Tuomas Holopainen got the idea to form Nightwish while fulfilling his national service in the Finnish army. His plan was to create an acoustic band to make ‘campfire music’. Luckily for
From Angels Fall First to Human. :||: Nature., we rank symphonic metal icons Nightwish’s most epic compositions…
Words: Sam Law
Symphonic metal existed before Nightwish – pioneered by outfits like Sweden’s Therion and Italy’s Rhapsody – but no band has made it bigger, better or more bombastic than the great Finnish collective. When keyboardist and bandleader Tuomas Holopainen first envisioned the band while sitting around a campfire with friends, the idea was that it’d be a vehicle for the experimental acoustic music he’d written during time in the Finnish army, perfect for settings just like that. Joining forces with guitarist Erno ‘Emppu’ Vuorinen and the classical vocalist Tarja Turunen, who had shared the same music teacher, Plamen Dimov, a few years earlier, preparations were set in motion for something far more grandiose. Bassist Sami Vänskä and drummer Jukka Nevalainen completed the initial line-up that’d make an unlikely assault on the metal