Former Nightwish vocalist Tarja Turunen recently shared her candid thoughts on her tenure with the iconic symphonic metal band, revealing that while the music they created together endures, she does not miss the experience itself due to a lack of happiness within the group at the time. Speaking with Brazil’s Ibagenscast, Turunen also provided an update on her upcoming solo rock album, the follow-up to 2019’s In The Raw.
When asked if she misses anything from her nearly nine years with Nightwish, Turunen stated (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), “I don’t, actually. I don’t. Because the music lives. It lives in my heart. It lives out there. It will be forever. That will be forever. But the rest of it, I don’t.” She elaborated, “We did great albums together. We did great music together, but we were not happy, I have to say.”
For Turunen, personal well-being and a positive working environment are paramount. “This is the thing — the happiness is everything to me,” she explained. “Even with the people that I work [with] today, I want everybody being happy around me. It’s so important, because if you really go through this life without being happy… Music is emotion, and it starts eating you up. You need to find that love inside of you. Love, for me, was music. The first love ever in my life was music. And if I cannot express myself, really, with that love that there is in me, it’s not good. I’m not in a good place.”
Despite a busy touring schedule that extends until September 2025, Turunen confirmed that significant progress has been made on her next solo rock album. “Actually, we are starting little by little producing the new record,” she revealed. “I need to write the lyrics for the album. I’ll start writing the lyrics in September and the production starts at the same time, more or less, for the album already. But we have started already, so the songs are done. Yeah, it’s coming. It’s coming. I’m very excited. I hope you’ll love my work, because, yeah, I think that it’s a very, very nice album that is there.”
Tarja Turunen‘s time with Nightwish came to a dramatic end in 2005 when she was dismissed via an open letter published on the band’s website. The letter from her former bandmates stated, “To you, unfortunately, business, money, and things that have nothing to do with emotions have become much more important.” Nightwish keyboardist and main songwriter Tuomas Holopainen later described the decision as “the most difficult thing I ever had to do.” Turunen, in turn, has said the manner of her dismissal showed her former bandmates were not her friends, famously stating, “Maybe one day I’ll forgive, but I will never forget.”
