{"id":477,"date":"2026-08-17T08:35:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T12:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/17\/i-was-18-when-i-recorded-it-so-we-didnt-know-anything-about-writing-about-recording-about-singing-nightwishs-floor-jansen-on-her-worst-album-and-the-p\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T08:35:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T12:35:20","slug":"i-was-18-when-i-recorded-it-so-we-didnt-know-anything-about-writing-about-recording-about-singing-nightwishs-floor-jansen-on-her-worst-album-and-the-p","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/17\/i-was-18-when-i-recorded-it-so-we-didnt-know-anything-about-writing-about-recording-about-singing-nightwishs-floor-jansen-on-her-worst-album-and-the-p\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI was 18 when I recorded it, so we didn\u2019t know anything about writing, about recording, about singing\u201d: Nightwish\u2019s Floor Jansen on her worst album \u2013 and the prog metal deep cut which makes her cry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Since joining Nightwish<\/a> full-time in 2013, Floor Jansen has become the face of symphonic metal<\/a>. She\u2019s not just led the Finnish theatrics for three albums, but launched a solo career in her own right (starting with 2023 album Paragon<\/em><\/a> and continuing with this summer\u2019s single, Run<\/em><\/a>) and collaborated with Ayreon and her ex-bandmate, Marko Hietala. In 2023, Hammer<\/em>\u2019s sister mag Classic Rock<\/em> sat the singer down to discover the music which shaped her, from the first album she ever heard to her guilty pleasure and her cult hero.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\"A<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The first music I remember hearing<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m not one of those people who have a great memory for childhood things, even though I had a great childhood. But the first band that comes to mind is The Beatles<\/a>; my Dad used to play a lot of The Beatles, especially on the weekends, on a Sunday. I remember the song Honey Pie<\/em>. I could not understand it as a child. It\u2019s not great, but it\u2019s definitely memorable! <\/p>\n

The first song I performed live<\/h2>\n

When I was about thirteen or fourteen I joined a high-school musical, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat<\/em>. So it wasn\u2019t one song, it was that musical. I shared the role of the narrator with two other girls. After that I was sold \u2013 that\u2019s what I wanted to do. I like that [musical], but musicals are often a bit too sweet for my tastes, even back then. The Phantom Of The Opera, Jekyll & Hyde<\/em>, those are a little darker.<\/p>\n

The guitar hero<\/h2>\n

I play in a band with him: that\u2019s Emppu [Vuorinen, Nightwish guitarist]. He is an amazing guitar player, but he doesn\u2019t need to fill every gap in the song with meaningless notes. He really keeps the atmosphere [of the songs]. What he plays in Sleeping Sun<\/em> is beautiful.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The singer<\/h2>\n

She falls completely out of the spectrum of rock and metal, but if there\u2019s one singer that endlessly amazes me with her sound it\u2019s Celine Dion. I find her music absolutely cheese-bombs, but that\u2019s too bad, because I love her voice. You can feel what she\u2019s singing.<\/p>\n

The songwriter<\/h2>\n

Tuomas [Holopainen, Nightwish]. I don\u2019t know anybody who can write like him. He has been writing music for twenty-five years, had three different singers in his band, and still Nightwish is one of the biggest bands out there. That says something about how good the songs are. I have a special love for Ghost Love Score<\/em> which is a super-weird song, it\u2019s ten minutes long, but for some reason, it speaks to so many people.<\/p>\n

The greatest album of all time<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s so coloured in time. I\u2019m 42, so what I thought was the best at 16 [won\u2019t be the same now]. I can never answer that question.<\/p>\n

My guilty pleasure<\/h2>\n

I\u2019ll see if there\u2019s anything I listen to that people might think is weird\u2026 One of my band members loves nineties disco, and that is so far away from what we do, but I don\u2019t have [anything like] that. I do like to listen to film music when I read books. Usually instrumental. The music depends on what kind of book it is, because you still connect it together. I was listening to the music from Inception<\/em> when I read Steven King\u2019s Dark Tower<\/em> series. There are parts of the book that really connect to parts of the music.<\/p>\n

The best record I\u2019ve made<\/h2>\n

You put so much love and energy into every song, that the moment you release the album, that\u2019s the best thing you\u2019ve ever done. It always feels that way because you put everything you\u2019ve learned, all the skills you have, everything you are into your latest work. So for me that would be Paragon<\/em>, because it\u2019s the latest thing I did.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The worst record I\u2019ve made<\/h2>\n

Probably the first [Prison Of Desire<\/em> by After Forever]. I was 18 when I recorded it, so we didn\u2019t know anything about writing, about recording, about singing. But your first is your first. And that also makes it very, very special.<\/p>\n

The song that makes me cry<\/h2>\n

Most music makes me cry! My emotions are very close to the surface. One song is Heartless<\/em>, from Evergrey. Just some things in his lyrics that are expressed very beautifully.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The cult hero<\/h2>\n

Anneke van Giersbergen. When I heard [The Gathering\u2019s] Strange Machines<\/em> on the radio, and then went to see a concert, for me she was like an absolute role model. To sing like that in a metal band, she made me want to do that too. And I loved the way that she did it, her sound and performance and just being this fierce woman among the men.<\/p>\n

The best cover version<\/h2>\n

During the pandemic I started doing cover songs, and some of my favourites I put on YouTube. That was my only connection to the outside world. I have a young daughter, and it\u2019s really hard to get around [the film] Frozen<\/em>. So I did Let It Go<\/em>. It\u2019s fun to sing. I wanted to give it a mature sound, a metal twist.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The song I want played at my funeral<\/h2>\n

I haven\u2019t thought of it yet, to be honest. I\u2019ll cross that bridge when I get there. I just went through cancer, so I\u2019ve just been thinking more about surviving.<\/p>\n

Originally published in 2023. Floor\u2019s new solo single, Run, is now streaming.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since joining Nightwish full-time in 2013, Floor Jansen has become the face of symphonic metal. She\u2019s not just led the Finnish theatrics for three albums, but launched a solo career in her own right (starting with 2023 album Paragon and continuing with this summer\u2019s single, Run) and collaborated with Ayreon and her ex-bandmate, Marko Hietala. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}