Nightwish 'Dark Passion Play' album

Nightwish's upcoming album will be called "Dark Passion Play". It will be released in September 2007. “Dark Passion Play” will be preceded by the release of the new single "Amaranth" in August 2007. On "Dark Passion Play" the music in conjunction with the lyrics conjure a brooding atmosphere never yet seen, or actually felt, in this magnitude in the saga of Nightwish. These songs take us through multitude of emotions on their journey, and it is richer and more varied than before, touching lightly on more ethnic flavours and being as ever bombastic as it can be. This is the first Nightwish album featuring the new singer Anette Olzon, whose heavenly voice carries through “Dark Passion Play” bright and powerful and even more varied than that of her predecessor.

History of the band

Nightwish is one of the most successful bands in the history of Finnish metal, achieving more than some bands can even imagine within just a few years. With 2,5 million albums sold worldwide, their unique sound combining heavy meal to operatic vocals has proved to be a groundbreaking recipe for success.

The story of Nightwish began in 1996 when the band was founded by the band’s main songwriter and mastermind Tuomas Holopainen. Together with his friend, guitarist Emppu Vuorinen, they started the band as an acoustic project with their friend Tarja Turunen, a student from Sibelius Academy, on vocals.

Nightwish’s first, self-titled three-song demo was recorded during October and December of 1996 by their friend Tero Kinnunen. The tape, however, did not end up being distributed widely; it was only sent to some labels and magazines, which all gave the tape relatively good credit but was not regarded as having any commercial potential.

After the first reviews came out, Tuomas wanted to try what the music would sound like if they added drums and used an electric guitar instead of an acoustic one. In April ´97 the band entered the studio again with drums and percussions performed by their friend Jukka Nevalainen, the latest addition to their line-up.
From these sessions emerged the demo which was to get Nightwish their first record deal.

Ewo Rytkönen, who was then working as Spinefarm Records’ A&R, was not just a record company employee but was also a guitarist in a band called Babylon Whores back in the 90s. During one of the band’s European tours, Ewo found himself touring together with Tuomas Holopainen’s other band, Nattvindens Gråt. On this tour Tuomas handed over the latest Nightwish-demo over to Ewo, and it didn’t take long after the tour for Ewo to call Tuomas and offer Nightwish a record deal.

In May 1997 Nightwish signed a recording contract with Spinefarm Records. The following August Nightwish went to the studio to record their debut.

Before the release of the band’s debut album, a single of the song “The Carpenter” was released. The single hit the Finnish singles charts immediately, and so did “Angels Fall First”, the band’s first album that was released in October 1997.

Since all bands need a good live show, Nightwish had to start touring as well. On the 31st December 1997 Nightwish played their first gig in Kitee, their home town in Finland. As all good bands need a video as well,
Nightwish first video was made for “The Carpenter” in April 1998.

In the following summer the bassist Sami Vänskä joined the band, and in early August Nightwish headed to the studio of their longtime friend Tero Kinnunen to record their second album “Oceanborn”. The recordings were finished in late October, and on November 13th, Nightwish played a gig in Kitee, a gig of which a live video for Oceanborn’s first single release “Sacrament of Wilderness” was filmed.

The “Sacrament of Wilderness” single was released on November 26th and “Oceanborn” on December 7th 1998. Nightwish had three singles in the top 10 singles chart at the time – “Sacrament of Wilderness”, “Walking in the Air” and their first single “The Carpenter” – that’s a record yet to be beaten in Finland!

“Oceanborn” stayed on the Finnish charts for over 30 weeks and proved to be a huge success. After “Oceanborn” Nightwish started to do some serious touring around Finland. Almost every venue and festival was packed with opera metal maniacs, after that it was time to go abroad.

In 1999 Spinefarm Records licensed “Oceanborn” to the German Drakkar Entertainment for the territories of GAS and BeNeLux. Drakkar paved the way for the band’s international success, and released the album in the Spring. The next Autumn Nightwish toured European venues with excellent feedback, and the Germany-only released “Sleeping Sun” single sold over 15000 copies in one month.

In August Nightwish learned that “Oceanborn” and “Sacrament of Wilderness” had sold gold in Finland. At the same time it was confirmed that Nightwish would do a European tour supporting German band Rage.
On this tour the band boosted their fanbase and gathered excellent feedback. Many gigs even saw most of the fans leaving after Nightwish’s set, with no interest at all towards the main band of the tour.

In early 2000 the band entered Tero Kinnunen’s Caverock-studios again for the recordings of their third album “Wishmaster”. A welcome interruption to the repetitive studio work came when Nightwish took part in the Finnish qualification for the Eurovision Song Contest with their song “Sleepwalker”. Nightwish cleared the first round of the qualification but the final position was second, despite claiming first place in the public televoting.

“Wishmaster” was released in May 2000, immediately hitting the number one spot on the Finnish charts, and going platinum. Wishmaster was approved by both the fans and the media, and was also named “album of the month” in Germany by RockHard magazine in issue 6/2000, past the long-awaited new releases by Bon Jovi and Iron Maiden.

In Europe, ”Wishmaster” debuted in the national German charts at No. 21 and No. 66 in France. The "Wishmaster World Tour", Nightwish’s first headlining European tour, started from the band’s home town Kitee. From there the sold out tour continued first to the big festivals in Finland and then to South America in July 2000. The three-week tour in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Panama & Mexico turned out to be one of the band's greatest successes so far. This was followed by successful shows at Wacken Open Air, Biebop Metal Fest and European dates together withSinergy & Eternal Tears Of Sorrow. In November Nightwish also played two shows in Montreal, Canada.

The success of the Wishmastour gave an idea for a live-DVD, an idea which was made flesh in the form of the "From Wishes to Eternity – Live” DVD that was recorded at the Pakkahuone club in Tampere, Finland on New Years Eve 2000-2001. The DVD was released in April 2001 in Finland and worldwide during the summer of 2001.

Proving to be a huge seller, "From Wishes to Eternity" raised the public's interest even more, therefore in March 2001 Nightwish entered the studio again to record an EP for the fans who simply couldn't wait for a new Nightwish album. This EP included their version of Gary Moore`s classic "Over The Hills And Far Away", 2 other new songs and a remake of Angels Fall First's "Astral Romance". The Finnish release for the “Over the Hills and Far Away” EP was in June 2001. The German / Drakkar Entertainment’s version of "Over The Hills And Far Away" also included 6 live tracks in addition to the 4 unreleased songs.

Video for the track "Over the Hills and Far Away" was filmed in August 2001 in Finland, and after the video shoot Nightwish came to a halt. The touring had taken its toll, and Nightwish was close to disbanding.

Tuomas Holopainen went hiking and gathering his thoughts in Lappland, and decided that changes had to be done in order for Nightwish to be able to continue. According to his own words, Tuomas wanted to end the band due to prolonged disagreements within Nightwish. Luckily the band stayed together, but Sami Vänskä, who’d been with Nightwish since “Oceanborn”, had to leave. Marco Hietala, known from the Finnish bands Tarot and Sinergy, promised to step in as a replacement for the next album and tour.

At the same time Ewo Rytkönen, who had originally signed Nightwish, formed a management company of his own called King Foo Entertainment. This company became Nightwish’s booking agency, and Ewo Rytkönen was to become their manager. The beginning of 2002 also brought Nightwish other good news, in comparison to previous rough times. As a band and as individual musicians they were voted to the top on many domestic-and foreign magazine’s reader’s polls. Fans had not abandoned them after the changes, on the contrary the fans supported all changes that had been made.

With things once again in order, the recording for Nightwish’s fourth album Century Child were started in January 2002 at Finnvox Studios. The recording process continued in their home town, Kitee, again at the Caverock studios of Tero Kinnunen. In March 2002 the band went back to Finnvox to record the vocal parts, choirs and percussions, continuing with the mixing process. The album also included 5 songs recorded with a live orchestra, the Joensuu City Orchestra, and vocal parts sung by the band’s new bass player Marco Hietala.

“Ever Dream”, the first single from “Century Child”, went gold in Finland within 2 days. “Century Child” itself came out in May 2002 and made a sales record, selling gold in Finland within 2 hours! Within two weeks it sold platinum (30 000 copies) and continued to sell rapidly. With the new album and the new single, Nightwish held the top-position in both singles-and album charts, for the first time ever.
In the end of 2002 Century Child was Finland’s 2nd best selling album in 2002, having sold an astonishing 59 000 copies in Finland.

Foreign countries responded, too: in Germany “Century Child” went straight to number 5 and in Austria it hit position 15.

The album release was followed by a massive, sold out three-month tour "World Tour of the Century 2002". In July Nightwish toured successfully in South America, with nearly all gigs sold out. In Brazil the first edition of “Century Child” was sold out in one day, and the successful European tour that year didn’t go unnoticed by booking agencies. Many European gigs were streamed live on the internet, and needless to say, the connections were often jammed with nearly 10 000 fans trying to follow the live feed.

After the tour, Nightwish announced they would take a break. That announcement brought up all kinds of speculations among fans, with Sami Vänskä leaving the previous Fall, now the band would have a break that would last for a year...

The break started in late 2002, and sure enough there was no rest for the band. Jukka played with Finnsih bands Sethian and Bitch Driven; Tuomas Holopainen played with Sethian and For My Pain; Emppu Vuorinen played with Altar; Marco Hietala played with Tarot; and Tarja Turunen finished her educations in Germany.

During the break , the unbelievable amount of good off-stage and on-stage material gathered from the band’s tours, was combined to interviews with the band members and made into a documentary: the 2 hours and 15 minutes long “End of Innocence”-DVD, telling the band's tale in their own words, from the very beginning until 2003.

The DVD "End of Innocence" was released on October 6th 2003, and as came the end of innocence, so also ended the band's recording contract. After months of negotiations, Nightwish signed three separate but equal deals: one with Nuclear Blast for Europe excluding Finland; another with Spinefarm Records for Finland, Asia and South America; and a third deal with Roadrunner for North America, Australia and New Zealand.

With contracts done and settled in late 2003, the recordings for the band's fifth album “Once” were begun. The new songs emerged in co-operation with the London Session Orchestra, making Nightwish's fifth studio album “Once” the most orchestral, symphonic and diversified piece of work the band had ever created.
Exhausting studio-sessions took their toll both physically and mentally. The actual recording took place at the Phoenix-studios in London, the same studio and with the same orchestra that Howard Shore used for writing the score for "The Lord of the Rings"-trilogy. Orchestral-and choral arrangements were written by Pip Williams, who had produced Status Quo and Uriah Heep among others.

"Nemo" was the first single released off the forthcoming album, and a big-budget video was made. The director was Antti Jokinen, who had previously worked with for example Shania Twain and Eminem.

Going platinum in Finland on its day of release, the success of “Once” was immediate. The album hit the number 1 spot on charts in Finland, Germany, Norway, Greece, Slovenia, and Hungary and the top ten in Switzerland, Austria, France and Brazil. The album has now sold gold in Austria, Sweden, Switzerland (over 20.000 sold copies) and Norway (25.000 sold copies); and platinum in both Germany (over 200.000 sold copies) and Finland (over 100.000 copies sold).
Now, with over a million copies of “Once” already sold worldwide, it's clear that it is the most successful album in Nightwish’s history.

2005 saw the release of Nightwish’s first definitive compilation album “Highest Hopes-the Best of Nightwish” that gathered tracks from all of the band’s albums.

The band filmed a new video for the track “Sleeping Sun” to support the release of the compilation. Directed by Jörn Heitmann of Katapult Filmproduktion, the spectacular video showed Nightwish’s guys as medieval knights, with Tuomas dressed as a templar, whilst Tarja was shown as an angel in a white dress, watching over the dying soldiers. The video later won a silver Finnish video-Grammy, the Muuvi-award.

After the compilation release, Nightwish ended their two and a half-year world tour in Finland, playing a sold-out gig at the Hartwall Areena. Nightwish recorded "End Of An Era" -live release yesterday evening in Hartwall-Arena, Helsinki. As you can imagine, the atmosphere in the Arena was wild but also quite blue. This was the ending for a one and a half year lasting "Once" -World Tour.

The title "End Of An Era" also held a deeper meaning. The open letter, which was given to Tarja after the show, tells it all.

Dear Tarja,

It's time to choose whether the story of Nightwish ends here or whether it will still continue an undetermined period of time. We've been working with this creation for 9 years and we are not ready to give up yet. Nightwish is a way of life, something to live for, and we're certain we can't let it go.

Equally certain is the fact that we cannot go on with you and Marcelo any longer. During the last year something sad happened, which I've been going over in my head every single day, morning and night. Your attitude and behavior don't go with Nightwish anymore. There are characteristics I would never have believed to see in my old dear friend.
People who don't talk with each other for a year do not belong in the same band.

We are involved in an industry where the business-side of things is a necessary evil and something to worry about all the time. We are also a band which has always done music from the heart, because of friendship and the music itself. The mental satisfaction should always be more important than money! Nightwish is a band, it's an emotion.
To you, unfortunately, business, money, and things that have nothing to do with those emotions have become much more important. You feel that you have sacrificed yourself and your musical career for Nightwish, rather than thinking what it has given to you.
This attitude was clearly shown to me in the two things you said to me in an airplane in Toronto: "I don't need Nightwish anymore." and "Remember, Tuomas, that I could leave this band at any time, giving you only one day's warning in advance".
I can't simply write any more songs for you to sing.

You have said yourself that you are merely a "guest musician" in Nightwish. Now that visit ends and we will continue Nightwish with a new female vocalist.
We're sure this is an equally big relief to you as it is for us. We have all been feeling bad long enough.

You told us that no matter what, the next Nightwish album will be your last one. However, the rest of us want to continue as long as the fire burns. So there's no sense in doing that next album with you, either.
The four of us have been going over this situation countless times and we have realized that this is the thing we want to do in life. It´s all we can do. In December 2004, in Germany, you said that you will never tour again for more than two weeks at a time. You also said that we can forget about U.S. and Australia because the fees and the sizes of venues are too small.

In interviews I've mentioned that if Tarja leaves, that would be the end of the band. I understand that people will think this way. Nightwish is, however, a scenery of my soul and I'm not ready to let go because of one person. A person who wants to focus her creativity to somewhere else, a person whose values don't match mine.

We were never bothered by the fact that you didn't participate in writing/arranging songs, you never in 9 years came to rehearse the songs with us before going to the studio. Not the fact that while on tour you always wanted to fly, separately from us with your husband. Not the fact that you are an undisputable front image of the band.
We accepted and felt ok about everything except greed, underestimating the fans, and breaking promises. It was agreed by the five of us that Nightwish would be the priority in everything that we do during 2004-2005. Still so many things were more important to you. The ultimate example being the already sold-out show in Oslo, which you wanted to cancel because you needed to rehearse for your solo concerts, meet frieds and go to the movies. Those were the words Marcelo used in an e-mail explaining the cancellation. This being just one example of so many. I couldn't think of a worse way of being selfish and dismissing our fans.

Nightwish is a way of life and a job with many obligations. To each other and to the fans. With you we can't take care of those duties anymore.

Deep within we don't know which one of you drove us to this point. Somehow Marcelo has changed you from the lovely girl you were into a diva, who doesn't think or act the way she used to. You are too sure of your irreplaceableness and status.

It's obvious that you blame your stress and misery on us four. And you think we don't respect or listen to you. Believe us; We have always had the uppermost respect towards you as a wonderful vocalist and as a friend. And very often during the past couple of years the plans were made according to your decisions only. You were always the only one who wanted more money from the shows.
This "compensation and more money from everything" -attitude is the fact that we are most disappointed of!

We wish that from now on you will listen to your heart instead of Marcelo. Cultural differences combined with greed, opportunism and love is a dangerous combination. Do not wither yourself.

This decision is not something we are especially proud of but you gave us no choice. The gap between us is too wide. And the decision is made by us four unanimously. We are beyond the point where things could be settled by talking.

All the best for your life and career,

Tuomas

Emppu Jukka Marco

Ps. This is an open letter for everybody.

Was this to be the end of Nightwish?
No-one knew. People took sides, and a true circus of the media-type began. Countless of pages of Finnish magazines alone were spent on this episode, but everything that needed to be said was already public. Slowly the ruckus ended in silence, and Tuomas retreated to his own confines bringing to life what was to be the future.

And now?

We sail on darkened waters. A sea-fare is a fitting metaphore as of the four elements water is the one representing emotions. On "Dark Passion Play" the music in conjunction with the lyrics conjure a brooding atmosphere never yet seen, or actually felt, in this magnitude in the saga of Nightwish. The fables and their reflections have always portrayed a deciphered view to their creator’s mind, in this case that of Tuomas Holopainen. The past years and the events leading to this day have naturally affected the outcome of this album, as it is known that Tuomas communicates best through music. And this music is filled with emotions,
at times subtle – at times overwhelming. I daresay it is this what makes Nightwish such a popular band. Excellent music is not only to be heard, it is to be felt. To be experienced. Sensitive music for sensitive people, if one was looking for a catch-phrase.

This sixth Nightwish album stands at a dividing line, separating what has been and what will become. And it stands strong; resonating the confidence of its composer. Confidence of a new time, never looking back but boldly doing whatever the heart desires. And yet again no signs of compromises shine through, the musical innocence is ever-present within these tunes. These songs take us through multitude of emotions on their journey, and it is richer and more varied than before, touching lightly on more ethnic flavours and being as ever bombastic as it bloody well can be. The heavenly voice of Anette Olzon carries through bright and powerful – and also more varied that of her predecessor. She truly is what Nightwish's music deserves.

Despite the fact that this musical passionwork is heavy with darker atmospheres, within it still lie optimistic undertones. It tells us that even in the bleakest of times there is hope. The voyage ends safely on
familiar waters.

The sound of Nightwish reborn is ever-strong.

Unfaltering.

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Tracklisting

Nightwish - Dark Passion Play