How has the tour been going?Very well, better than we anticipated. It's the last one for Europe, at least for this year.Has something changed as the first time being a full, official member?Haha, nothing has really changed for me. Things still poodle along at the same speed. It has been exciting realizing the new album, we put more input and work into that. So physically the same, but mentally different, haha.Did you ever imagine something like this would happen for you?It's a strange thing. Somebody asked this to me the other day, but it never occurred to me. When I first got involved with the band, I had no knowledge about the genre. I didn't come from the metal scene, I was more progrock. I wasn't really aware of the band, I didn't realize just how influencial the band was, in basically spawning a whole genre. And it is the defining band for the genre. As I became more aware of that, the effect that it has on people and the extraordinary age range of people who come to see the band, that's something I'm really quite fascinated about, ages 8 to 78.Do you still have time now for your own musical projects?Well, unfortunately not. The last 2 years have been so intensive. From 'Imaginaerum' to now, I didn't have any time to do anything. We'll have a nice big time off, so I'll be working on some music then.Same for the others?Yes same for everyone. Everyone is going to use the hiatus to work on other things.You mention the break, is it after the tour?Yes, we're going to have a break through 2017, 2017 will have no Nightwish activity at all. But we'll come back...Have you noticed that Nightwish is selling out a lot more on this tour?Yeah, there has been a tangible feeling of acceleration in the popularity of the band. Even since I got involved in Dark Passion Play. Especially abroad, in the States, you can feel that something is building, there's a momentum there.Do you think this is the success of the last album or maybe because of Floor?I think a bit of both. I really hope it is the new album because I think the new album is really special. For me personally it's the best Nightwish album I have ever heard. Not because I'm involved, but objectively. Musically, the form of the album is pretty spot on and I think the variety on the album is really interesting, the album flows really beautifully, and I'm really proud to be a part of the Greatest Show on Earth, the final big 24 minute extravaganza, that's my favourite.I have noticed a camera man that filmed during the shows, are those recordings going to be used for something?Yes, we recorded with a substanial crew a show in America and we also recorded a festival in Finland, Tampere en we're going to record Wembley as well. So it will be a future blu-ray/dvd release.Is that filmed in parts or whole shows?The whole show. At the moment we don't know what the format is going to be, but I can imagine we will have different songs from different shows. It's not going to be one show.So not like 'Showtime, Storytime' on Wacken?No, it's going to be lots of different places I think.The setlist seems to vary for every show. How is it made up?Well, it was for the first 4 weeks. In this last week, we settled on a setlist that is going to be the setlist now, even though we've got only 2 more shows. The last 5 shows are fairly set, we're going to do the same thing in London. But we did vary it in the beginning of the tour to see what worked best, how things sat, the order of songs, how they worked out, all those things... Wishmaster was there for a while, but it is out now for example.What about the support acts, some people find it strange to have Arch Enemy as support?Yeah, I think people expect us to go for bands that are similar to us. We are guilty of that with Delain as support, Indica on the Imaginaerum tour... Arch Enemy seems a bit extreme but it's not, the spirit of Arch Enemy is very similar to what we are up to as well. Arch Enemy are a force of themselves and it works brilliantly on this tour because they are nothing like us, muscially that is, spiritually they are, but musically it makes a nice contrast.How was it decided? Did the label decide that?Yeah, it was. The small bands are put to us. We love Amorphis and also Arch Enemy, so it was a no brainer as they say.Has any crazy stuff happened during the tour?Constantly. The whole thing is crazy (laughs)! There is a wonderful sense of comeradery between the bands. All the bands love and respect each other and we get along famously.How do you look back on the music from Nightwish in the past, the early years?I've only just started to explore that, the really early stuff. Because some of the early stuff will be rearranged and renewed at some point in the future. I've got all the early albums and it's interesting to see the development curve from that first album to 'The Greatest Show on Earth', it's just massive. It's a different band, you know. And that's the way it should be, early Pink Floyd isn't what it became in the late '70-'80's. So it's nice to see that forward movement for the band and because we found the ultimate singer as well now with Floor. She's simply the greatest female rocksinger out there in my opinion. She can handle everything and we have a wonderful time together. Everything is honky dory in the Nightwish camp.You see that on stage as well.That's good! You can feel it. We are genuinely like that off stage as well.You are going to the US next year, then it's the festival season. Some already announced...Yes, we've got some fantastic fresh announcements, like Download, we're special guests to Iron Maiden. We've got quite a few coming in, a few more to be confirmed, it's going to be a busy summer. We're going to work right through until October. We've got various small mini tours to do as well. We're doing Russia, China, Japan, ... There's a few exotic shows which are being worked on as well, far places on the earth, we'll see how that works, places we've never been to.So will this really be the only European tour, or is there more to come?No, this is it. But we do have plans. We were talking about these plans the last night and we're really excited about the next episode in Nightwish, it's going to be really interesting.Will it still be before 2017?No, after that, it will be 2018, 2019.So writing a new album is not really priority yet?No, not yet. That's going to happen sometime, maybe in 2018.It depends on Tuomas?Absolutely. There's lots of things going to happen in 2017 musically for all of us so we'll wait and see. But we do intend to go back to the summer camp in 2018 and work on new material for an album in 2019, 2020 maybe.A totally different question: how is Jukka doing?He's doing splendidly well. His condition has improved massively. He's happy, he's coming to Wembley which is absolutely splendid.Will he play?No, he's just a spectator. It's weird when Jukka turns up to just watch the band, it's an odd sensation, really strange because he's such a part of it. We miss him really terribly, but we got the Kai who is wonderful. Kai is a close friend of Jukka as well, which makes this possible. If it was just some guy who would have come in in an audition kind of situation, it wouldn't be the way it is. He's close to Kai, we are all close to him and known him for years. He's just the loveliest man. But everything is fine, Jukka is getting better and we'll see what the future holds with that.So tomorrow you make way for London?Yes, we get on the ferry tomorrow and then we have a day off and then it's the big thing.I guess it's special to you, Wembley, in London...It's massive. I dreamt of playing at Wembley when I was 10 years old. All young musicians did, it's such an iconic venue. A lot of people don't understand it, but it's one of those classic venues like the Budokan in Japan or the Forum in LA, there's lots of them and Wembley is one of them. We have fans coming from all over the world. I think a thousand people coming from Finland and that's just family, haha. It's going to be fabulous!Do you have any last words for the fans and the webzine?What can I say... Just keep watching us. In the theme of the new album (laughs): just keep watching us evolve! Summary of facts:- Nightwish will go on a hiatus in 2017. The bandmembers will focus on other things.- No further European tour in 2016. Some festivals will still be announced. In 2016, they will go to Russia, China, Japan and some 'exotic locations'.- The band is planning something big and interesting for after 2017 and new European shows seem to come (2018-2019).- A new album will not arrive sooner than 2019.
You’d be hard pressed to argue against the importance and benefit of Finnish bashers Nightwish bringing Dutch vocalist Floor Jansen (ReVamp, ex-After Forever) on as their permanent singer in 2013. News that the band had also enlisted English uilleann pipes player and long-time collaborator Troy Donockley at the same time, however, proved to be something of a head-scratcher. Although he’d been a part of the Nightwish camp since 2007 and the Dark Passion Play album – touring with them extensively as of 2012 – the idea that a band known for symphonic metal would add such an odd element to a tried and true formula did not bode well for the future. It was one thing to have Donockley in the background to help keyboardist / mastermind Tuomas Holopainen realize his musical visions, quite another to allow the multi-instrumentalist to have serious input. Especially when Donockley’s resumíé includes working with artists sich as Midge Ure, Status Quo, Mostly Autumn and Del Amitri. Any worries were unfounded, as the latest Nightwish album Endless Forms Most Beautiful and the subsequent tour present the band in their expected bombastic metal glory; Donockley has enhanced the band’s sound and show rather than diluting or altering it.We spoke during the European leg of the Endless Forms Most Beautiful tour in December 2015 prior to one of many sold out shows, with Donockley offering some insight as to how life in the Nightwish camp is now compared to when former singer Anette Olzon – who was let go and replaced by Jansen mid-tour in 2012 – was in the spotlight.“The tour is much better than we thought it would be, and we kind of suspected it would be that way,†Donockley admits. “We’ve worked with Floor since the famous cataclysmic American tour (laughs) so we all know each other really well now. We’re in a really unusual situation in this band; it’s freakish because we don’t fight, there’s no conflict, there’s no divison between any of us, we share everything and we have massive fun together. It didn’t used to be like that. When I first started to get involved with the band it was very compartmentalized to say the least. Everybody kind of did their separate things, but there’s a real sense of camaraderie now.â€Troy3_1“I’ve seen a lot of uncomfortable situations in this band, but that’s such a thing of the past now that the spirit of Nightwish is one of absolute family. I don’t want to sound trite and I don’t mean it in a figurative sense; it truly feels like we can sit and be and do anything together. There’s no heirarchy in this band. We don’t have domineering parents or tedious siblings or boring uncles (laughs). Everybody in the band is delighted to be here.â€One example of this family atmosphere is, or rather was, Donockley’s willingness to learn Finnish even though there are no language barriers in the Nightwish camp. He’s since abandoned the effort following some well meant advice.“Finnish is a difficult language. Quite a few years ago I was talking to Tuomas’ mother and I said that I had to learn Finnish since I’m working with this band, and she said ‘Don’t even think about it.’ I didn’t even question it; that was good enough for me (laughs). Of course I can swear in Finnish and insult people, and the guys thinks it’s entertaining to give me something to say when we’re travelling on FinnAir, and in fact it’s something really insulting. They just point and laugh, but that’s the way it is. We do a lot of laughing in this band.â€That said, Donockley understands any misgivings the fans might have about the band bringing him into the fold.“I have lots of different roles in this band, really. I don’t mean that as actual quantifiable things, but I do have a lot of input. For want of a better word – and maybe I shouldn’t describe it this way – but it was a sort of spiritual thing for us. When they came to ask me if I would joing the band they came to me with the point that it already felt like I was in Nightwish, did I want to make it official? I did feel like a member of the band anyway, so I said yes, of course.â€Donockley is on board primarily to play the uilleann pipes along with an assortment of other instruments as required, but as mentioned he hasn’t become an in-your-face update to the Nightwish sound.Troy2_1“We consciously decided would be a bad thing to ‘Celtify’ every song now that I’m an official member of Nightwish. The power of an instrument like the Uilleann pipes in this kind of music is used sparingly, because that’s where the effect is at its most powerful. You can see it at the shows on this tour. When we kick in with the pipes there’s a definite lift because it’s unusual, it’s different. There’s no other metal band in the world that does it, really. There are few folk metal bands, sure, but not doing it like this. When we kick into ‘I Want My Tears Back’ the place goes bananas, but if we were to do that in every song it would become dull. I’m a serious musician and outside of Nightwish I’m doing all kinds of stuff, so as a consequence to keep me active – because I’m used to being very active on stage – we’ve expanded things and I’m playing guitar on a few songs. I’m not stepping on Emppu’s toes, but rather emulating cellos and violins. So now my input has gone beyond being The Bloke Who Plays The Pipes (laughs).â€Good thing, too. Anyone with touring experience knows the hell Donockley would have gone through if he’d been limited to performing two or three songs a night.“I would have gone insane, I would have been bored. It’s not like that, though. Look at the setlist… I’m on 10 of the songs. And I’m doing some guitars and background vocal stuff as well.â€One point of conversation and contention that I’ve raised a few times with Tuomas Holopainen over the years is the high level of orchestral bombast that has become the Nightwish trademark. It’s done well, no question, but I’ve often thought it would be cool to hear Nightwish stripped down to the basics. Not for an acoustic outing necessarily, but the organic nature of Donockley’s pipes suggest it could work quite well with him filling any perceived gaps.“Maybe a string quartet or a skeleton crew of backing musicians, yeah,†he agrees. “I think that’s a splendid idea. I think if we went out with a skeleton crew of three woodwinds, a string quartet and the band, it would be smooth over the edges of doing something fully acoustic that people might freak out over. It would still retain the orchestral elements of Nightwish but strip it down to a chamber band.â€To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with the current Nightwish direction. Only problem is that so many bands have adopted the symphonic metal model, the scene is saturated with uninspired artists looking to cash in.“I think it’s something that we should get onto,†says Donockley. “We’ve got plans already for the next album – really loose plans – but some things are heading in the direction you’re talking about now. Our fans are very forgiving (laughs).â€
