Biography

Tuomas Lauri Johannes Holopainen was born December 25, 1976 in Kitee, Finland.

His mother signed him up for piano class in school when he was seven years old, and he later studied clarinet, tenor sax, piano and music theory for eleven years at a music college.

Tuomas joined his first band in 1993. He played in several bands, Darkwoods my Betrothed, Dismal Silence, Nattvindens Gråt and Sethian.

He did not like the "session musician" inability to compose so he began thinking of starting a band of his own, for which he would write the music and play keyboards. This was the birth of Nightwish, around a camp fire. He asked Erno "Emppu" Vuorinen (guitar) and classmate Tarja Turunen (vocals) to join what was then an acoustic project. After hearing Turunen’s strong voice, and because of the metal influences of Vuorinen and drummer Jukka Nevalainen, Tuomas decided to turn Nightwish into a metal act.

 Tuomas Holopainen has said that his work is often inspired by film music and fantasy novels. Nightwish's first album was a mixture of acoustic mood music and melodic metal, and the next two albums had elements of power metal, but on later albums influences from film music such as Beauty of the Beast, Ghost Love Score and Wishmaster.

Tuomas Holopainen has also said that his biggest inspiration is film score composer Hans Zimmer. Some of Nightwish's lyrics make references to fantasy novels, including Wishmaster, Escapist, and Wanderlust which have elements from the Dragonlance series. The music of "7 Days to the Wolves" is inspired by Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. 

Tuomas Holopainen is a Disney, J. R. R. Tolkien and Dragonlance fan.

 

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  Bands

  Current Bands

  Nightwish (1996 -)

  For My Pain... (1999 -)

  Timo Rautiainen (2006 -)

  
  Former Bands

  Sethian

  Dismal Silence

  Nattvindens Gråt

  
  As Session Member

  Darkwoods My Betrothed

 

Thank you to those who helped create this biography (still work in progress)