Interviews

Despite her public and acrimonious departure from Nightwish, Tarja Turunen’s feeling the love these days. So much so, in fact, that she’s agreed to help ZT’s heart-strung readers resolve their most intimate problems. Fetch the medical dictionary!

“I’m very happy with the present, and no I don’t have any regrets from the past.” So Tarja Turunen begins our interview. 2005 saw her leave Nightwish, nine years after founding the band with Emppu Vuorinen and Tuomas Holopainen, and the wound is still a little raw. “Of course, it’s very hard to look back – it has been two years now, since we parted, and I still find it very hard to understand why it needed to happen like that. But despite that, these two years have shown me that I can be truly happy with myself, with my music, and with my people. This is still a growing process for me, both as a person and an artist. I couldn’t be happier. I wish Nightwish all the best for their lives and careers, now I’m just very thankful for those years, because it was a very huge life experience for me.”

The singer’s debut solo single, ‘I Walk Alone’ could be read as a reaction to the split in terms of both the lyrics and the intent. When I mention this to Tarja, however, it becomes clear this isn’t the case, and ‘I Walk Alone’ is in fact about the exact opposite. Hmmm. “That was more of a coincidence, as I didn’t write the lyrics for the song. There were a couple of guys from Sweden, Mattias and Anders, who came in with that song ready, a year and a half before the release of my new album. The track gave me the title of the album, My Winter Storm, so it is clearly very important, but I should also say that it gave me a very personal reason to make the CD. I wouldn’t be an artist without my winter storm, by which I mean my people, my audience, my listeners. They are there, holding me and keeping me, kicking my ass when I have needed them to, and to feel that love or have that support is amazing. There is nothing more that an artist can ask for, and I Walk Alone is about that.”

The new album was released late last year to a very positive response from fans, reaching number one in Tarja’s native Finland. “This has been a very personal success for me – I knew it wouldn’t be easy. It would have been simple to repeat myself and stuff from the past, but instead I took things that really are my interests in music, and put them into the album in order to make it represent myself.”

A new beginning, although Tarja’s sound these days is more a progression, rather than a departure, from Nightwish. But thoughts about how the new elements – dramatic classical moments which she describes as cinematographic in sound – would be received by fans when writing did not concern her. “It was, at the time, a lot more to do with the emotion that drove me in the process of making the album,” she explains. “It would have been very sad for me to consider these kinds of things when writing – the music would not have been honest in the end, if I had had to consider what to do to please my old fans. My goal was to make an album that would represent me, and my passion in music, and I honestly feel that this is a good beginning for me now. I know my directions for the future too – I just want to explore a bit more of everything I have done on My Winter Storm. I would like to get involved in this cinematographic sound even more. It’s a new experience for me to write songs, have melodies and lyrics of my own. I have a lot of ideas for the next album already, and it’s excellent that I already want to start again.”

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I’m hoping to enter the Eurovision Song Contest for the Faroe Islands…
That sounds bad already…

…But I’m worried that people won’t take me seriously as a musician…
Oh, seriously.

…when they hear my song ‘Boom Chiddly Chiddly WiddlyWunga Wunga Dum’. Do you think I should maybe write a song with a more sensible title? What would you recommend? And what should I wear onstage?
It sounds like you’re not taking the Eurovision song contest seriously, man. Why don’t you take it seriously? You know, it’s not about the title, it’s about the song and the music, so the title can be 'Boom Chiddly Chiddly Widdly Wunga Wunga Dum’. It’s not that bad. But really, we should all take it more seriously; it’s been a blast some years. Some years it’s been the most ridiculous thing, as well, but others it’s been fantastic – look at what happened for Lordi, for example. You should wear something traditional, represent your home. That’s what the Eurovision song contest is all about. Wait, are you even allowed to enter the Eurovision song contest? Is this even a real question?

I’m soon going to Finland – what should I do to fit in with the locals, and are there any phrases I should learn?
Pullo olutta, kiitos? is a useful phrase, [it means] ‘a bottle of beer please’. If you go to a pub in Finland, you have to have a bottle of beer. Kippis is cheers.

I’d really like to be able to hit the high notes like you, but my friends keep telling me that it’s unnatural for a boy to sing like that. What should I do?
Forget your balls and try it out. I just said the same to a radio journalist who was singing to me, “where are your balls?” So, just keep on trying, man. Or you can do it Finnish style and go from a very hot sauna to a very cold lake, that would work.

I want to woo my girlfriend when she comes over for dinner next week but I don’t know where to start. Can you give me some advice on what music I should play to get her ‘in the mood’? My CD collection is limited to brutal death metal and grindcore.
Oh my god. The first thing to point out is that you should know your girlfriend. You need to know her well enough to play the music she likes. But also in death metal there can be some nice tracks… Candles and red wine always help.

I too walk alone, but I’m afraid it could be because I smell. How can I tell?
What can I say – jump in a lake again! In the end everyone walks alone, I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

What is the difference between having an orgasm and having heartburn?
Wow. It depends on the orgasm, and it depends on the heartburn. I give up… that’s kind of sad. [Random bystander frequenting the café in which this was conducted: I get heartburn more often…]

I think religion may have spoiled my brain – how can I fix it?
That’s sad. Talking with other people is always good, and talking about religion is not a bad thing at all. There should be something else in your life; your family and love.

My young daughter started laughing uncontrollably when she heard the new Nightwish album. What can I do to make her stop, as the lack of sleep is driving me insane!
Oh god. Uuuh, put something else on the record player. My Winter Storm, for example.

I was recently confronted by a creationist, whose arguments were so incredibly stupid they made me feel intellectually violated. How can I fight such idiocy?
Oh god. Oh Goooood. Oh God! Yeah, pray for god! That’s a good thing.

(Credit goes to Tosca, taken from the English ZT Magazine)