Tuomas was born the December 25, 1976 in Kitee, Finland, as the youngest of three children. (Sister 12 years older, and brother 10 years older, something like that)
He explains in an interview that the first “miracle” he can remember was when he got his first Donald Duck comic at the age of three(?). (The next was when he read Lord of the Rings for the first time (at the age of seven))

He was a bright kid, but got bored really quickly, `cause he learnt things a lot faster than most of the other students.
He was a lonewolf most of his teenage life, he preferred to sit at home with his fantasy-books and read. He cannot recall to have been on one single disco or anything like that at all.

His musical career began at the age of seven when his mother sent him to pianoclasses. In the musicschool he majored in clarinet and minored in piano. He knows the basics of musical theory and can read notes, and accompany with the piano.
The clarinet got useful when he joined the army, he played in the armyband for 9 ½ months. After that he hasn`t touched the thing.

At the age of sixteen he joined his first band named Dismal Silence compromising local Kitee-guys. This was also the first time he used the keyboard.
His first band to score a record deal was Darkwoods my Bethrothed in 1995. But he wasn`t a proper member of that band either, only hired as a session musician. He also composed his first song at that time, the outro for “Heirs of the Northstar”, “A new heaven a new Earth, he belives it was called.

He began playing in another band as well : Nattvindens Gråt, brain-child of Teemu Kautonen. He ended up doing two albums with them.
So at the time Tuomas was in two bands, but he always felt that he wasn`t allowed to write any songs, he was only a hired hand playing the keyboards.
It had been ok in the beginning, but the urge to write his own songs grew to big.
The idea of Nightwish was "born" in July 1996 at midnight when Tuomas was spending a night with his friends around a campfire.
He did not have the name yet, but the concept was there: acoustic mood music, containing only guitar, flute, vocals and keyboard.
He remembered Tarja from his music-classes when they were thirteen. So he and Emppu went to her house and asked her. She said yes immediately. The first three songs were recorded between October and December 1996. They wanted to try what the music would sound like if drums were added (Jukka came to the band) and an electric guitar was used instead of an acoustic one. After a couple of weeks of training they went to studio in April 1997. At that time we recorded seven songs which can be found on the limited edition of the album Angels Fall First.

written by Norwegian Oceansoul

Additonal Information: Tuomas Indian name which he got from John Two Hawks is Sunkmanitutanka Nagi (Shadow Wolf)