Premises indicating what Nightwish would become can be found in Tuomas (Holopainen)’s childhood. Tuomas started playing music at the age of 7. He then learnt to play the clarinet, the piano and musical theory in a musical academy. At the age of 15, Tuomas went to Wichita, Kansas (U.S.A.) to live there for a year. There, he attended a Metallica concert. From then on, he felt much implicated in metal and considered that show as his favorite ever. He also visited Disney World in Florida to assuage his passion and nourish one of his future biggest influences. At 16, he joined his first band (Dismal Silence) whose members were all close friends of his, and lived in Kitee (Finland, South East). That was the time when he left his piano for a keyboard. He got his first contract signed with a label in 1995, with the band Darkwood My Bethrothed. At the time, he was just a session keyboard player but it did not prevent him from composing his first track called “A New Heaven, A New Earth”. This was the first act of the last song on the album “Heirs of the Northern Star”. At the same time Tuomas joined another band – Teemu Kautonen’s project called Nattvindens Grat – and met Tapio Wilska. Teemu had problems singing the vocals so the sound engineer, Tuomo Valtonen, suggested calling Wilska. Two albums were then composed. At the time, Tuomas went from one band to the other but he did not think he would be allowed to compose. At first, he accepted the situation but he eventually felt frustrated and lost all motivation. Later, Tuomas also took part in the composition of a concept album by Furthest Shore, a sort of gothic epic band like Bathory, as he says.

During one night of July 1996, while he was on a wild island on the coast of Kitee with Nattvindens Grat, Tuomas eventually launched the idea of creating his own project. He still did not know how he would call the project but he already had the global concept: acoustic instruments playing moody and atmospheric music inspired by Third & the Mortal, Theatre of Tragedy or The Gathering. Tuomas then began his national service. He joined the army for nine months and half and played his last notes of clarinet during that period: he never played the instrument again. Right from the first months of his enlistment, he composed three songs (‘Nightwish’, ‘Forever Moments’ and ‘Etiäinen’) and then he recordedthem in Kitee Studios in December 1996. Tuomas surrounded himself with Jukka (Nevalaien) whom he had known for a long time, Emppu (Vuorinen) and Semppa – Nightwish’s (and Wizard’s) time to time bass player. Besides, he had known Tarja (Turunen) since the age of 13 since they were in the same music academy and played in the same jazz band. When they visited her in Kuopio for Christmas, she immediately accepted to take part of what was only a project called ‘Nightwish’- a name coming from one of the demos (even if Tuomas thought this name sounded like a cliché). There was no plan for shows or anything that serious. Despite her studies at the Sibelius Academy, Tarja recorded three demos in two days. Tuomas composed new songs and the band recorded them in the Huvikeskus Studios in Kitee where they worked with Tero (Kinnunen). They had already met him before during the recording of older demos. The band greeted themselves Tero’s services and entered Caverock Studios for the first time. When Tuomas heard Tarja’s voice it was a huge surprise. They all expected to hear a young woman’s voice such as Kari Ruestatten - The third and the Mortal’s singer at the time. Yet it was far from what they thought. Tarja’s voice was powerful, classic and dramatic. That was absolutely unexpected and a fortunate coincidence! The three initial tracks were worked on acoustic guitar, flute, keyboards and Tarja’s voice. Nothing else was planed and that was what Nightwish was supposed to be. The band then decided to let people know about them. At first, they sent the demo to Century Media, Massacre and Spinefarm without receiving any feedback. They also gave the material to Soundi Magazine, a Finnish demo’s columns magazine. Criticism was irrevocable: ‘no commercial potential, is that atmospheric music really up to its ambition?’. Yet, Finnish press was enthusiastic and dubbed the band "the finnish The Gathering". The day after the end of his national service, Tuomas met the band in studio - they recorded a 7 track demo which was going to be Angel Fall First ultra limited edition. Besides, it was the first demo with Jukka behind the drums. After that, Tuomas went on tour with Nattvindens Grat and two other bands (Wish and Babylon Whores).

On his way back, he found out that a music label offered him a contract for Nightwish. Spinefarm released 500 copies of the demo. The story says that when some German music label boss heard about Nightwish, he promised that he would pay all cost charges if the band recorded more heavy songs. At the same time, Tuomas composed four more songs (‘Elvenpath’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Tutankhamen’ and “Know Why the Nightingale Sings’). Thus, Nightwish found new ambitions and first demos’ acoustic material was replaced by a more heavy and dynamic style. Therefore, two ballads were taken off the tracklist (‘Once Upon a Troubadour’ and ‘A Return to the Sea’).

The first album was finished at the end of October 1997.

Some reviews kept on demolishing Angel Fall First: ‘insignificant boastfulness - no big hope - rural band - from Kitee -‘. However, the band little by little gave up their acoustic sound for a dashing heavy metal: Tuomas, Jukka and Emppu were indeed from metal background. It seemed boring to them to content themselves with acoustic material with which Tarja’s voice did not match, according to them. Her voice, particularly dramatic, powerful and worked-out needed to find a place among that music which was also powerful and worked-out. After the signature of a contract for two albums, they visited Spinefarm. From that moment, the band ogled the success of Children of Bodom whose big poster made Tuomas admiring. For the time being, the latter temporarily moved in Kuopio where he studied environmental science. One of Tuomas best memories linked with Nightwish was when he discovered the results of Finnish charts on the radio: Angel Fall First’s first single (The Carpenter) had just hit number 15. From Tuomas’ mind, this memory was even more intense than when they received Platinum Records for Century Child. As the album was out, the band then wondered if their music could sound good on stage. The very first Nightwish show was organized by the band itself in Kitee on December 31st, 1997. This ‘new year’s disco” gathered an audience of 400 people. Excepted Jukka who was more experimented and used to being onstage, the band was petrified and felt like having an exam in a university auditorium to pass.

At the beginning of 2000, the band entered the studios to record the third album.
They momentary stopped the recording to take part of the Finnish qualifications for Eurovision contest with the song ‘Sleepwalker’. They were not chosen by the jury despite a great audience support (which put them number 1; the jury placed them number 3).

Wishmaster appeared as an intermediate album, easy to make but it did not prevent Tuomas from considering ‘Dead Boy’s Poem’ as a very personal song and probably the best he had ever composed. His perfectionism can be noticed by the choice for the child who reads the poem – Sam Hardwick whose mother tongue is English. Wishmaster eventually came out in May 2000.

For the release of the album, the band organized a special show in Kitee where they were given their four first Gold Records (for Oceanborn and singles Sacrament of Wilderness, Sleeping Sun and Walking in the Air). Designated as “album of the month” by many magazines in June 2000 and despite the much expected releases of Bon Jovi and Iron Maiden, Wishmaster entered the German charts at number 21 and number 66 in France. In Finland, the album reached number 1 and remained there for three weeks…

The Wishmaster World Tour, which started in Kitee, began with Finnish big festivals and carried on in July 2000 in South America where the welcome was incredible: when the band arrived there, the album had just been released. Nightwish best memories come from this three weeks tour. They played in Chili, Argentina, Brazil, Panama, Mexico and made a promo visit in Bolivia. Then came successful concerts in German Wacken Open Air, Belgium Biebop and a European headline tour – central Europe and then Italy, Switzerland and Holland where Tarja passed out twice because of the smoke coming from the drug used by the audience – with Sinergy and Eternal Tears Of Sorrow in October. Tuomas looked up to Alexi Laiho, Roope Latvali and Marco Hietala’s talent. Therefore, when Sinergy supported Nightwish for that tour, Tuomas was very worried. Besides, at that early time, Marco joined Tarja on stage to sing Beauty and The Beast with her.
During November, Nightwish also played twice in Montréal, Canada. Besides, the band made a live DVD and VHS out of a concert in Tampere on December 29th 2000 which came out in April 2001 in Finland, and during the summer in the rest of the world.

At the end of the show, Nightwish received platinum discs for Wishmaster and gold discs for Deep Silent Complete single. A live album from this show was also released at that time but only in Finland and it was limited to 10000 copies.

After that tour, the atmosphere among the band was deleterious – Tuomas felt like 2001 was the worst year of his life. In March 2001, the band entered the studios again to record their own version of Gary Moore’s “Over The Hills And Far Away”, two new songs and a new version of Angels Fall First’s “Astral Romance”.

Tarja joined Argentinean Beto Vazquez’s project “Infinity” beside Candice Night (Blackmore’s Night), Sabine Edelsbacher (Edenbridge) and Fabio Leone (Rhapsody). Emppu also took part in that project and composed guitar riffs on one track. While their fellow countrymen from Sonata Arctica had a great success in Japan, Nightwish preferred to go to South Korea where they took part in a festival organized by the country. Everything there was singular: the crowd (50000 people), the welcome (escort, bodyguards, reserved cars, five star hotels) and the progress of the day: no sound checks for Nightwish. Besides, they were told that the show was broadcast on a national TV channel only 2 minutes before going on stage. And finally, during the show, while they had one song left to play, the police intervened backstage and ordered the band to stop the show.

When the Finns came back in Europe to play in Moscow, they discovered a dangerous and aggressive audience which highly contrasted with South American fans from Wishmaster Tour. With hindsight, the composer saw that period as a sort of identity crisis marked by a serious lack of confidence. Troubles and rough times accumulated. That was why he decided to split the band in fall 2001. After their last concert in Finland at the Tuiskula on September 15th 2001, Tuomas personally announced the end of Nightwish to their labels (Spinefarm in Finland and Drakkar in Germany). Then, he announced it to the band which made things grow bitter: the composer was sure that it would not work any longer. Yet, after a journey in Kemi by Lapland’s woods, at his friend’s house Tony (Kakko) from Sonata Arctica, Tuomas reborn and started a new life. He brought Nightwish back to life but decided to fire Sami, who showed a real lack of motivation, and asked Marco (Hietala), Sinergy’s bass player, to join the band. Marco accepted straight away.
In October 2001, Tuomas gave up the tour organization responsibilities in order to consolidate Nightwish. Ewo then officially became the band manager through King Foo Entertainment, his production society (which he led with Toni Peiju).

In the beginning of 2003, on January 11th and 12th, Nightwish played in Oberhausen and in Munich, Germany where Lordi – a 80s-like heavy metal band – supported them. In two days, Nightwish played in front of more than 13000 fans and made a record by playing in Oberhausen “Konig Arena”: between 7500 and 8000 tickets sold for a Finnish band in a foreign country (record which was held before by HIM).

In February 2003, Nightwish announced its plans: a DVD with much live footage from their 2002 tour was being made. Spinefarm Records announced its release in Finland for May 26th 2003. Jukka became the father of Luna that her wife Satu gave birth to on March 11th 2003.
A few concerts were planned for the summer, especially a festival in Spain and two shows for their first visit in Great Britain (Bloodstock festival and London).

The DVD entitled End Of Innocence actually came out at the end of October 2003. The delay was mainly due to the huge amount of videos that Tuomas had to sort out (more than 80 hours!). It eventually contained a two hour report on the band’s history and the live recording of the Summer Breeze 2002 (which is “fucked up” according to Tuomas, because of the sound and mixing problems and the band’s lack of motivation onstage) and their performance in Oslo, Norway in July 2003. Thanks to that DVD, we can also see a few images of Nightwish’s concert on December 31st 1997 which was unpublished, until then.

Nightwish played in Slovakia and in the USA for the first time.

By October, the band had already booked the studios to record its fifth album. The beginning of the recording session was planned for November 2003. By December, 14 new tracks had already been composed.

In February 2005, Nightwish won the equivalent of the Grammy Awards in Finland in 5 categories among which « Band of the year », « Best album sale of the year », and the fans elected them « Best Finnish Artist of the year ». Tuomas and Marco went back to Helsinki in the middle of their tour to accept these awards. The last concert of the European tour was their biggest show: they gathered more than 10000 people in Stuttgart.

In March, their record company insisted on releasing a new version of Sleeping Sun. It came out as a single in order to promote their best of “Highest Hopes”. The new version of the video was directed by Joern Heitmann (who also directed videos for Rammstein) and shot in Prague in August 2005. In July, “The Siren”, the third single from Once, was released. In fall 2005, Nightwish played several concerts like, for instance, in the famous « Hammersmith Apollo Venue » which was sold out. After a short tour in South American festivals, the world tour for Once was about to end.

The last show was played on October 21st 2005 in front of 11500 people in the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki. The concert was recorded for a future DVD that was later called “End Of An Era”. After the show, Tuomas, Emppu, Marco and Jukka dismissed Tarja Turunen and her manager Marcelo Cabuli. The reason for her dismissal was directly linked with attitudes and behaviors that were observed during the tour and that were not in line with everything that Nightwish stands for.

As everybody can guess, the news came as a bombshell for the fans, but most of all in Finland where the national media – TV and press – made their headlines with the story. After all that mess, calm came back at the end of the year and allowed Nightwish to escape from its past and look for its new singer. At the end of 2005, more than a million copies of “once” were sold in the world. The album is triple platinum record in Finland, platinum record in Germany and gold record in Sweden, Norway, Swiss, Greece and Austria. At the same time, the best of “Highest Hopes” became double platinum record in Finland and gold record in Norway.

In November 2005, Marcelo and Tarja organized two press conferences (one for Finnish press and one in Germany for international press) to give their answer to the open letter Tuomas gave Tarja to announce her dismissal from the band. These conferences were painful for Tarja who was still weak and hurt by the public aspect of the whole story.

During winter 2006, the release of the Nightwish Book and the DVD End of an Era seemed threatened by the couple left aside from Nightwish. The issue between the band and the couple seemed to turn into a legal issue which was not a good thing for the fans...

With more than 65000 albums sold, the best of “Highest Hopes” is the album that sold the most in Finland.

On March 17th, Nightwish wished to get away from controversy and go forward. So the band announced its search for a singer with charisma and a great voice. After that, many rumors about potential singers more or less famous started to appear (Forever Slave, Epica, Tristania, Leave’s Eyes…). All these rumors were denied. The band and Ewo claimed they have received more than 2000 applications.

The tense relationships between Nightwish and Tarja and her husband faded in spring 2006. While Tarja turned the page and focused on her solo career, Nightwish worked on their DVD. In April, Brother Firetribe’s album – Emppu’s solo project - was released by Spinefarm. The band plays some Hard FM music.

In May, the Nightwish Book, written by Mape Ollila, that Marcelo Cabuli first threatened to censor was published in a Finnish version. Although the book was supposed to give the fans all the answers of their questions, the author stressed the authenticity and objectivity of the book since it has no bias. On June 2nd, the DVd End of an Era was released in Europe. It became gold record in Finland the very day it came out, and hit the charts in Swiss, United Kingdom, Germany, Holland, France and Austria.

On October 8th, Tuomas announced that the search for the singer would continue until December, that she would record her vocals on February and that her identity would eventually be revealed in May 2007. From October, the recordings of the album were taken place and a studio diary was put online and updated on the official website. It had been a year since the band parted from its charismatic singer. On October 28th 2006, it was time for Marco to get on with his side project since Tarot’s new album was coming out.

In January 2007, the auditions for the new singer’s recruitment were over. At the same time, the studio diaries about the recordings of the new album were updated regularly. The English version of the Nightwish Book “Once Upon a Nightwish” was published at the end of April. At last, the rest of Europe was to know the detailed story of the band. The North American tour was already announced for October 2007 while the album was not even ready. As soon as May, some concerts like the one in Springfield were quickly sold out.

May 24th 2007 was a big day for the new singer of Nightwish since her identity was finally revealed. She is the Swedish Anette Olzon. Tuomas claimed that his choice was almost made since the beginning of the auditions. This announcement is followed by the release of the single “Eva” on internet whose profits were given to a charity for children. Along with this, the dates of the first part of the European tour planned for November and December 2007 were announced.

In June, the title of the new album was revealed. Everybody then talked about “Dark Passion Play”. In July, the first promo tours for press started along with signing sessions. In August, the second single “Amaranth” – whose video was directed by Anti Jokinen (who also directed the DVD “End of an Era” and the video “Nemo”) - was released. In September, the single was doing very good in the European charts and particularly in Finland, Spain and Hungary where “Amaranth” was number 1.

To be continued…