Nightwish Songwriter and Keyboardist Discusses New Record, ‘Imaginaerum’

In an interview with Crankitup.net, Nightwish keyboardist and songwriter Tuomas Holopainen discussed the band’s new album, ‘Imaginaerum,’ and the complimenting, 90-minute film.

When asked if he wrote all the music on the new record, he explained that track number ten is written by the band's bass player, Marco Hietala, but the rest of the album's songs were written by him.

Holopainen also said that, “the biggest expectations that we had for this album have already been fulfilled and that is the fact that we actually got the album done, and the movie is going really well, which is a small miracle, and the band is extremely happy about the result. The people who have heard the album so far, their comments have been really encouraging.”

In order to create a unique backdrop for the new album, the band decided to set ‘Imaginaerum’ to a dramatic film.

He explained that his original idea for the film was “to make a collection of short movies, a collection of music videos with a meaning, with a story, but it turned out to be a full-length drama movie, so it’s about 90-minutes with real actors, real dialogue [and a] real script. It’s already been filmed. We’re doing editing at the moment. If everything goes as planned the premiere should be somewhere around mid-April next year”

The songwriter also revealed that he got the idea for the album back in 2007, but that “the songwriting process took a year ... and then we entered the studio, which took about nine months all together, and here we are.”

He added that the album took a little longer because “we were on tour for two years after ‘Dark Passion Play.’ We’re just the kind of persons, at least I am, as a songwriter, that I can’t do anything concrete while doing shows, so I can just fully concentrate on the songwriting process when I have nothing else. I’m a typical male: I cannot think two things at the same time.”

The new album will be released Nov. 30 in Finland, Dec. 2 in the rest of Europe and Jan. 10 2012 in the U.S.

Watch Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish's Full Interview