III Is The Magic Number
With the release of III – Candles & Beginnings, Auri are finally taking their show on the road. The unconventional Finnish/Yorkshire power trio of Tuomas Holopainen, Johanna Kurkela and Troy Donockley tell Prog about the lure of intimate shows, mysterious song lyrics, and the magic of music. Just don’t expect any Holopainen headbanging.
Words: David West
L-R: Tuomas Holopainen, Johanna Kukela, Troy Donockley.
Images: Pete Voutilainen
“We see Nightwish as a gigantic oil tanker cruising across the Atlantic and Auri is like a luxury yacht floating around in sanguine seas. It’s very different.”
Troy Donockley
“That’s the thing that keeps me stoked up after doing music for 30 years: it’s still a big mystery to me,” says Tuomas Holopainen. III – Candles & Beginnings sees the return of Auri, the band featuring Holopainen, his wife and vocalist Johanna Kurkela, and Holopainen’s longtime Nightwish bandmate Troy Donockley. By turns ethereal, earthy and always expansive, Auri’s latest album is steeped in the mysterious power of music.
“Whenever Troy sends me something or Johanna does something that resonates with me, I just don’t understand what’s going on,” says Holopainen. “I enjoy what I hear and can’t wait to contribute to that piece myself. That’s the process I love the most, but I can’t explain it, I don’t understand it, and that’s the true magic of music that keeps me going.”
‘Magic’ is a word that pops up a lot in our talk, although the song titles reveal the range of inspirations that inform Candles & Beginnings, from Blakey Ridge, named after a 16th-century inn on the North York Moors, to the metaphysics of The Apparition Speaks, and the mythic Shieldmaiden.