Tuomas Holopainen was a teenage misanthrope. Growing up in the small Finnish town of Kitee, he had the regulation all-black wardrobe and the soundtrack to match. “I did not use to be an optimistic person when I was younger,” he says. “I loved black metal and all that. But I started to come to the realisation that things have always been fucked up, but we’re still going for the better despite the horrible things that are going on in the world.”
We’re sitting in a suite in an upscale Berlin hotel, as mid-morning traffic flows along Potsdamer Platz several storeys below us. Literally as we talk, unthinkable things are happening all around the world: war, abuse, torture, murder, wilful destruction of the climate. The grim realities of humanity in 2024, basically.
