.

You realized a dream working with Don Rosa. How did this collaboration happen?

I met him for the first time in 2010 when he was in Helsinki, Finland in a promotion for one of his books and I met him for five minutes saying that I’m about to do a soundtrack from this book and I don’t think he took me seriously at all, he was very distant. I don’t blame him at all; I would have reacted the same for sure.
And then about two years ago I emailed him saying that this is really happening, I booked the studio and the songs and willing him to do the cover. And I think at that point he realized that this thing is for real and the first thing he said to me was it sounded like such a big project and maybe I needed to find a real artist to do the cover.
I said “What do you mean by that, you’re my biggest idol, so you have to do this”. Then he said “You know I cannot see that work anymore, I haven’t done any drawing in five years, so maybe I can’t do it”. But well “You have to do it”. So then he sent me black and white sketches.

Have you chosen the cover or did you give him total freedom?

I gave him some details and guidance about what the cover album should look like.

Why have you chosen this particular moment of the story?

All the stories set in Klondike are my favorites, so I wanted it to be set there in Klondike, with the snow and the Northern lights. But also I wanted to have a little story in the picture, so that’s why there’s the face of Goldie in the moon and Scrooge is looking at it while all the gold run out of the sack. So, even Scrooge doesn’t care about gold when he faces love. That’s the idea behind the cover.

That’s a quite sad part of the story, but you just said that there’s also comedy in the Don Rosa story, and in an interview you talked about bringing these comic elements in the record, and you said that it was really hard. Actually I can hear “funny” sounds in the middle of “Duel and Cloudscapes” but not on other songs. Can you develop this aspect of the music?

Basically there are only two parts in the whole album where you can hear the comedy. Like I said in other interviews, it was far the most difficult task in doing the soundtrack because I’ve never done comedy music and I don’t really know how to do it it’s not inside of me, I don’t fancy doing it much. But with this book I had to give it a try, so we have the C part on “Duel and Cloudscapes” and the C part in “Goodbye Papa” with the uilleann pipes this kind of funny melody (Tuomas is singing it).
So those two are the comic relieves of the album, but I guess that this is where my limit goes. (Laugh)

(Laugh) Why have you used it in a song like “Goodbye Papa” which is basically supposed to be sad?

Because the chapter that it is about includes a sequence of Highland games which is really funny. Scrooge is going back to its roots and takes part of Highland games, he recites a really weird poetry, all ladies are fainting and he tries a log throwing and everything goes to hell. I thought it was hilarious so that’s why there is this comic part but after that we go back to the melancholy and we hear that Scrooge’s Papa died, and it’s the most touching moment in the whole book.

Same thing about “Cold Heart of the Klondike” which is supposed to be sad, because it’s the moment where he says goodbye to Goldie, but we have really powerful elements, whereas “To be Rich” is the saddest song for me. Just like he finally rejected gold, as if it wasn’t the real richness he was looking for. If you should choose a favorite song, which one would it be?

It’s very hard to say the favorite song on the album; it’s just like one long song, I cannot say which one is my favorite but I took a lot of liberties. For example you mentioned “Cold Heart of the Klondike”; this song is all about his Klondike years, it’s not just one chapter in this book, and you can hear the sound of the big axe hitting the rocks and that’s him doing some gold prospecting. And “To Be Rich” is the most melancholic song of the album and it’s all about Scrooge’s sister saying he’s leaving his family, that’s what the song is about.

So you’ve chosen the strongest moments of the story to build this soundtrack, but some songs contain lyrics. How have you chosen these four vocalists? Actually I only knew Tony Kakko from Sonata Arctica.

All the musicians on the album, except for Alan Reed, the voice of Scrooge, are my closest friends. So I wanted to do this like a family album. Tony Kakko is there because he’s one of my best friends and also because he’s maybe even a bigger Don Rosa fan that I am.
He was the first person I told about this idea, about doing this soundtrack 15 years ago, so it was a natural thing to ask him.

As you just said, Alan Reed is Scrooge himself. And the others seem to be narrators or Scrooge inside voice. Can you enlighten us?

Tony is just a story teller in one of the songs and then there’s Johanna Kurkela who’s the voice of Glittering Goldie and then Johanna Iivanainen plays the part of Scrooge’s sister and his mother.

You wanted to do a “family album”, but have you ever think about bringing Nightwish members as guest vocalists?

Not on this one, I really wanted it to be separated from Nightwish, this was a good chance for me to work with other people and see how it feels like and give them a chance and give myself a chance to work with some people I haven’t worked with before.
Because I knew there is going to be another 30 or 40 years with the Nightwish guys and girls.

How much time have you spent on the writing?

Hum… about a year and a half, two years maybe…

It’s quite long… And what about the recording?

For the recording we started off in London last September. The recording took about four months, one month for the mixing, and we had to mix the whole thing again for many reasons, and then we mastered it four times.
So it was a surprising long process, I didn’t expect it to be this difficult but there was a lot of work to be done, especially with the orchestra, because there was a line that you wanted hear and just try to dig it up, it took a lot of time.

I have to say that you did it great, I’m also a big fan of soundtracks, maybe you know X-Ray Dogs or Two Steps from Hell?

Yeah Two Steps From Hell, I know them.

Have you ever think about doing these kinds of short orchestral songs for trailer or movies?

Yeah definitely, but I still have this strong metal side inside me, I want to do punchy music with drums, guitars and basses. But maybe at some point I’ll grow out of that in 10 years or 20 years, but at the moment I just want to do Nightwish.

This one is an exception, as it’s not metal at all. How do you think that Nightwish fans will react?

I think they already know what it’s about so it shouldn’t come as a shock to anybody that this is not a metal album, so they just should approach it with an open mind because it’s a soundtrack, it’s not a band album. But there are a lot of similarities to Nightwish as well; it’s natural because it’s the same songwriter. So I guess they will find some songs agreeable and enjoyable.

Actually we have one guitar on one track, “A Lifetime of Adventure”. Is the reason why you’ve chosen it as first single?

The term “first single” is a little misleading because it’s going to be the only single in the album, it’s the only song with a structure in the whole album so that was the only choice. And I was a bit against the single release in the beginning, because it’s a thematic album, pick out one song and put it ahead, it didn’t feel right. But Nuclear Blast said that they need a single for marketing which I completely understand because this is not the easiest product to sell, so they needed like a catchy single song.

And what can we expect on the music video? If it’s not a secret of course!

It’s not a secret as it’s already been release of the Nightwish FanPOD and somebody already uploaded it on Youtube but when we were ask to film a music video of the song I was really confused about what to do because the corny way would be to dress up some guys like Scrooge and Goldie filming it in the woods or something.
But the idea came from the director Ville Lipiäinen: “Let’s do a sort of making of”. So he flew over to London, he filmed the orchestra, the recordings, he filmed the guitar playing, the singing, then we invited Don Rosa himself to the studio where he would actually draw the cover, so he filmed that, he filmed me playing the piano, so that’s the whole idea: the making of the songs.

A summary of this journey in a way. You say that the album should be taken “entirely”, a little bit like a concept album. Actually have you ever wanted to do a whole concept album with characters and dialogs like Arjen Lucassen does with Ayreon or Tobias Sammet with Avantasia?

It crossed my mind, yeah, but so many bands, like the ones you’ve just mentioned have done it in a really good way, so I don’t really have the ambition to go in that territory anymore because they are doing it so well.

So should we definitely forget it?

There’s always chances, but all I can say that the next Nightwish album won’t be a thematic album.

I have some questions about Nightwish but I’ll ask it after all Scrooge’s questions. Actually I was wondering if you would try to bring it on stage.

It didn’t even cross my mind when I was doing the album but then people start to ask about it and in every single interview that I’ve done they’ve asked me. And now I’ve seriously started to think that maybe it could be a cool thing to do.
At the moment we don’t have the time or the finances to do it but maybe at some point we could play this one or twice with the whole orchestra, it would be a fantastic thing to do but honestly it never crossed my mind before this.

Maybe, we’ll see!
As we’re talking about the label and the money, did you have any difficulties with the label concerning this album? Christofer Johnsson from Therion told me that Nuclear Blast refused to handle the responsibility of his personal project “Les Fleurs du Mal”, where he was covering old French songs. Did you have difficulties?

Unbelievably no. I have to say I was super honored that they gave me a deal and agreed to release this album without hearing any demos or anything and I told them “You realize what this is all about, it’s film music, it’s a soundtrack. It’s not, in a sense, commercial at all, it’s not metal and you’re still willing to release it?” and they said “Yes we are”.
So a big hand to Nuclear Blast for their open-mindedness, and now when they heard the album everybody seem to be really happy. I was a bit surprised about that to be honest.

That’s understandable because just like you said; it’s not a metal album.

Yeah it’s soundtrack, it’s nothing to do with metal. I don’t know if they see some potential or something like that…

And if in the future you have the opportunity to write another soundtrack, which story would you choose?

Hum… I would definitely take the story of Kvothe, I don’t know if you’ve heard it’s a new fantasy writer called Patrick Rothfuss.

No I don’t know.

Ok, he has released two books only and it’s about a guy called Kvothe, but if you don’t know I won’t going to detail but this is the best fantasy fiction ever written since “The Lord of the Rings”, it completely blew my mind when I read it. He is a rising star, he really is and if you like fantasy you should try his books “Name of the Wind” and “Wise man’s Fear”.

Yeah I think I’ll give it a try…

Please do it, it’s a super good stuff. And there will be at least one song in the next Nightwish album in sort of inspired by his books.

I’ll have to read it for sure! What are the plans for Nightwish for 2014? You said you’re working on it.

Well I have most of the songs done and Marco visited me about a week ago and gave me a few more songs to play with, so I think it’s really good, I’m going to go and do a demo of all the materials in about two months and then we’ll get together with the whole band in July for rehearsals and recording the album.
So if everything goes as planned we should have the album ready by January.

And what can we expect on this record? I read in an interview you did that you will stop powerful symphonies and go back to the roots or the Wishmaster era.

That was kind of the idea, it was the feeling that I had, but know that I’ve heard to the songs, they all have orchestra again. (Laugh)
I just can’t get rid of it because it’s somehow written in my DNA or something, to write music with an orchestra so it’s there again. But I could sound a bit more old school to your ears; at least it does to mine.

But please don’t stop the orchestral stuff.

No way! That was an idea we had some times ago; “Let’s try to do an album without the orchestra”. But you have to follow your heart; you have to do what feels right to you and everybody in the band agreed that we will get the orchestra again.

Yeah I like it! I hope we’ll have so big orchestral elements!

Sure you will! I don’t think we’ll get rid of those…

Great! Well Tuomas, I guess we’ve reach the end, so I let you the final words, if you want to conclude or let a message to the French fans.

I wish everybody has an open mind and a big smile on their faces and give this album a try, whether you’re a metal head or into soundtracks you might find something enjoyable out of it.

Ok thank you so much Tuomas!

Thank you for this interview.

Hope I’ll see you soon! Bye

No problem! Bye.