In a recent interview on Brazil’s Ibagenscast, Tarja Turunen, the former vocalist for NIGHTWISH, was asked if she had any nostalgic feelings about her time with the band.
“I don’t, actually. I don’t,” she responded (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “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. I can say ‘unfortunately’, in a way. I spent — what? — almost nine years with the band. I’ve been a solo artist [for the last] 20 [years]. So it’s not that long time [that I was in NIGHTWISH]. We did great albums together. We did great music together, but we were not happy, I have to say.
“This is the thing — the happiness is everything to me,” Tarja continued. “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, even without being able to be happy and feel the happiness… 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.”
In 2019, Turunen publicly shut down speculation on the internet about her returning to NIGHTWISH. This chatter began after she reunited on stage in December 2017 with the band’s then-bassist/vocalist Marko Hietala during a “Raskasta Joulua” concert in Hämeenlinna, Finland.
“I know a lot of fans would love to see something happen, but it’s a very long distance away,” she told Kerrang! magazine. “Personally, I don’t see anything happening with me and them, to be perfectly honest. Marco came a little later into the band; he wasn’t there since the beginning. He was always a guy I was close to. Me and [NIGHTWISH keyboardist/leader] Tuomas Holopainen, however, haven’t seen each other in a long time… but we have been in touch. It’s not bad. The past is what it is; we can’t change that. We can only change the future.”
Turunen was fired from NIGHTWISH at the end of the band’s 2005 tour. Tuomas Holopainen and the other band members informed Turunen in an open letter that the band did not want to work with her any more, accusing her of diva-like behaviour and greed: “To you, unfortunately, business, money, and things that have nothing to do with emotions have become much more important.”
Marko also left NIGHTWISH in January 2021 explaining in a statement that he hadn’t “been able to feel validated by this life for a quite a few years now.” He has since been replaced by session bassist Jukka Koskinen (WINTERSUN), who made his live debut with NIGHTWISH in May 2021 at the band’s two interactive experiences.
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