Ex-NIGHTWISH Singer TARJA TURUNEN Talks About Her Departure

Tarja Turunen (ex-NIGHTWISH) fan site Tarja Turunen Fan conducted an interview with Turunen earlier today. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Q: In an interview, Tuomas [Holopainen, NIGHTWISH mainman] said you always wanted to travel alone, never participated to interviews, or common meals, and that you said you do not need NIGHTWISH anymore for your career. How can you comment these affirmations?

Tarja: "Well, when the band started having more and more succes, even from the 'Wishmaster' time, and now with 'Once', there was alot of pressure in the band, on all the members and I said, if we have a lot of succes, and things are going well, let's fly with the plane. But the boys still wanted to go by bus, and for me as a singer, this was really making me sick. If there was someone smoking in the bus, or partying, I could never get to sleep well. And even the air conditioner, if I traveled for two days, in the morning I woke up like a zombie.(laughs) and that was when I said, 'OK, now we have a chance to fly, let's travel by plane,' but the boys didn't always want this, so I respected their choices. But as a singer, I had to take care of my voice, and this is why I wanted to travel by plane. And about the diva thing... I will let the people say how I am, because people know me, and they can tell if this is true or not. All I requested for a concert, for example, was some water, a miror to do my makeup, some tea for after the show, an iron table and an iron, because I always ironed my clothes alone. And I needed a changing booth, to change my clothes, because it was part of my image, and people came to concerts and said 'Let's see what Tarja wears,' and so on."

Q: Yeah, it was always like a surprise for the fans.

Tarja: "Yeah, and I wanted to keep this image. And many many times these things were not there, and Marcelo [husband] was there to help me with this. After the concerts it is not good for a singer to speak, and I really needed rest. I was really tired and needed to keep quite.This is why I didn't go to parties and needed rest."

Q: Is it true that the next NIGHTWISH album [would] have been the last one?

Tarja: "Yeah, definitely. Last December 2004 I asked the guys to come to a meeting with me, because there were big problems, and I wanted to talk to them, and tell them that the promisses were never kept, and I couldn't help it anymore. The next album [would] have been the last one, and I wanted it to be the biggest NIGHWISH album, and say goodbye to the people that have supported us, all over the world, and say 'goodbye and thank you' as a NIGHTWISH singer. I also told Tuomas to go in front of the media about this with the whole band, but Tuomas didn't want to go in front of the press."

Read the entire interview at Tarja Turunen Fan.