je to v angličtině a já nemám čas to přeložit, takže se moc omlouvám (mám před přijímačkama); díky za pochopení


NIGHTWISH´s new vocalist Anette Olzon & Tuomas Holopainen
(except promotional pictures by Nightwish.com)
Nightwish´s whole history so far as a successful band, is like a fairytale story only a few of us could ever dream of. The band has sold over 2,5 millions albums worldwide, done several successful tours and overall become one of the most followed bands in the world.
However, almost every fairytale tends to gather some dark clouds above the horizon at some point, I guess that´s what happened to Nightwish as well when they fired their previous frontwoman Tarja Turunen in the end of 2005. After this news reached the public´s ears, the band went through a merciless crossfire that really tested the grounds of the band somewhat heavily. With all the strenght and faith they had in the band, they struggled forward, found Anette Olzon from Katrineholm, Sweden to unite the Nightwish´s troops, making it a stronger and tighter package than ever before. Nightwish is ready to conquer to the whole world again.
I met a good-humored, always friendly and ruminative Tuomas Holopainen and the new, lovely frontwoman of Nightwish, Anette Olzon at Hotel President in Helsinki on May 30th 2007 - and we talked mainly about ´the hot topic of the day´ Anette herself, the band´s forthcoming 6th yet-untitled studio album, and their upcoming world tour that quite surprisingly, starts off in Tel Aviv, Israel on October 6th 2007.
ANETTE - THE NEW SINGER OF NIGHTWISH STEPS IN
First off, my sincere congratulations for becoming this new, sort of ´mysterious´ singer of Nightwish, even if you are not that any more! ;o)Anette: Thank you so very much… Thank you!
It goes without saying, but you must feel very happy about this situation…
Anette: Yes, of course!
What were your ultimate feelings and thoughts when Tuomas made this one important phone call to you on 30th January 2007 and announced that you would be their choice for the new singer of Nightwish? Were you first like, "Oh God, Tuomas you must be joking with me, right…?!"
Anette: Ha-ha… I think he was so calm and saying it like that. I was like: "WHAT?! What did you say a couple of seconds ago…?" - ha-ha! I really didn´t quite get his message first that I will have lots to do in Nightwish. Actually it took some weeks from me to understand that I really got the job.
Have you ever dreamt about being a vocalist of Nightwish, like when you heard the news Tarja was out of the band in the end of 2005?
Anette: No, I didn´t because when I applied I didn´t think that they would even get back to me since I didn´t have this opera type of voice and stuff. So, no - I never dreamt of it. But of course when the process went further and further, I thought I really would like to get this job.
But I assume you still knew Nightwish´s music from their albums before how they are musically…?
Anette: No, actually I just heard them a couple of months before. I had always heard the name of Nightwish, but never their music. I had heard other bands, but never Nightwish. So, I just heard them a couple of months before, and then I bought their compilation-CD, and after that got to hear ONCE. So ONCE and that compilation CD were the first Nightwish things for me personally that I heard from them.
What are your uppermost feelings right now when it´s finally been officially announced about a week ago that Anette is the new singer of Nightwish? I mean, it must have been kinda hard to keep her name under a rock for this long…
Tuomas: The uppermost feeling that I have at the moment, is relief because we don´t have to hide her anymore. And it must be a huge relief for her as well because like keeping her in a cave all the time, wasn´t that much fun. But it was something that needed to be done. And now, we finished mixing the album last Friday, so we have the album ready. She´s out, so in that sense I feel really, really good. Also, the people, the band and the media have welcomed her in a really nice way. I personally expected ´the barbeque´ to be much worse!
(*laughs*)
Tuomas: So, everything´s looking good; it´s really looking good…
In order to keep her name under cover for this long period of time (about 4 months), I suppose you simply must have had a really well thought-out, sort of masterplan how to keep her name unrevealed until 24th of May 2007. Do you have any funny stories to tell what kind of things you had to do along the way until you brought these sort of ´Breaking News´ to people on May 24th by announcing Anette´s name in public?
Tuomas: Well, we almost needed to blind date, but I lost the bet to our technicians, so I owe them… well, whatever! Who cares! I´m actually quite surprised myself how we managed to keep her in secret this long.
When did it actually become crystal clear for the band that Anette would be a perfect choice to step in Nightwish as the new vocalist of the band? I mean, you did receive well over 2000 demos from all around the whole world, so going through all that massive pile of demos must have been a hard task already in itself - just to pick up that one final candidate and eventually ask her to join the band…
Tuomas: It´s was in the end of January 2007. We had a very long discussion within the band members about our final decision for the new vocalist because we just wanted to go thoroughly through everything really, like you know, turn every rock. But I mean, she was one of the very first ones to send the demo to us. I think she was amongst the 1st twenty ones or so, and she sang "Ever Dream" - just this one song, and made a huge impression on us by even that song already. I think she really managed to set the scale for the rest to come. So, she was the present, like from the very beginning of this process.
THE BEGINNING OF NEW ERA - EVA

You were forced to release this ´Internet only´ single "Eva" a week earlier simply because it was leaked into the net from England by mistake, I guess?
Tuomas: I have know idea yet whether it was a mistake or did someone leak it onto the Internet on purpose, I just have no idea. We don´t even want to go any deeper into that matter. I think it will do other people than us…
How did feel to hear when those news reached your ears for the first time?
Tuomas: It was Wednesday morning when I woke up, turned on my phone, checked all my new text messages, I felt like, I don´t wanna get up from this bed. It felt really, really bad, I can tell. But in the evening of that particular Wednesday we were already laughing at that, like "Okay, things have been going pretty smoothly for us thus far, so…".
I think it´s one of the biggest problems in the music industry nowadays that albums are leaked into the net so easily. There´s always someone out there that thinks he´s, or she´s doing some sort of ´favour´ to everyone by leaking albums for people which is sad and stupid in every possible sense…
Tuomas: Exactly. It is.
Anette: It´s really sad that kind of things happen these days…
Could you reveal with a bit closer thought what the cover of EVA actually symbolizes? As I could assume, there obviously is a closer idea there behind the cover…
Tuomas: It´s about a girl who´s been mocked at school. And she´s like… Well, she represents the ultimate good, and she cannot understand why she´s being mocked. She´s just looking at that school, and going there. That´s pretty innocent in itself, so it´s like I have been writing songs about innocence in the childhood all my life, so this is like the opposite side of the coin. This is what the song is about.

THE FORTHCOMING NIGHTWISH ALBUM
The forthcoming Nightwish album will contain 13 songs all in all. What could you say, are the biggest differences between these new songs - and the songs on ONCE from your point of view?
Tuomas: We recorded 15 songs altogether. Out of them 13 will end up on this new album. As far as differencies go, I think the biggest difference is sitting here next to me, so it´s the vocals. I mean, musically I don´t think the new album differs that much from ONCE. There´s some new elements on this new album - like there´s Celtic instruments, there´s a voice of sopranos, there´s a gospel choir and all little details here and there. But the overall feeling that the songs have, is a natural sequel fromwhat ONCE was. We didn´t wanna do anything too radical because she already is a radical change to our sound.
What could you say about the orchestra you were working with in London - and getting all these choir - and orchestrated parts recorded for this new Nightwish album? You used the famous The Abbey Road Studios for the recordings of these orchestrated parts where f.ex. The Beatles has recorded their songs…
Tuomas: We did those orchestrated parts in two parts; first in December 2006, and then in February 2007.
How was it different this time compared to the last time when you did those kinds of things for your previous album, ONCE?
Tuomas: Pretty much the same even if I also need to say this time recording those orchestrated parts was a bit bigger. There were 66 musicians in the orchestra this time. And in the choir, there were 33 people and 12 in the gospel choir. We were recording these orchestrated - and choir parts eight days altogether in the studios. Just amazing time…
I bet it also had to be way sort of way easier for you this time to record with this big orchestra as you already had this experience about the same thing when you did these orchestrated parts for ONCE.
Tuomas: Yes, that´s true, but I already kind of knew what to expect, so maybe that was the difference. It still blew me away recording with the orchestra.

ABOUT GOING TO EPIC FIELDS MUSICALLY
There also this one very lengthy song titled "The Poet and the Pendulum" on this forthcoming Nightwish album; it´s 14-minutes long and which is supposed to have a very sountrack´ish feel to it. How was the recording of that one? First Anette…
Anette: It was great, I have to say so.
Being such a lengthy and huge song, did you feel there was a lot of challenge to do your vocal parts for it?
Anette: Actually the vocal parts are not that big role in this song, I think. There were many orchestra parts in the song. But other than that, of course it was kind of challenge for me to sing because, how would I say - it was such a big piece of music and the vocals needed to be big, too. But then, there´s of course a combination always in. It´s almost like 3 or 4 different song put together in one song.
Tuomas: … more like five, I think.
Anette: Eh, more like 5 maybe, yes. So there´s a whole different feeling in that song.
Tuomas: It would be funny that if I listened to that song now, I mean, it´s so full of everything that actually there´s not that much singing, to be honest with you.
Anette: The singing that was done for it, is quite powerful anyway. Both Marco and me sang in that song, and we had to be powerful with our voices for it in order to give our full support for the overall feeling of the song. It´s a really big song in my opinion.
Would you consider this particular song as one of your most ambitious works to date during the whole career of Nightwish?
Tuomas: I think it´s my personal number one favorite song at the moment of all the songs that I´ve ever done. It is just that. I mean, for me it´s easier to do long and epic songs than 4-minute songs. To be able to do a song in 4-minutes long that could be even interesting, is much harder. It´s easier for me to do these long epics. This song is definitely also the most ambitious song that I´ve ever done. It´s like… It´s not even a song; it´s more like a theatre play type of song.
I guess it´s kind of easy for you to write these lengthy, epic songs because you´re a big fan of soundtracks and such kind of things as far as I know…
Tuomas: Yes, that´s where I get most of my inspirations from. I try to think our songs like a soundtrack play. But the amount of material "The Poet and the Pendulum" has absorbed, with the orchestra and the choir; and there´s the Celtic -fill, there´s the voice of soprano, there´s her singing and there´s Marco´s signing - and there´s even Marco growling plus all the sound effects created by Mr. Jussi Tegelman in Hollywood. It´s a really big song, I can tell.