On the European continent, no band other than the Chariot Band is on par with nightwish — and if it weren't for the fact that the Chariot Band had those dazzling flamethrowers, they would be inferior to the Night Wish.
Founded in 1996 in Kitty, Finland, initiated by tuomas holopainen, a keyboardist who always wears a top hat, in 2012, the band welcomed their new lead singer, Floor Jansen from the Netherlands, by which time Night Wish had already released seven albums.
Nightwish
Janssen's addition made the symphonic metal band even bigger, more expressive and ambitious, she was so powerful that before joining Night Wish, she was the lead singer of the Dutch symphonic metal band after forever, but on the popular side, she even became a TV celebrity with her performance on the music talent show Best Zangers.
Night Wish's ninth album, Human. "Ii: Nature." is their first double album, and in the second half of the album, you will hear an orchestra-led version, listen to the album's harvest, "how's the heart?" and "noises", modern metal music rarely has such power and glory.
It is worth mentioning that although the album was released in the heart of the pneumonia storm, it still ranked first on the charts of Finland, Spain, Switzerland and Germany.
So next, we're going to talk to the most popular metal band in Europe today, and by the way, learn about Fro Janssen's roaring iron lungs.
《human. :ii: nature.》
NME: Hello, Flo. Can I say I particularly liked Night's Wish's new album? Now everywhere is miserable and ugly, and your album is so gorgeous and magnificent, and I dare say it's full of hope.
Fro: We must have been running for this too. There are a lot of different instruments on this album, and there are a lot of different parts. The music of Night Wish is very complex, really, so it's important for us to add real emotion to the song, that is, the power that can penetrate everything.
In addition, the interaction between us (dynamic) is also very important to us, music needs space, and sometimes the part of the song that you leave blank is just as important as the part of the song that you put into the music. There are nine songs on this album, and eight orchestral suites, which would have sounded the same if they hadn't interacted.
Floor Jansen
NME: Can we talk about the past? It's no exaggeration to say that your voice is really good, when did you realize you could sing so well?
Fro: I think it was when I was a teenager, when there was a rehearsal program at school called Joseph and the Magical Colorful Dream Coat, and I signed up. I didn't get the big roles, you know — the campus personalities always got the best roles, and I wasn't. But even if it was reduced to a background board, I liked to do this, but I didn't know how good I was at that time. I was often bullied in school, so I actually had a lot of low self-esteem.
NME: You're not kidding, are you? How could anyone bully you?
Fro: Because I'm taller than others and have a different accent than they are, I just... Not the same.
After the forever period of Flo
NME: Do you think that experience had an impact on you later?
Fro: Yes... But to tell the truth, it's all positive. I can't say I miss those years, much less those (bullying) people, but I feel like that experience made me more stable as an adult because it put me on a more stable path. But I don't want my daughter (three-year-old Freja) to go through something like this too.
NME: Have you ever had that classic revenge scene where you're standing on stage and thousands of people are shouting your name and you're thinking, "Look, I won, didn't you?" ”
Fro: Always. Especially now that I'm on that Dutch TV show, that's really making me very popular in the Netherlands. I sometimes think, those people don't even remember me, I shouldn't spend so much time thinking about them, you have to live for yourself – I'm almost 40 years old, you know!
NME: Tell me more about that TV show, I love that name! Beste zangers!
Fro: It actually means "best singers," which isn't a contest of any kind, but a collection of singers of different styles and backgrounds, where we perform each other's music or collaborate on covers that inspire us.
It was a really good show, all about the love of music, aired on Saturday night prime time, it completely changed my life, and The Wish of the Night band benefited a lot from it! Although we are already well known in the Netherlands and can perform in stadiums, now we are red and purple. This is even better for me because in my hometown I was unknown for 24 years!
Flo in Beste zangers
NME: Night Wish's new album was released on April 10, and in such a severe situation as the pneumonia epidemic, only very few bands dared to choose to release an album in this situation, so how did you do it?
Flo: We were one of the first bands to have to cancel the tour, but our tour was originally scheduled to start in China, and (if there had been no epidemic) I would have been in China now.
Very early on, we realized that the tour could not be carried out, and although the epidemic was still only on one continent at that time, then there was a global chaos that led to the disease becoming a pandemic. I still can't believe it's really serious enough, really. It really doesn't feel necessary...
Night Wish's China tour is currently in a state of delay
NME: I feel like you seem to have a bit of an opinion on all of this? You live in Sweden right?
Fro: Yes, I immigrated from the Netherlands five years ago.
NME: Sweden's approach to viruses is very lax, there is no massive lockdown like in other parts of the world, do you think this is the right thing to do?
Fro: One thing is right, but I'm not a scientist, what can I know? You can only follow science.
NME: I want to remind you that there is a beetle named after you, and last year scientist Andras Gerwell named a newly invented insect tmesisternus floorjansenae, and it can be said that you have more scientific basis than any other metal lead singer...
Fro: Well, in a lot of ways, I think Sweden is right. Sweden is a large country, but has a small population, and it seems to me that this practice works in Sweden, but it is not the same thing in the Netherlands and England.
Then again, a big city is a big city, whether in Sweden or in any country, if people in cities start moving around, then I think we have to be careful. During Easter, I was visited by tourists from all over the place, a place next to the sea in Gothenburg. Sweden is a country big enough to have enough space to avoid quarantine – but do you still have to go to touristy places to gather? I really can't understand, what a fool!
tmesisternus floorjansenae
NME: Speaking of space, you're married to Hannes van Dahl, the drummer for the Swedish metal giant Sabaton band, who is avid for military history. On stage, he'll sit in the cockpit of a tank and play drums, and I guess you'll have a lot of cool military supplies at home, right?
Fro: Oh, it's everywhere, it's all over the house.
NME: Really?
Fro: Fake!
NME: I heard that you have horses, I think it's very unfair, you can keep horses, but your husband can't keep warships in the garden...
Fro: Oh, he doesn't care, horses are better than war. I have two horses: one named Lily, named after my mother, and the other named Orie, named after a branch of my (Night Wish) teammates Thomas and Troy—and the name of a character in the fantasy novel Legend of the King-Killer.
Fro and Hannes van Dahl
NME: But you don't seem to be the only nature-loving member of the Band Wish, I heard that Night Wish has just partnered with the Conservation Charity of the World Land Trust, let's talk about this...
Flo: They're a great organization, and the mv for the last song on the album, "Ad Astra," was made in collaboration with them. Their job is to protect our planet by buying land. Some people will want to tell Brazil that they need to protect their forests because the Europeans have destroyed their own forests – which is hypocritical.
But at the same time, we really need to save the rainforest or we're going to face a climate crisis, so the World Land Trust is working with the government to find other sources of funding for locals to stop logging and deforestation. You can't just tell them, "Stop cutting down the rainforest." We reached out to them through David Attenborough (bbc host, who has explored all the known ecology on Earth and is known as the "father of the world's nature documentaries") ...
NME: He's not going to be a fan of yours too...
Fro: We once tried to ask him to say a passage from the album. We wrote him a letter and he wrote back, but refused because he didn't have time. But someone like him would write to us personally, and that really impressed us.
NME: You can't like all the animals, Flo. There must be an animal you wish to eradicate from the earth...
Fro: No! I love it all! I love cats, I love dogs, I love birds of everything!
NME: Got it...
Fro: Okay, okay... I really don't like snails. We grow vegetables, but they eat our vegetables and they are disgusting. However, I don't want them all to die! We just wish they could go somewhere else!