Former Nightwish singer Tarja Turunen has spoken openly about the unhappiness that marked the end of her time in the band, making it clear that no part of her wants to return to that chapter of her life. Now thriving as a solo artist with a brand-new album, the Finnish soprano described her last stretch with the symphonic metal group as a low point she has no desire to revisit.
Speaking with Albert Perera of Metal Hammer Spain, Turunen reflected on how much happier she is today compared to her Nightwish years. When Perera noted that she seems far more content touring on her own than she did two decades ago, the singer agreed without hesitation.
“Yeah, I am,” Tarja said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “I have some colleagues. I remember, for example, Sharon Den Adel from Within Temptation. When I was touring with them — it was also a little bit more than one year ago, maybe almost two years ago — she was asking me, ‘How on earth you are doing so many shows all the time, Tarja? You’re touring all the time.’ And so she was asking, ‘How the hell you work so much? You are on tour all the time.’ And I’m, like, ‘Yes, I am.’ But I also really do enjoy that. I really enjoy, and I’m like a glowing light bulb on my shows. I’m really happy. Very happy. And so I’m happy to hear that you saw that in me, because it’s really real.”
She went on to describe the close-knit team that surrounds her now, even drawing a contrast with her past:
“Of course it’s hard to be on the road. As a mother, leave the home door and close it behind me, leave my family behind, be weeks away from home. It’s hard. I miss my family. It’s hard physically to tour and be on the road. But I have the best team of people. I have really good guys with me. I have a beautiful crew, musicians. We all are like a happy bunch family. I don’t have a band, but I feel like I have a band with me. So they are there for me, and it feels great. And they are there to support me, and if I have a sh**ty day, like everybody does one day, they are there to give me a shoulder to cry on. And as well it was with Marko [former Nightwish bassist/vocalist Marko ‘Marco’ Hietala]. We had good days and bad days, and we were there for each other. So it’s very important for me to be able to feel this happiness, because I would never, ever, ever, ever be willing to go back where I was with the days in Nightwish. It was so miserable. It was not happy times. Why? You do music — it should be happy. I want the people to come to my shows, and they also go back home happy. Yeah, having that energy is absolutely important.”
Turunen was also asked whether she might one day write an autobiography giving her side of the Nightwish split, in part as a response to how her exit was framed in the band’s authorized biography, Once Upon A Nightwish: The Official Biography 1996-2006, published in Finnish in 2006 and in English three years later. She left the door open, while making clear she feels no pressing need to explain herself.
“Maybe one day. I wrote a book during COVID. It’s not really a biography. It’s about my career, where I didn’t involve too much about my past with Nightwish. Maybe one day I can go back. Maybe. It’s just perhaps. I don’t feel like I am in need of explaining too much. But I can tell you this, that I was not really involved in that biography [‘Once Upon A Nightwish‘]. They’d made me only one interview on the phone, 20 minutes, and that’s it. But maybe [I could write about it in a book one day] — maybe, perhaps,” she replied.
The wounds trace back to the end of Nightwish‘s 2005 tour, when Turunen was dismissed from the band via an open letter that was posted on the group’s website at the same time it was handed to her. In it, her former bandmates wrote: “To you, unfortunately, business, money, and things that have nothing to do with emotions have become much more important.”
Keyboardist and principal songwriter Tuomas Holopainen later called the decision to part ways with Turunen “the most difficult thing I ever had to do.” The singer, however, has said the manner of her removal showed that her former bandmates were never truly her friends. “Maybe one day I’ll forgive, but I will never forget,” she said at the time.
Turunen‘s comments arrive as she rides a creative high. Her new metal album, Frisson Noir, was released on June 12 via earMUSIC, and has been billed as the heaviest record of her career and a powerful statement of identity, strength and belonging. Her tenth solo studio album features a stacked guest list including Dani Filth of Cradle Of Filth, cello-metal collective Apocalyptica, her former Nightwish bandmate Marko Hietala, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith.
