Shadowwolf embraces the universe

Finnvox-Studios, Easter 2004. Nightwish’s Tuomas Holopainen (keyboards) and Marco Hietala (bass/vocals) do not even try to hide their extremely broad grins. The new album ‘Once’ has just been mastered and sounds extremely massive, catchy and bewitching. The first listen gives you a real shock like an UFO would land at the beach of Tuomas’ peaceful family-cabin where the biggest part of the album has been written. The album starts with the words ‘Once I had a dream and this is it!’ and it is Nightwish’s ultimate masterpiece.

The crazy people from the small town Kitee spent more than 400.000 € to produce ‘Once’ and the first clip ‘Nemo’. Half of it was expended for the studio costs (once more the album was recorded, mixed and mastered in Tempputupa in Kitee and in the famous Finnvox-Studios in Helsinki). The rest of the money was invested in the perhaps best Finnish music video of all times. Since Nightwish only wanted the best they asked their fellow countryman Antti Jokinen who already worked for megastars like Eminem, Shania Twain and Celine Dion to realize the clip.

“From a Finnish paper we learnt that Jokinen wanted to produce a domestic metal-video”, Nightwish-Manager Ewo Rytkönen tells who sits with the two musicians at the Finnvox-cafeteria and slurps longdrinks. “I tried to find out his mobile-number right away because I didn’t want that Suburban Tribe or HIM would have him on the phone before me. But fortunately I was the first one who contacted him. Back then he worked with the world-famous Finnish director Renny Harlin for ‘The Exorcist 4’ in Rome, but he was able to take a flight to Finland in between for one weekend”.

“We just needed ten minutes for the basic idea of the clip”, Tuomas adds. “In the beginning we planned that the little gothic girl commits suicide and rises from the dead in the end and meets the band. Jokinen changed the script because he didn’t want the girl to die and in retrospect this was the right decision. The final version is a real killer and worth every single penny.”

The costs for the studio work exploded as well when Nightwish engaged the 52 people orchestra of the London Academy Of St. Martin In The Fields – the same orchestra that recorded soundtracks for movies like the ‘Lord Of The Rings’-Trilogy or ‘From Hell’. According to Nightwish Manager Rytkönen the ensemble which can be heard at nine out of eleven songs cost the same amount of money that the last Nightwish album ‘Century Child’ from which almost 500.000 copies were sold so far yielded as a profit.

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