NIGHTWISH vocalist Anette Olzon

NIGHTWISH - Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold

On their initial tour with new NIGHTWISH vocalist Anette Olzon, tidbits surrounding her recruitment and involvement in the creation of Dark Passion Play are beginning to surface. BW&BK met up with the band on the east coast, where bassist/co-vocalist Marco Hietala had the following to say about the process. “We recorded all the music back in the summer of 2006. There were some minor changes after that, but not much. It was clear, from the start, we were going to look for another woman, but I did a ton of demo vocals, because we didn’t know who would get the vocalist’s job. That’s the way we used to do things with Tarja (Turunen) as well. She didn’t get up to rehearsals, or to the demo studio. When we started looking for a singer, we said we’d take on all comers. Nothing was ruled out. One thing that was certain was (the song) ‘Master Passion Greed’. At first there was a thought that the new vocalist might sing some lines on there, but I went to Tuomas (Holopainen, mastermind/keyboardist) and said, ‘We don’t want to give anyone that kind of mental heritage. It’s better if I do the whole song.’"

That’s Marco’s roundabout way of saying that since the tune skewers Marcelo’s (former singer, Tarja Turunen’s husband) meddling with the band (with lyrics like 'Hey Judas, your Christess was our love…Never sorry, never wrong…Seek her, Seduce her, tame her, blame her, have her, kill her, feast on it all'), the 'new guy' should be involved. In articles, Holopainen has stated they will not play the track live, as it conjures up too many bad memories and he's ready to move beyond that incident.

Nightwish plays Montreal on October 21st and Toronto on October 23rd.