Nightwish: Bands that mimic us make no sense to me

Nightwish’s Marco Hietala and Floor Jansen joined Alexander Milas on the Metal Hammer Magazine Show ahead of the release of their acclaimed Endless Forms Most Beautiful album.

“I think some people were surprised when they heard Richard was on the album”, said Hietala when asked about the inclusion of author Richard Dawkins on the track, Shudder Before The Beautiful. “There’s been a lot of fantasy in our music before now, but this new record deals more with being in the here and now…”

Floor: “About opening your eyes to the real world, the fantastical that exists in the every day, the things that are right in front of you if you know how to look. And Richard Dawkins inhabits that world.”

On inspiring a legion of bands that have adopted their trademark, bombastic sound, Marco says, “I know we’re at the helm of this thing called symphonic rock or whatever, but we don’t really think in terms of that, we’re just a band.”

Floor: “It’s wonderful if our music inspires people, but I hope bands aren’t mimicking us, that makes no sense to me. You have to go into music with true passion, you have to go in all the way, it would feel unnatural not to. When I joined the band the chemistry was there instantly, we had the same vision.

“Plus, I feel in love with the Finnish way of thinking, of being out in the woods with the band, that was perfect, that’s how I want to live life, sitting out by the camp fire with some music and you can choose to engage or not. These last few years of the band, things have only changed for the better.”

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For more on Nightwish, not least the records that changed Tuomas Holopainen’s life, then click the link below.

Tuomas Holopainen owns a copy of Barbie Girl and he doesn't care who knows it

Nightwish are playing the Sunday of Download festival, 2016. Tickets for Download are available via the official festival site with further artists to be announced in due course.

Philip Wilding is a novelist, journalist, scriptwriter, biographer and radio producer. As a young journalist he criss-crossed most of the United States with bands like Motley Crue, Kiss and Poison (think the Almost Famous movie but with more hairspray). More latterly, he’s sat down to chat with bands like the slightly more erudite Manic Street Preachers, Afghan Whigs, Rush and Marillion.