Facts: Nightwish
Formed: 1996 in Kitee, Finland
Music style: Power metal, symphony rock, folk metal
Band members (2022): Tuomas Holopainen (founder and songwriter), Emppu Vuorinen, Troy Donockley, Floor Jansen, Kai Hahto.
Former band members: Tarja Turunen, Jukka Nevalainen, Sami Vänskä, Marko Hietala, Anette Olzon.
Current with: World tour and a tenth studio album.
Discography (selection):
“Angels fall first” (1997)
“Wishmaster” (2000)
“Once” (2004)
“Dark passion play” (2007)
“Endless Forms Most Beautiful” (2015)
It is cloudy on the second day of the rock festival when Dutch Floor Jansen gives an audience in the backstage area and remembers when she last visited Norway. Then as a singer in the band After Forever.
– I remember that it was my first time in Sweden. But it was hot that year, really hot. Then there was a girl who bought me a drink at the bar but I did not understand that she liked me and wanted to flirt, says Floor Jansen with a laugh.
Nightwish was formed in 1996 but had a major international impact in the early 00’s. Now they have just embarked on a long world tour after the pandemic. Floor Jansen compares it to getting on a bike again after many years. Something that sits in the spinal cord.
– I really missed it. I need both home life and artist life. Both me and my husband (Hannes van Dahl who is the drummer in the metal band Sabaton reds note) have really tried to focus on what we could do, instead of what we could not. Like writing music and all that, but there is nothing that can replace going out and playing for an audience.
“Let’s festival!”
Jansen says that the start of the tour started a week earlier at a festival in Finland. It was bad weather but nothing disturbed the band.
– When we arrived, it rained a lot, of course. It was ten degrees, everyone had rubber boots and there was mud everywhere. Then we were back and felt “let’s festival”, says Jansen.
After the tour, which is expected to continue until June 2023, Nightwish plans to record their tenth studio album.
– This will be the third of the albums I have been on that fit together thematically. I’m really looking forward to starting working on the songs and getting to know them and seeing how everyone in the band gets to add their own creativity and sound.
Heavier sound
Floor Jansen wants to keep much of the new album concept secret. She admits that the new record will be in the heavier direction, but promises not to lose the typical Nightwish sound.
The band’s lyrics and themes were initially inspired by gothic and fantasy, including themes from JRR Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”. But the latest albums “Endless forms most beautiful” and “Human II Nature” have had a different character, says Floor Jansen.
– It’s not fantasy with elves and dwarves, it’s much more about love for the real world, but where you can almost imagine a fantasy world because everything is as fantastic as it is. We simply love the world we live in. But more scientifically and biologically than spiritually, says Jansen.
“Music is more important than all the drama around it,” says Floor Jansen, singer of Nightwish.
Floor Jansen is Nightwish’s third singer since the band started and other members have also been replaced over the years, which has led to some conflicts that have been reflected in the media. Jansen, who is also planning a solo album in 2023, says that it is difficult to have a band for so long without any problems.
– Music is more important than all the drama around. At the end of the day, that’s what we stand for. An honesty to be true to the music.