NIGHTWISH's HOLOPAINEN Is 'Super-Super Thrilled' About FLOOR JANSEN's Addition To Lineup

Dutch web site Lords Of Metal recently conducted an interview with NIGHTWISH keyboardist/mainman Tuomas Holopainen. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Lords Of Metal: First of all, congrats on the new lineup! I think I speak for the entirety of the Netherlands when I say that we are thrilled to see Floor [Jansen, vocals] stay.

Tuomas: Not as thrilled as we are! I'm super-super thrilled. We've been together for little bit over a year now, and it's going better and better. We all really like her personality, and her versatility when it comes to performance. Whenever I look at her on stage; it puts a big smile on my face when I see how much she enjoys what she's doing. So she's definitely born to do what she does.

Lords Of Metal: Originally you wanted to wait until 2014 to make a decision for the new singer. What changed your mind?

Tuomas: One very practical thing. It happened about a month ago, when I was writing down the credits for the DVD booklet, together with the thanks list. Then I came to the part where it said "NIGHTWISH is" and I just started to think about how to present Floor and Troy [Donockley]. "Guest singer on this DVD" sounded so silly. That's when I realized it would be better to give the news now; it would make everyone's life so much easier. We could then do the interviews and talk about this out loud. It's nice to have the worries off my back. The fans' reaction to all of this could not have been better. I did not hear one negative comment. There was one person though, crying over how she could do this to her mates in REVAMP. That's just a matter of scheduling, I think. Everyone has their side projects. Anyway, it's not the death of any band.

Lords Of Metal: I'm sure she will figure that out, she's a smart cookie.

Tuomas: [laughs] She will. And it's not like we forced her, she wants this. We already decided in June, after a festival in Finland. We went to her and carefully asked her how she would like to continue with us after the tour. She didn't have to decide right away, but she gave us a big smile, a big hug and a big yes! So that was already decided back then.

Lords Of Metal: You've done a hell of a job of keeping us in the dark then!

Tuomas: I hope we did! We just wanted to tour, have a good time, not make any drastic decisions. During the spring time, it was already clear to us we wanted her to stay, we just didn't know how she felt. But since I am hyping so much about her, and about our feelings for her staying, I don't want to diminish our previous times. We all had our big glorious moments with the other singers as well. This doesn't take anything away from them. In Finland, I recently read something about why it took us seventeen years to find the right singer, blah blah blah. I can't stand this kind of writing because Tarja [Turunen] and Anette [Olzon] were both excellent in their own ways, and it's just the most naive thing to say. I'm really relieved and happy to have Floor now, but this shouldn't have happened earlier. Things happen for a reason.

Read the entire interview at Lords Of Metal.