NIGHTWISH Drummer Answers Fans' Questions

Finnish/Swedish symphonic metallers NIGHTWISH have posted a new "Nightmail" session featuring fan questions answered by the group's drummer, Jukka "Julius" Nevalainen. A couple of excerpts follow:

Q: When it comes to recording an album, do you prefer to record your share by yourself or do you like to have the guys around?

Jukka: I want Tuomas [Holopainen, keyboards] to be present every time we record something because he's the only one knowing how the song should finally sound and we can discuss about drum arrangements and if needed, change something. And, of course, I need Mikko and Tero there to take care of technical stuff and taking part on arrangement. And usually it doesn't bother me if there's also other people listening... except if I'm having a bad day and nothing works out.

Q: How do you feel about the fact that several songs of the new album have already "leaked" to the Internet?

Jukka: Yes, it did suck, when I heard about that for the first time! It is unbelievable that some people have no respect at all to other people's property or working over a year long period! But we are living this Internet era now and it seems you can't decide anything yourself and do things as you want to, so there's no use to whine.

Q: Jukka, I'm wondering if you and the rest of the guys have any problems communicating with Anette [Olzon, vocals]? You speak English, of course, but you speak in Finnish most of the time, as far as I can tell. Since Anette is Swedish, is it hard communicating with her? She speaks English as well, but I can imagine it being difficult to get certain ideas across to eachother since English isn't your guys' native language.

Jukka: At least so far we haven't had any communication problems. If you are willing to make it, it always tends to work out. Anette speaks excellent English, so since we are not discussing about nuclear physics or something like that, we'll manage just fine. And furthermore, we are learning more and more Swedish all the time, whether we want it or not...

Q: When recording songs that have many parts (with and without drums, e.g. "Ghost Love Score") to them in the studio, do you break up the drumming into several different recordings? 'Cause I understand that when recording, your drums are the first sounds recorded.

Jukka: We usually record the songs with many parts in pieces. This is also because of the fact that, for example in "Ghost Love Score", the atmosphere changes fast between the different parts. It is easier to find the right mood in the studio when you can concentrate on the upcoming part and and start the recording in the beginning of that specific part. In addition to this, sometimes also tempo changes between the parts and it makes us to record the parts separately.

Read the entire question-and-answer session at this location.