In a new interview with Brazil’s Ibagenscast, former NIGHTWISH singer Tarja Turunen was asked if she misses anything from her time with the band. She responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): „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. 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,“ 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, 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.“
Asked if she has plans to release a follow-up to her last rock solo album, „In The Raw“, which came out in 2019, Tarja said: „Actually, we are starting little by little producing the new record. So, of course, now I still have a lot of touring to do; until September, I will be more or less on the road. 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.“
Turunen was fired from NIGHTWISH at the end of the band’s 2005 tour by being presented with an open letter which was published on the NIGHTWISH web site at the same time. In the letter, the other members of NIGHTWISH wrote: „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 called the decision to part ways with Turunen „the most difficult thing I ever had to do.“ For her part, Tarja said the way she was kicked out of the group proved that her former bandmates were not her friends. „Maybe one day I’ll forgive, but I will never forget,“ she said.
In 2019, Turunen dismissed Internet chatter about her possible return to NIGHTWISH after her December 2017 onstage reunion with the band’s then-bassist/vocalist Marko „Marco“ 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.“
NIGHTWISH‚s authorized biography, „Once Upon a Nightwish: The Official Biography 1996-2006“, was published in Finnish in 2006 and in English three years later.
Turunen‚s husband, Marcelo Cabuli, and his business partners later sued the parties behind the book for defamation. Named in the lawsuit were the publishing house Like Kustannus Oy and the author of the book, Marko „Mape“ Ollila. Cabuli and his Brazilian business partners argued that the book includes false accusations and insinuations that have caused them suffering and financial problems.
The book blamed Cabuli for the events leading up to Turunen‚s dramatic expulsion from the band in late 2005.
In 2011, the Helsinki District Court dismissed Cabuli‚s lawsuit, ruling that the book — which criticized Cabuli on only a few of its 380 pages — did not detrimentally affect his work or reputation in South America. In addition, the court determined that Ollila did not maliciously portray Cabuli in a negative light.
Press photo credit: Tim Tronckoe (courtesy of earMUSIC)
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