You told us that no matter what, the next Nightwish album will be your last one. However, the rest of us want to continue as long as the fire burns. So there's no sense in doing that next album with you, either. The four of us have been going over this situation countless times and we have realized that this is the thing we want to do in life. It's all we can do. In December , in Germany, you said that you will never tour again for more than two weeks at a time.
You also said that we can forget about U. In interviews I've mentioned that if Tarja leaves, that would be the end of the band. I understand that people will think this way. Nightwish is, however, a scenery of my soul and I'm not ready to let go because of one person. A person who wants to focus her creativity to somewhere else, a person whose values don't match mine. Not the fact that while on tour you always wanted to fly, separately from us with your husband.
Not the fact that you are an undisputable front image of the band. We accepted and felt ok about everything except greed, underestimating the fans, and breaking promises. It was agreed by the five of us that Nightwish would be the priority in everything that we do during Still so many things were more important to you. The ultimate example being the already sold-out show in Oslo, which you wanted to cancel because you needed to rehearse for your solo concerts, meet friends and go to the movies.
But it is not Tarja that I see. It is someone else. Q : You probably read Tarja 's reply to the media and the fans. She writes that she was shocked and devastated by the words in your letter.
What went through your mind when you read that? Tuomas : "I was surprised that she sounded that shocked. I don't know how blind and deaf she must have been over the last year. Things went incredibly bad between her and the rest of the band and I thought she would have at least expected something like this to happen.
Not the fact that while on tour you always wanted to fly, separately from us with your husband. Tuomas : I wrote all that because I want the fans to understand why Tarja is replaceable. There are so many people who think that NIGHTWISH is Tarja 's band, that she writes all the songs, does all the interviews and so on but during the last year she didn't contribute anything else other than the one and a half hour on stage.
I simply had to put that into the letter in order to make the fans understand why we had the right to do all this. I don't blame her; I really mean what I wrote. These things didn't matter to me. Tuomas : Because we [the rest of the band] supported each other. The band grew really close. This is probably the only positive aspect that the whole situation brought along. Even the crew and our manager — we were like one big family and we had the best time ever on tour. Actually we were a family, and from time to time there was a guest.
Are you scared that many fans will turn away from you now? Tuomas : "I cannot do anything to change that. Many fans will feel that way and I don't criticize them for it. In some way it is understandable. I don't claim that Tarja 's position was wrong because it worked really well like that. I try to see it as the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. Q : Sometimes it is difficult to imagine that there is a new door that opens when another one shuts, but it's always like that.
Time will tell Tuomas : "Exactly. I've never been scared about the band's future or that we won't find a singer. I'm sure that we will find a really good one and I'm confident about the new album. My biggest concern is about Tarja herself and also about the other guys in the band, how they will cope with the situation.
It doesn't matter to me if the next record sells only , copies. Who cares, as long as everybody is having fun and we are making good music. You have said yourself that you are merely a 'guest musician' in Nightwish.
Now that visit ends and we will continue Nightwish with a new female vocalist. We are sure this is an equally big relief to you as it is for us. We have all been feeling bad long enough The letter was signed by the band's keyboards player Tuomas Holopainen , who has also been responsible for the lion's share of the compositions and lyrics in the band's songs, but he states that the decision was taken by the four male members of Nightwish unanimously.
References in the letter to diva-like behaviour and to greed, opportunism, and broken promises suggest that this is more than merely a case of the traditional "musical differences". There have also been suggestions that Turunen's husband and manager - Argentine Marcelo Cabuli - has played a role in the proceedings.
Tuomas Holopainen compared the situation with that afflicting The Beatles in the late s, as the figure of Yoko Ono allegedly began to drive a wedge between her husband John Lennon and the other members of the band.
Tarja Turunen herself issued a statement to the evening YLE news stating her shock at what had happened. She felt the way of bringing the subject out into the open was cruel and sad. As the letter noted, the group intends to go on with a new female singer. Whether the search for a replacement for the soaring vocals of Turunen has already begun or whether a new vocalist might even have already been found was not revealed. The sentence is there that Nightwish has always had a female vocalist.
We shall not be going on as a four-piece band", Holopainen commented to Helsingin Sanomat on Sunday. Tuula Salminen of Spinefarm, Nightwish's recording label, stated that the company "had smelt something like this coming for some time". She said that the record company trusted that the decision was a carefully considered one: "Everyone understands that the band would not have chosen such a radical course of action unless they had been forced to.
Nightwish came into being in , and the band have sold around 2 million copies of their records worldwide. Their album Once was the biggest-selling album in Finland in Tarja Turunen has of late been concentrating on a solo career. She will be appearing in recitals of Christmas songs and carols in December and next year will be recording a CD of similar songs.
In addition she is engaged to sing at the Savonlinna Opera Festival next summer. Turunen studied classical singing at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and subsequently at the Karlsruhe Academy of Music. Holopainen stated that Turunen's solo projects were not an issue from the group's perspective. It remains to be seen how the events of the weekend will play out for the future success of the classically-influenced goth band, whose popularity has been growing, particularly in Central Europe.
As Tuomas Holopainen freely admits, Turunen was the image of Nightwish, front and centre, but Holopainen can take the credit for much of the songwriting. The pairing of an operatically-trained and attractive and charismatic "front woman" and some melodic songs in the "symphonic power metal" or "opera metal" genre was clearly a symbiotic and fruitful one, at least until last Friday, when the wheels fell off with a vengeance.
Sacked Nightwish vocalist responds with her own open letter. Sacked Nightwish vocalist Tarja Turunen has published an open letter to her fans on her personal website. Turunen describes the situation where the letter of dismissal was handed to her. Tears of joy after a successful Hartwall Arena gig turned into tears of sorrow. She disapproves of the way private matters have been made public and the way her husband has been "involved" in this. According to Turunen, the other members of the band never accepted her Argentine husband and manager Marcelo Cabuli.
The fact that I chose marriage, and did not go on as the band's own girl? The fact that I was the only woman in the band and was never taken seriously by the other members? My husband was the one who helped me to get my voice heard. The singer, who is currently in Argentina, announced she would hold a press conference once she returns to Finland. It won't. Since last Sunday morning, I have been asked to express my position by magazines, newspapers, radio and TV stations, fan clubs and fans from Finland and from all over the world.
So many in total that it is physically impossible for me to find the time to reply to them all individually. Hence I decided to put down a couple of words in this text to let my fans, family and friends and the public know how I feel after the recent events. At the moment I am in Argentina.
My husband had booked his tickets to Argentina many months ago and I decided to travel with him at the last minute. But the fact that I am in Argentina and the long distance should of course not be an excuse not to comment on the situation.
Practice started early in the morning. I was very sick and nervous because of the fact that I was not even able to sing during the rehearsals.
Also nervous because the concert programme was going to be longer than usual for a Nightwish concert. Furthermore we were going to have a special guest to perform with us, more wardrobe changes for myself than usual and for the first time big screens and bigger production on stage.
Even though every one of us knew in advance that the concert was sold out, finally on stage, we saw that screaming, applauding and standing people took every seat. The feeling was unbelievable. When the concert was over, I cried of happiness on stage. Happy tears because I was able to do my best as always even though I was sick. Happy tears because our long tour got the greatest possible ending and happy tears because of the best recognition an artist can get: applause and smiling faces.
After the concert, the guys of the band invited me backstage to join them and asked me to hug altogether. This felt strange as it was the same kind of hug we traditionally came together for before every concert. That tradition remained between us, even though the tension and increasing pressure already existed since a long period of time. After this, they gave me a letter and asked me to read it the following day. The same letter that is now public.
Private matters should never be taken to the public. While there would have been so many different possibilities and ways to express what they wanted to tell me with the letter, I remain unable to understand the way they chose to handle this. I am sorry that the guys got me so wrong. They mentioned mean things about me, but the fact that they involved Marcelo, my husband, crossed the line.
He is the man I love, my friend and has been my biggest support over the last years. We have been band mates for 9 years, experienced good times and not so good ones. I thought I knew them, but I was wrong. I will announce a press conference where I will be talking about my future plans. Thanks a lot to all the people who are supporting me during these sad times. My family, friends, colleagues, and the great number of fans. I love you and I really feel I have not failed you.
Financial success, artistic ambition, and a power struggle broke up the Finnish rockers. Like, Well, no, since this is after all a rock band whodunit, it wasn't really the butler, it was the manager! The fall-out from the great Nightwish rift, which shocked the entire nation last October, continues in the band's long-awaited history, released on the world last week. The book points the finger most firmly in the direction of Marcelo Cabuli , husband and personal manager of the band's former vocal soloist Tarja Turunen.
With every turning page, the charges against the Argentine Cabuli get heavier and heavier. The portrait of Marcelo Cabuli depicts a money-grasping, less than honest, arbitrary, and manipulative manager who was engaged on setting up his wife's solo career and who drove a wedge between her and the other members of the power metal band.
Nightwish's contractual dealings and touring plans became a painful exercise, as there was "a Hispanic in the works" at every turn. Against this background, it is somewhat awkward that the defendant himself does not get a hearing in the book, even though the other sources close to the band are given full rein to open their hearts and mouths. Not even Tarja Turunen gets to comment on her husband's doings. It is probable that the decision is the couple's own, but this does not disguise the fact that it is the book's greatest drawback.
The author Marko "Mape" Ollila has sought to be even-handed in his coverage, but in part for the reasons above, this band-history inevitably becomes a speech on behalf of the male members of the group and other figures in the background.
Nightwish would seem on the basis of this work to have been so divided into two distinct camps that both sides of the story cannot be fitted between the covers of one book. The book itself does reveal that the sacked vocalist Tarja Turunen is planning her own biography. Not even a page illustrated volume such as this is able, then, to offer the final word on the fuss that surrounded this incident last October, which swelled to quite astonishing dimensions in the media.
Once again, it is only a rock band. They do have a tendency to self-destruct and to drift into arguments over differences, musical or otherwise. In the Finnish experience, the Nightwish story is one of a kind, but as far as the end-result goes, there is nothing very new here under the sun. The book describes in quite frank and brutal terms how financial and chart success, artistic ambition, and a power struggle have eaten away at the personal relationships inside the band.
The actions of Marcelo Cabuli may have been the straw that did for the Nightwish camel, but the members of the band, too, could do well to take a look in the mirror. And this includes the composer and keyboards player Tuomas Holopainen , generally seen as the leader of the group.
If this is really the attitude, then it is hardly any wonder that the going gets tense and weird every now and then! Especially as only a few pages earlier we have heard how Turunen - to everyone's surprise - brought her operatic singing style to the band's performances, and how the heavy rock backgrounds of guitarist Emppu Vuorinen and drummer Jukka Nevalainen made the music heavier than it was.
Surely it is the fusion, into something called "symphonic metal" or "opera metal", of classical singing and heavy rock? Might it possibly have been that without these surprising turns of events, Holopainen's acoustic numbers would have remained on the drawing board or as songs strummed around the campfire, and that the band's name would not have travelled outside Finland or the eastern town of Kitee.
I was sitting on the plane, crying, and all the TV sets were being turned down. In , Tarja lost her mother to cancer, and battled with her grief. Tarja laughs. Definitely the only member! I was very close to her, and she was one of the best people in the world. But life is tough, and you have to make the best out of all the time you have here.
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