Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish discusses ‘Perfume Of The Timeless’ in the first making-of video

Nightwish have released a video in which keyboardist and songwriter Tuomas Holopainen discusses the making of the band’s upcoming album, “Yesterwynde”, out in September, as well as the first single already released.

When we had the first meeting with Nuclear Blast, talking about the new album and singles, I told them the first single will be a song called ‘Perfume Of The Timeless’ and it’s eight and a half minutes long and the chorus comes in at 3:30. And they were, like, ‘Perfect!’ I think that has to do with the fact that we have a long legacy. You know, we can do whatever we want, and I do, but it says something that we can do that, when I heard that for Spotify it’s good to have the vocals start after 15 seconds, or people skip it; they don’t have the attention span anymore.

He also discussed his songwriting after bass player and male vocalist Marko Hietala left the group.

No, it doesn’t really change anything, except that now we had two voices instead of three, only Floor [Jansen, lead singer] and Troy [Donockley, multi-instrumentalist]. But that’s it — it really didn’t change much at all. And Jukka [Koskinen], the new bass player, is such a grounding personality that it’s so easy to work with him. And his bass playing skills are tremendous, quite different from how Marko played the bass, which also brought a new spice into the music. So nothing but positive things to say about it all. There are many bands in the world that don’t have a single original member anymore,” he continued. “And I think it comes down to the fact that if the music is good, then that’s all that matters, in the end. Maybe for some people, certain bands are so holy that they can stand if they don’t have certain members in it, even though the music would be good, but I don’t really think like that. I just listen to the music, not the personnel behind it. That’s all that matters to me.

For most bands, it would be natural to promote the record with live shows, but this time Nightwish think differently.

No, it doesn’t feel weird. It just feels right. But people shouldn’t get worried. It’s not the end of the band. We just signed a multi-record deal with Nuclear Blast, so there will be more music coming, definitely. But as far as shows, we’re just gonna have a long breather now and see what happens. That’s all I can say at the moment. We got our fair share in 2022 and 2023 when we did a lot of shows. So that helped.

He then gives more details about “Perfume Of The Timeless“:

You are the result of an unbroken chain of millions of ancestors and their loves. ‘Perfume Of The Timeless’ reminds us all of this amazing fact. And if you’re not amazed, listen to it again, because it’s important.