Nightwish: A Natural Progression

What is ‘human nature’? The question has troubled philosophers for millennia. Plato, Aquinas and Nietzsche have had their say, and now NIGHTWISH have theirs. Human. :||: Nature. is the latest double-album instalment from the Finnish symphonic metal institution; their longest and most ambitious to date. If there is a band capable of taking on such a grand theme, then it is surely NIGHTWISH.

Over ten tracks the sextet explores the sounds, experiences and beliefs which have united us since ancient times. The album is divided into two halves: the first, Human, features the whole band while the second half All The Works of Nature Which Adorn the World is an orchestral suite composed by main songwriter Tuomas Holopainen and performed by The London Session Orchestra. To say that Human. :||: Nature. is an album of contrasts would be an understatement, as it contains both heavy and light-hearted material, primitive and sophisticated musical ideas, as well as a host of diverse digital and analogue textures. Distorted Sound sat down with lead singer Floor Jansen to get some insights into the recording process, artwork and themes ahead of the album’s April release.

“Of course, we’re all quite experienced with making albums, but now we’ve become accustomed to making albums together,” begins Jansen. “Endless Forms Most Beautiful was the first time the band had actually rehearsed songs with their vocalist, their lead singer, which really changed the approach of things.” Jansen quickly won fans over with her enthusiasm and talent back in 2012, and continues her commitment to making NIGHTWISH’s studio albums and live performances the best they can possibly be. It’s not all hard work, though. “We rehearse and record everything in a very remote boy scouts camp. It’s a big area in the woods by a lake where they built huts for people to stay in. It becomes Camp NIGHTWISH, basically.” The album’s complex melodies and harmonious atmosphere are borne of this intense, but comfortable, rehearsal process. “There’s a big firepit and sauna right on the lake. And that’s where we did most of the harmony work, all while grilling plenty of vegan and vegetarian sausages, listening to music, drinking some wine. We rented the place for three months. Tuomas is there all the time. Almost everything is done there.”

Album artwork is always important, but for an album as conceptually rich as Human. :||: Nature., It’s especially important to render visually what is being expressed lyrically and musically. “I loved it from the get-go. I wasn’t 100% sure if we were actually going to have it as the artwork,” enthuses Floor Jansen, the band’s lead singer. “I knew the album name would never change, but whether we would keep it in the cuneiform we weren’t always sure.” The ancient Sumerian glyphs can be translated as ‘Human’, concatenating ‘man’ and ‘woman’ on the lower portion, and ‘God’ or ‘Nature’ atop. The choice of script is not incidental. The oldest discovered form of musical notation is also written in Sumerian cuneiform, in the Hurrian language, and the Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal is incorporated into the album’s closing orchestral suite. No one in NIGHTWISH was more taken with the album’s artwork than Jansen herself, who elected to get the script tattooed. “I was immediately so taken by it, that even though we didn’t say “100% we’re going to do this,” I told myself I’m going to have it anyway because the album name was not going to change.”

Human. :||: Nature. arrives five years after Jansen’s NIGHTWISH studio debut on Endless Forms Most Beautiful, and while the album can be considered a sequel of sorts, she emphasises the band’s growth and development in the interim. “It’s cool to see that despite the links between the albums, the band has been naturally reinventing itself – by leaving out the orchestra, for instance. There are string quartets and a choir, but that’s it.” A bold move for a band that helped to define the symphonic metal style, no doubt. Those looking for the NIGHTWISH orchestral experience can find it on the album’s second half, All The Works of Nature Which Adorn the World. “You could consider it the tenth song,” Jansen explains, “it’s just that it’s twenty-three minutes long! Tuomas takes you by the hand through the sounds of nature as he hears them. That is a whole different thing to the rest of the album. It’s something unto itself. It’s entirely new.”

While some fans might lament the change in the band’s approach, Jansen takes a future-orientated attitude. “I there’s a new path we took with me as the new singer. Things have changed a bit since Imaginaerum and Dark Passion Play. They had their own atmosphere, and they’re really different to Endless Forms Most Beautiful, and so that has naturally progressed in Human. :||: Nature.” Jansen has quickly made herself popular with fans new and old, and reassures them that they’re definitely still the NIGHTWISH they know and love. “I like to think it’s a natural progression and a way of reinventing a band that’s been around for a while. [Leaving out the orchestra] was never a conscious choice. It’s still bombastic,” Jansen insists. “It’s essentially there within the band. It has been made bigger with an orchestra, but now it’s made bigger with us! Continuing, Jansen explains. “There’s more space for Kai to do his stuff, more space for vocals to sing in harmony, which came about from playing Endless Forms Most Beautiful live, and the Decades tour where we reworked some old songs to sing without a backing track, why not when we can do it live? We have three vocalists. It changes the colour, but we’re the NIGHTWISH of now, not of then.” Concluding, she adds, “I think it’s heavier, it has a heavier feel to it overall.”

The music video for Noise was seen over one million times just in its first week, and sat at the top of the Spotify metal chart for some time – congratulations! Has the reception of the singles so far surprised you?

Jansen: Well, yeah, I didn’t think it would go that fast, especially since we’ve not been very active recently so I’m very happy with that. NIGHTWISH used to be about escapism into unrealistic or unreal things, whereas now we’re going into the ‘real’ much more, so it’s good to see that people are enjoying what we’re doing.

As the lead singer, you’ll be the most involved in interpreting the lyrics Tuomas writes. Could you talk us through some of the album’s themes?

Floor: I need to make them my own. I’m happy that I really feel the lyrics very easily, the subjects are interesting. Tuomas’ writing, his style, really suits me. It’s very easy to identify with his lyrics. I always ask him what they mean, but not in the deepest of details. I need to have the space to give it my own interpretation, as will everyone that will hear them. So, it’s always subjective, but you need to be able to transfer the emotions behind it in a natural way so I need to get it, I need to feel it more than anything else, and it’s good to know that he’s so good I can easily get there. Obviously, Music is about music. It’s the whole history of it, it doesn’t need much interpretation. It’s quite straightforward, but in a very poetic way. Noise? So, people who have seen the video seem to think it’s about mobile phones and social media, and that we’re against them – but it’s not, it’s about the noise it creates and our behaviour towards those things that seem to take us away from the real world, drag us into the fake and the shallow, and we even get addicted to it. Shoemaker is about a person. Eugene Shoemaker. I would invite everyone to actually Google him. His story is beautiful, it’s so romantic that Tuomas took it upon himself to write a song about it. Harvest sounds very happy, very folky. It could be like, the happy folk song, but it’s about the constant threat of death and dancing away from it.

What would you say that you learned during the rehearsals and recording process this time around?

Floor: With Pan, there are so many really complex melodies, and that was a huge challenge. Procession is a beautiful but very repetitive song where you need to get the dynamics right to get it right. The end of Shoemaker where there’s this operatic part, I needed to get it exactly right – not too big, not too little, not too light, not too Maria Callas. What I learned mostly is that you need so much patience with things you haven’t written yourself. I wanted to get everything at once, but it’s way too complex, you have to dissect is basically into manageable parts: first the melody, then the words, then the phrasing. You have to develop muscle memory for it, then there’s fine-tuning, and then there’s learning what the lyrics are about! I can’t do everything at once. I’ve learnt to be more patient. Allow things to not be good for a while, because it takes time. Eventually, you want complex things to sound easy. The message and the feeling is the most important part. For instance, the end of Shoemaker, we finished recording it, heard it back, and tried again. Once everything was put together it still didn’t feel quite right, we all felt it. At home I got a fantastic microphone, sang it, and it just worked! It’s a very meticulous process.

Which songs are you especially looking forward to performing live? Are there any you’re dreading?

Floor: I dread nothing! Some songs are just not good live songs, like Procession would never really work. It’s a beautiful song, but not a live song. Tribal will be super cool, with all the random vowels and grunting.

Are there any bands you’d love to tour with this time around?

Floor: I don’t have any ambitions, but from a practical romantic perspective I’d love to tour with SABATON! It’s been fun before. I’ve just seen their latest tour, obviously. They’re doing really cool stuff; it would be an interesting thing for the audience – it’s just that they’ve grown too big! We’ve toured with them before, it works, but they’ve just sold out Wembley so it’s not possible to bring them out as a support act, but It would be fun to tour with my husband again.

What is your wildest ambition for the band at the moment?

Floor: We’re good where we are. Maintaining this position, I suppose. There’s going to be a shift in five-to-ten years where all the biggest bands will get old and quit. There’s going to be a shift in who’s going to be the biggest. I know that Steve Harris from IRON MAIDEN has said NIGHTWISH is definitely next in line as far as he’s concerned. That’s a huge compliment, and I’m not sure we can pull it off, but it will be interesting to see what we can do.

Human. :||: Nature. is out now via Nuclear Blast Records. 

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