WINTERSUN‘s Jukka Koskinen spoke to Kaaos TV about his new gig as the session bassist for NIGHTWISH‘s upcoming world tour in support of the “Human. :II: Nature.” album.

Koskinen joined NIGHTWISH as the replacement for Marco Hietala, who announced his departure from NIGHTWISH in January, explaining in a statement that he hadn’t “been able to feel validated by this life for a quite a few years now.”

Speaking about how he landed the NIGHTWISH job, Koskinen said : “It was a few months back. I received a phone call from the NIGHTWISH camp and was being asked if I would be interested in the bass player position regarding what has happened, that Marco has left the band. And, of course, obviously, when I got that phone call, I thought it was, like, ‘Woah.’ As an outsider, obviously, I couldn’t think that, especially in NIGHTWISH, I couldn’t think of it even that this sort of thing could happen. But, of course, life is life. And, yeah, absolutely, I immediately, of course, said that yes, definitely I would be interested. I always listened to NIGHTWISH; I always liked their music a lot. It’s very soulful music. That was a few months ago. And then we made a few arrangements. Two months ago, approximately, I was in Finland practicing. I had a meet-and-greet. We had a meet-and-greet before as well, but another one where we practiced together for the first time to see how, playing-wise, the chemistry was going, and get to know each other more. Kind of like an audition — obviously, of course. Any band who would find new guys to come in or so, you would need to have these things. I would do the same if I would be on the other side of the table, if you know what I mean. So, yeah, everything went good. After the audition thing, everything went very smoothly, and the guys said, ‘You’re in.’ And what did I say more than with the happiest smile, I said back to them, ‘I’m in.’ But we’re talking, of course, as a session musician spot now for the upcoming ‘Human. :II: Nature.’ tour.”

Asked if he had ever played any NIGHTWISH songs in the past, Jukka said: “No, I hadn’t played any of that material. I’ve listened to NIGHTWISH ever since the early Spinefarm days, when they were signed to the label — 1998’s ‘Oceanborn’; maybe from that album onwards. Music-wise, I played in the past with a few kind of, like, not similar, but maybe that style or genre of music in the past. But I never played NIGHTWISH music. That was kind of, like, from a player’s point of view, I couldn’t believe it that when I started practicing the songs, or trying them out even before everything was settled, I just thought that I would try it out, it just felt that my playing style is something that really fits to this — I had this feeling. And it was really, really, of course, great to see then afterwards, hearing from the other guys — they basically told me that ‘it feels like you’ve always been playing bass here.’ It felt very natural.”