TARJA TURUNEN's Husband Pursuing Defamation Case Over NIGHTWISH Book

Marcelo Cabuli, the husband of former NIGHTWISH singer Tarja Turunen, and his business partners are demanding 50,000 euros (approximately $72,500) in defamation damages from the parties behind the NIGHTWISH book "Once Upon a Nightwish: The Official Biography 1996-2006". Named in the lawsuit were the publishing house Like Kustannus Oy and the author of the book, Marko "Mape" Ollila.

According to the Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat, the Helsinki District Court began processing the defamation case last Thursday in a preparatory session.

Cabuli dropped some of his previous demands, such as that the author and publisher should receive harsher punishment because "Cabuli is a citizen of Argentina," according to Ilta-Sanomat.

Cabuli and his three Brazilian business partners are demanding 15,000-euro compensation each. They claim that the information published about them in the book is completely false.

Like Kustannus Oy CEO Päivi Isosaari and Ollila deny the charges and stand behind the 380-page book, which chronicles NIGHTWISH's rise to the status of one of the most successful symphonic metal acts in the world, including the circumstances that led to the departure of Turunen. Isosaari and Ollila insist that they had good reason to believe that the claims of the book were true and they intend to call Ollila's sources, including several influential music-business figures, as their witnesses.

"Well, I did read the text and I authorized it to be published and therefore I stand behind the book," Isosaari told Ilta-Sanomat in a 2009 interview.

Turunen was fired from NIGHTWISH a year before the book was published.

In his 2006 review of the book, Jarkko Jokelainen of Helsingin Sanomat wrote, "The book points the finger [for the split with Tarja] 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."

Read the entire review at this location.

Bazillion Points Books is offering a free download of "Chapter 5. The Upward Spiral", excerpted from the North American edition of "Once Upon a Nightwish: The Official Biography 1996-2006", by Mape Ollila.

Joining the book in progress at the start of 2000 during the aftermath of "Oceanborn", this chapter gives inside perspective on events including NIGHTWISH's early gigs with RAGE and future bassist Marco Hietala's early band SINERGY; singer Tarja Turunen's bloody battles with mosquitoes in the wilds of Finland; the band and chief songwriter Tuomas Holopainen's rarely discussed and ill-fated flirtation with the Eurovision song contest; and the creation of what would ultimately be the breakthrough "Wishmaster" CD.

The sample chapter can be downloaded from Bazillion Points Books at this location.