S GUYMS

MNSMNTH
SHOUTINGATME
FROM IHI CROWD
HEWOULD
NOTSHUTUP
D, 'WHY DONT
,COMEAND
SAY ITO MY FACE
AFIERIHESHOW?
FloorJansen has spent her life silencing dickheads. As Nightwish prepareto celebrate 20
bombastic years, we find out why their 6nigmatic frontwo-man refusei to play by the rules
NIGHIWISH

loor Jansen can remember

the first time she took on
the knuckleheads and won.
Itwas the early 00s, and her
band, After Forever, were
part of a tour whose bil.[
featured a mix-and-match
assortment of other,
exclusively ma[e, European
metal outfits. The presence
of a female singer on stage
was apparentty too much
for some, frequentLy sending the [ess-
enlightened members of the crowd into
a testosterone-fuelled meLtdown.
"I'd get shit from the audience a[[ the
time," she says ."'0h took, there's a womon
up there.'In the beginning, I thought it
was just part of it. Butit soon became,
Ihey'd either be screaming
' Rea lly?'
'S[ayerl' or'Boobs!''0K, we're not Slayer
and I have boobs - very perceptive of
you, can we move on now?"'
Given that the woman their unwanted
attentions were focused on was, in her
own words, "headstrong and forcefut
and not afraid to call people ot)t", it was
inevitab[e that things were going to
come to a head at some point. Floor
can't remember the date, or even the
venue when it happened, but as much down to modesty as "It wasn't a point where I thought,
she vividly reca[[s how the a reluctance to be a gender 'Yeah, [et's have a break.'It was more ,ff
confrontation played out. warrior. "There are peop[e who [ike,'0h shit..." E
"This guy was just constantly consider me a role modet, But an idea began to germinate in fr,I
shouting stupid stuff at me: I suppose," she says. "Atfirst the back of her mind. She and Hannes ffrr
'[Moronic Beavis And Butt-Head I thought... [makes a dismissive had taLked about having chitdren, mfi
voice] UH, B00BS!'This guy would noise], butthen I thought, and this could be the perfect window m
not shut up. Eventua[l.y, Ijust said: 'Maybe this is flattering.'I don't of opportunity. s
'Seeing as you have such a big want people to copy me. I want "You're in a band of six peop[e," she ml
mouth on you, why don'tyou come you to Likeyou.You're already says. "If one person decides to just do u
and te[[ me atlthese things to my good enough. Anyway, I don't something, it affects everybody e[se. @
face afterthe show?"' want people to think that Then I started to think,'Hmmm, a year 'llJfu

There was, she says, a mass intake being me is a[[ great." off could be the time.' But even that
of breath from the audience. A six- We're sitting in an ice-cotd presents its own chal[enges, ha ha ha! ffr
foot Dutch woman armed with a photo studio on an industrial estate on There's on[y so much planning you can do lilr

fearsome death stare and a reservoir the outskirts of Gothenburg. F[oor lives when it comes to pregnancies, y'know..." t1
of patience aboutto run dry hadjust half an hourt drive away, with her 0nstage and on record, Floor is a
pubticly offered out a drunken partner, Sabaton drummer Hannes van commanding figure. Hervoice - powerful {r
trogLodyte. There was on [y ever going Dah[, and their ].0-month-o[d baby but emotiona[, strident yet pliab[e utr
to be one winner in this smackdown. daughter, Freja. - is a contro[ted force of nature. Today, JIT
"Yeah, I picked a fight with that guy Itt the first week of January. In a few perched cross-legged on a low chair, tl
from the stage," she says. "It worked Like days'time, Floor wi[[ meet up with her she's friendLy and open, even if the whiff ur
a charm. He didn't say another word." bandmates in Nightwish to discuss the of steeliness stiLL surrounds her. She fi
She arches a dismissive eyebrow. "If you forthcoming US and European tours in admits that she's impatient and has 'i
wantto be that stupid, by aLt means do it. support of their new greatest hits a[bum, a low tolerance for idiots. $
Butyou don't deserve my attention." Decades.It wi[[ be the first time they've "Everybody meets a lot of idiots in
been together since the end of 2016, their [ine of work, notjust in music," rl

iven the snootiness sometimes she says. "But I'm an impatient person.
directed towards it, it's ironic that ,,PEOPLE when they embarked on
a year-long break. For the That can make everybody an idiot pretty
IIT

rlil

symphonic metaI has been atthe singer, the prearranged soon. So thatt not fair." ml

forefront of the battle for gender hiatus and her pregnancy What FloorJansen definite[yis not
equality for the last 20 years. There are DON'TGET dovetailed perfectly is a diva, at least nottoday. The'd'-word
,g
"l&r

few other genres where women are - though not in the has plagued her for severaIyears. It's i'

afforded such a prominent ro[e, from TO DICTATE most obvious way. an accusation that has been brandished 5
Within Temptation's Sharon den Ade[and "I think a lot of people as a weapon by people who seem unable
Epica's Simone Simons to Floor herself. WHATEUER think I had the year off to comprehend thata woman in her ..ll'l

And whi[e it's stiLL chiefLy dominated by because of my pregnancy," position is entitled to refuse to stand
men - the driving force behind Floor's THEYWANT she says. "Butthe for bullshit. In 201,4, she felt obl.iged
B
'ltll

current band, Nightwish, is undeniab[y pregnancy was because to post an open letter online in response
keyboard player and composer Tuomas
Holopainen - it's far less exclusive than
FROMME" we had a year off. That's to criticism of how she dealt with fans. (
THE SINIGER WROTE a very important order." The letter's contents were summed
many other supposed[y more progressive A LETTER ASKING When the break was first mooted, up in the typicaLLy blunt [ine: "I am i
strands of music. PUs}IY FANS TO she wasn't keen on the idea. She had not an arrogant bitch ." (Asentiment
Floor herself blanches at the idea of RESPECT HER SPACT only been in the band a few years, and a male contemporary would never have
-lll

being anyone's figurehead, though that's her batterjes were stil,L ful,ty charged. to express.) ilt

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Effiffiii"*klins form atthe CitY

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t.lioini.'i n October,- ?012

' 1'-upset me terribty,

just having to
--:'-- 'if-.re saYS, Looking genuinetY
-, Becaus. i t.ttso
-: " misunderstood'
. ..u n d by it. People
-
think that when
. :,: I T e uP to me, screaming according
things.
.. .ui lr-tut I wiLL respond
I'tLturn around and,
- ,-- theY want.
- .r d take the Photo' Butl'm
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Just
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s p erati on. " Everybody. gets.tg.say

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: 'rto a bar and everYbodYin that
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so exasperated she can
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"'stead.
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asn't alwaYs been this b ulle:-
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As a teenager finding
her
: of.
of
-1,., she hadthe usual nrix
-..t. and insecurity' Physica L'-'
.. -- l
a benefit when it c" =
='ght was
; - she had Power and Presc ::
-
 Floor having a blast at WembLey
Arena in December 201,5

even then. Butit also meantthat she

stood outfrom her peers.
"I was ta[[, and I was teased for it for
a long time," she says. "There was
serious buLtying for many years. It was
not nice. I was a loner for a long time.
I onLy had one ortwo friends."
Music provided solace. She signed up
for her high school's musical production
of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat. "That's where I started to
connect to people who didn't really care
about any of the things that apparently
upset other peopte, l"ike I was reaU,y tatl
or I had a different accent because
I came from a different area."
In 1999, the year she graduated from
schoot, Floor enlisted atthe Rock
Academy, a brand new music institute
in the Dutch city of Tilburg set up to
nurture homegrown talent (feLLow
students in that inauguraI year incLuded
members of the rock band Krezip and
rapper Ci lvari n g z, who, bizarreLy, went
on be part of the Wu-Iang famiLy).
"Everybody applied for it, but there
were on[y 40 or 50 spaces, so the chances
were very limited," she says. "But I got
in. The downside was that it was not
rea[[y developed yet, so we were
seriously guinea pigs. I didn't rea[[y
learn enough."
She had other things on her plate.
By that time she was already a member
of After Forever, one of the first wave
of prominent symphonic metaI bands
to emerge in the 1990s. She'd joined
a couple of years earlier, atthe age of 16.
Such a predominantly ma[e environment
- a 1990s metal band - might have been
an intimidating proposition for a teenage
gir[ with no experience of the music
industry. She dismisses the notion.
"I thought it was pretty easy," she
says, shrugging. "I've aLways considered
myself one of the guys, without being
a tomboy. Being tal"l" heLps, and not
being offended that easi[y,
without having to just accept
certain things. The who[e

sERl0usrv #metoo thing never rea[[y got

anywhere close to me in that

BUTLED sense. Main[y because I was

1.83m ta[[ and definiteLy had
a mouth on me."
FOR MANY After Forever had a good
run. They cultivated a Large
YEARS" fanbase in mainland Europe,
UVHEru SffiE WAS even if they were never as big as the [ikes
THASEffi &T sCffiffiS8., of Nightwish. But when the end came in
FLSSR FSUNM 2009, it hit Floor hard.
SSffiEH gN $SNGING "The engine was broken," she says
could cut loose some parts and fix it, r\
but unfortunately I was the onLy one who
wanted that. For me, it felt [ike a huge
rt
knife in the back."
Her troubles weren't helped by the
financiaL crisis that had just hit. 0nce
she'd been able to help support herself
by teaching singing masterctasses or
appearing on the odd tribute aLbum.
SuddenLy, the extra work dried up.
"I was pushing 30, I knew how much
effortittakes to bring up a new band
from scratch," she says. "I thought,
'Do I want to do that again? Do I want
to sing different kinds of music? Do
I want a compLete career switch?'It was
not a cooLtime."
She dusted herself down and dived
back jnto the fray with a new band,
ReVamp, reLeasjng their seLf-tjtled debut Casting a spe[L over Download iiii'
festival in 201,6 ' .s' ,.h

aLbum jn 2010. "I wanted something "#

','*.i411ti$

even heavjer than before, something

.,*i*I ffi '***ffi ffi
uncom promisi ng:' she says. "And then never had before. Her breath became FLoor received the fatefuL phone caLL
I had my burnout." short. She found it difficult to climb at her sister's wedding. She knew
'Burnout'is the name thatthe Dutch stairs. "You become so tired thatyou Tuomas and Nightwish after touring
give to a physicaL and mentaL condition Lose your lust for Life," she says. "I had with them a decade eartier in After
bought on by a combination of stress, tests and my heart rate, Lung capacity, Forever. She was familiar with their
overwork, tiredness and other, related everything Looked good. But it was music, too. But not so famiLiar that
things. It sits somewhere between obvious something was wrong. I Looked she didn't need a crash course on the
nervous exhaustion and clinicaL Like shit and I fel"t Like shit." journey over.
depression, and it is a genuine problem This was, she says, the onLy time in "When they asked me to fly over and
in the Netherlands - according to a 201,6 her Life that she carne close to quitting do it, I said, 'Yes, 0K, I'L[ do it,"'she
report, one in 17 people suffer from it. music. "I hated it," she says. "Was I cocky about it? No. WetL,
"Your stress LeveLs stay high, says. "I found itterribLe. maybe. You need a kind of cockiness to
disrupting your hormone baLance," SO I didn't want to Listen to be able to go, 'Yes, I want to join one
she says. "You make adrenaLine through it, I couldn't sing, I had of the biggest bands in this genre, and
the day and you go through highs and ST a breakdown every time no, I don't know the setlistyet."'
Lows, highs and Lows. With a burnout, tried. But I was
I just too She arrived to find the band in fuLL-
you don't have those Lows any more. stubborn to give it up." on firefighting mode. Their priority was
Your body keeps producing the highs Instead, she eased simpLy to finish the tour; there was no
- you can't relax. And you can't keep back her workload with question of this being an audition for
that up, so you become really tired. ReVamp and began teaching a Little bit the rote of frontwoman.
That resuLts in aLL kinds of weird things." here and there. The band had started 'AbsoLutely not," she says. "At that
For Floor, the symptoms were work on a second aLbum just before she'd point it was really, 'How are we going
debiLitating. She started to get throat become iLLand she tentatively began to make this work?'I certain[y didn't
infections reguLarly, which she had to pick that up as an aid to recovery. think, 'We[[, now I'm the new singer of
Slowl"y, she started to feel better. Her Nightwish', I really didn't. I thought it
o[d confidence returned. She prepared was cooLthat they caLLed me out of aLl.
to relaunch the next stage of ReVamp. the people in the worLd it could have
And then she gotthe phone caLLthat been. Butit wasn't a happy time; they
woutd change her [ife. weren't exactly feeling great."
The offer to join Nightwish fu[L time
T'he
+
first time Floor stepped onstage came L0 months Later. The conversation
with Nightwish was atthe Showbox happened in a hotel bar after an
ii in Seattle, on October ]., 2012. appearance at a festivaI in the Finnish
The band's most recent singer, Anette city of Tampere. "I said yes, I taughed,
0lzon, had Left suddenlyjust two days I cried... and then I couldn't say anything
before, mid-tour (in a reversal of Floor's to anyone," she says. "It wasn't even
own situation, Anette Later claimed a conversation with atL of the band.
she had been fired because she told the So I had to pretend we had justtalked
band she was pregnant, a claim they about the setlist for the next show
strenuousl.y denied). orsomething." o';;,'

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 Floor has no
; time for your shit

She dismisses the suggestion that appropriate comparison - "... writing

joining Nightwish was her Last ro[L of the history of England and replacing
the dice. "ReVamp were stiLLgoing at Queen Elizabeth with her sister. These
that point," she says. "And I'm too much songs are atready outthere. And it's not
of a fighter to think, 'Fuck it.'I wasn't even a respectthing on my part. These
done yet." songs are part of the Nightwish story,
She notes that she received an as much as the soap opera stuff."
emailfrom Anette Olzon when the There are plans for a new studio
announcementwas made pub[ic. "She album, she says, though they mostly
wrote to wish me [uck. That was cool." reside in Tuomas Holopainen's head
Floor's relationship with Anette and at this stage. "He's a force of nature
especia[[y originaL singer Tarja Turunen - hejust has to write. I know from
is different to the one that her maLe conversations we've had on emaiI and
bandmates have with them. In November on the phone that he's been getting
2013, at the Metal Fema[e Voices stuff together, but I haven't heard any
festival in Belgium, she and Tarja of ityet. Getting a tour Like this started
duetted together on a cover of 80s [the Decades tour, which inctudes
guitar hero Gary Moore's )verThe Hills a headlining appearance at Bloodstock
And FarAway (which was covered by in August] is our complete focus. 2019
Nightwish in 2001). Atthe end of 2017, wi[[ be a good year for a new album, but
the pair teamed up again for a version firstthings first."
of Spanish-Language Xmas song Feliz Symphonic metaL's attempt at gender
Navidod. She points out that the two equaLity doesn't quite extend towards
of them always goton, even afterlarja Ni g htwish's son gwriti n g process,
was fired from the band in 2005. Do they which is Largelyin the hands of Tuomas.
avoid talking about certain subjects Floor puts this down to the fact that
whenever they meet? the band is one person's vision rather
"Nor" she says
after a pause. ,,IWASTOO than endemic
sexism.
Do you ta[k about "If I had
your individuaL something
experiences in STUBBORNTO that wou[d
Nightwish? rea[Ly add
"Yes, actuaLLy, GIVE UP MUSIC" to what we
we do. But what flifffir* AY F.8fi3.? L*$#i#$',?",P#H*\d'r. fr$-#ffift hfSAS have, I am
I don't want is any r il [ ]:
$ r,+ i'd il {"r T {:} ${ L Ei
$d.
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F: tr H {
E"fl
-'.r r il ft &ri fl F+.*
F{. sure Tuomas
of their stuff to come would be
into it. What she and the guys had, and open f or il," she says. "But the way
what happened, is between them, and he writes, it's not very necessary.
n of with m e. I'[[ leave it at th at." He's just so good. And his sound is the
Nightwish sound."
ghtwish's n ew com pi Lation,
i She sounds entirely comfortable
Decades, officia[Ly marks the with the notion. If she wasn't, you
end of their year off. A two-disc suspect her bandmate would be the
retrospective arranged in reverse first to know about it. You don't get
chronoLogicaI order, it covers the three this far by surrounding yourse[f with
distinct eras of the band (four if you idiots and fools. Floor Jansen might
countthe huge step-change between not witlingl,y wear the mantle of
theirthird and fourth aLbums, the figurehead for fema[e m usicians
Tarja-fronted Wi sh m a ster and Century everywhere, but sometimes actions
Child). For Floor, it's a celebration of speak louderthan words. #
her time in the band, but also of her
place in a bigger history. She says that ,flFfff,:Fs ##S fl#flS fl #f, .f ### -## f #j
there were discussions about her q,ryE**L ffiffi ilqHL"ffie$ffiffi #tr4 fl4&ffiflffi #
.'-C'$Fq
re-recording some of the earlier songs, f-$ &i f, F- ild'k ffi ffi L&SY-
butthatidea was swiftl"y dispensed with. rqH# E-$G',wH"sil$ kwHL.e" ffi ffi F* ffi${tB $-gru Hrdffi
"That would be Like rewriting time. ffi S"f#fl:ffi
il-#m ffi f, ffi ST'q-fdA [" # rd 5
q$
ffi ffi pq"f,,

It would be Like..." - she reaches for an e#ffit$%Y':fltr