It's very good. Now we are close to double platinum in Finland. It's the first band ever in heavy metal that reached that in Finland. It was also received well in Germany. It was number 5 in the German charts in the first week. I don't know it now, but a couple of weeks ago it was still in the best 15. Now the album was released in South America and it's selling a lot even though the situation in these countries is not so good economically. All the reviews, the comments of the fans and the concerts are great and we've spending beautiful moments now.
You are still on Spinefarm Records, but in some parts of Europe a major label is distributing your albums. How come?
It was Spinefarm's decision. I don't know how exactly they got the deal with them, but I guess it was the best for them. And also I think it's very good for Nightwish that the distribution is a bit wider now, so the album is selling now more than before and we can reach people that never heard of Nightwish before. I think that's really good for the band. We also released two singles from Century Child. They are Ever Dream and Bless the Child. On Bless the Child there's a song called Lagoon, which is a song that we have never been released before. We made this song for this new album, but we didn't include it in the end.
Are you going to stay with Spinefarm?
Well, I don't know. Now we are free, we are opened for a contract. We're not under any contracts, so it's an interesting time we are living now. Haha.
You've been playing a lot of gigs in the last couple of years. Could you pick the best show you had?
Now we were in South America with this new album and the show in Sao Paolo in Brazil was totally amazing. It was a big club with 6700 people. It was three floors full of people, totally crazy people and it was an amazing feeling. They were singing so much, screaming and yelling and clapping their hands. It was so wonderful. It was a big theatre in a way and we had no technical problems, so it was fantastic. There was even a backstage area with bubble bath. Haha. I really enjoyed it and I was like "Oh, that's better than in a classical music theatre backstage". Haha. It was very nice and I cannot forget that.
Now it seems that you're a regular visitor in Hungary. What kind of memories you have from the last couple of shows here?
I have very good memories. For example now the Sziget Festival we had there it was amazing. I didn't expect anything like that. The crowd was very huge and big, so it was wonderful. And the show was amazing. I was almost crying doing the Sleeping Sun song and we were having a really good time and there were no problems at all. Afterwards we were hugging each other "more of this, more of this", the people were wonderful and even the other bands in the backstage area were happy for the show we made. And Hungarian fans are totally great, crazy people. Haha. They were singing a lot and I liked it a lot. What can you ask more?
What can we expect from Nightwish as far as touring goes?
Well, this year we start our European tour really soon and then we will do three weeks of touring and that's it. Haha. Then I'm getting back to school and the other guys will have some rest and some of them are going to schools also. Nothing else this year I think. As far as the tour goes we will make it to Belgium, Holland, Austria, Germany, Spain and France if i remember correctly.
Any project appearances from you?
Well, I've been asked many times in the past to do projects, but for half a year now nobody asked me, because I said in every interview that, "I don't have any time". Haha. But in the past I was asked many times. And of course many times I like their music a lot and it would be nice, but... well in a way I think that I cannot sell myself. I only did Beto Vazquez's Infinity, which was nice to do, but I don't think I will do any more of that.