Tuomas Lauri Johannes Holopainen (born 25 December 1976) is a Finnish musician, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the primary songwriter, keyboardist, and founding member of the symphonic metal band Nightwish. He has stated that his songwriting is influenced by harmonic film music.
Before founding Nightwish, he played in the band Darkwoods My Betrothed. He later recorded an album with them as a full member in 2020. He also collaborated with the gothic metal band For My Pain... and the band of Timo Rautiainen.
Holopainen has written several songs that have been included in movie soundtracks, including a collaboration with Nightwish bass player and male vocalist Marko Hietala on "While Your Lips Are Still Red", for the Finnish film Lieksa! in 2007. He also co-wrote the music for Nightwish's own film, Imaginaerum, released in November 2012.
Holopainen released his first solo album Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge in 2014.
Tuomas Holopainen was born in Kitee on Christmas Day 1976. His parents were entrepreneur Pentti Holopainen (1940–2021), and Kirsti Nortia-Holopainen, a former music and English teacher in a small elementary school. He has an older sister named Susanna who works as a surgeon-urologist, and an older brother named Petri who is an autopsy assistant. He and singer Elina Siirala are second cousins. His musicality and skill in text expression showed early in school. His mother signed him up for piano class in school when he was seven years old, and he later studied clarinet, tenor saxophone, piano and music theory for twelve years at a music college. However, he has not played the clarinet nor the saxophone since the mid-nineties. Originally aspiring to be a biologist, Holopainen had no interest in metal until his school foreign exchange partner took him to see Metallica and Guns N' Roses in America, and he became hooked.
Holopainen is a fan of Disney, Tolkien and Dragonlance. In 2006 Holopainen said that he is "not religious, but an open-minded, thinking individual". He does not consider "religion to be bad, but human interpretation of it."
Holopainen married Finnish pop singer Johanna Kurkela on 28 October 2015.
A new insect species, Sciophilia holopaineni, discovered by a Finnish biologist named Jukka Salmela of Metsähallitus Parks & Wildlife, has been named after Tuomas Holopainen, because of Holopainen's love for nature.
First bands, formation of Nightwish and first releases
Holopainen joined his first bands in 1991. He played in several bands, including recording keyboards for three albums with black metal band Darkwoods My Betrothed and playing with Dismal Silence, Nattvindens Gråt and Sethian. He was then conscripted for the Finnish Army, where he managed to earn a position as the clarinet player of the military band, which spared him from gun-related activities.
In July 1996, a 19-year-old Holopainen 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 Emppu Vuorinen and classmate Tarja Turunen to join what was then an acoustic project, with music he wrote during his time in the army. After hearing Tarja's strong voice, and because of the metal influences of Vuorinen and drummer Jukka Nevalainen, Tuomas decided to turn Nightwish into a metal act. Before becoming a full-time musician, Holopainen worked for two years as a high school stand-in teacher in his hometown and studied six months of Biology in college until Nightwish's debut.
Nightwish's first non-demo release, Angels Fall First, came in 1997, followed by Oceanborn in 1998. In 1999, Holopainen and members of other Finnish metal acts like Embraze, Eternal Tears of Sorrow, Charon and Reflexion started the gothic metal supergroup For My Pain.... However, as all the members were busy with their own bands, the project was postponed for the future.
Nightwish's third studio album, Wishmaster, was released in 2000. The third release sold even better than the previous album. In 2001, again the idea of For My Pain... was brought up, and the members started planning a debut.
In Nightwish's fourth studio album Century Child, released in 2002, Holopainen began collaborating with symphonic orchestras from Finland and the United Kingdom, which was a change in the band's music and Holopainen's style of composition, and also allowed for more freedom with additional instruments. The use of orchestral elements has been present in the studio album releases from Nightwish since.
In 2003, For My Pain... released its debut album, entitled Fallen. In 2004, For My Pain... released "Killing Romance", a Finnish single with three previously unreleased tracks; "Killing Romance", "Joutsenlaulu" and "Too Sad to Live".
Nightwish's fifth studio album, Once was released in 2004, and became their US break-through. Singles "Nemo" and "Wish I Had an Angel" were played on MTV. Nightwish started their most extensive tour to date, the Once World Tour, visiting several countries, like Japan, for the first time. After the last concert (a filmed show in Hartwall Areena, Finland which was featured on the End of an Era DVD in 2006), in October 2005, Nightwish gave vocalist Tarja Turunen a letter explaining her dismissal from the band.
In 2006, Holopainen went through a dark period filled with anxiety and depression, made worse by rumours about himself and Nightwish in the tabloids every day. These events also inspired him in the writing of Dark Passion Play, Nightwish's sixth album.
After heavy metal singer Timo Rautiainen's break up of Trio Niskalaukaus, he published his first solo album titled Sarvivuori with a crew gathered from different bands, including Holopainen on keyboards. Holopainen also wrote one song on the album. Early the next year, For My Pain... announced that they would soon start recording the successor to Fallen, but it was reported in the same autumn that the album once again was postponed.