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ANETTE OLZON – Careful What You ‘Wish For

By Carl Begai

There’s no doubt that the controversial firing of former Nightwish vocalist Anette Olzon in October 2012 made her out to be the bad guy, turning any press she does for her forthcoming solo album into a potential exercise in character assassination. It doesn’t help her situation in that the Nightwish camp has been quick to refute many of her recent accusations of backstabbing and mismanagement that have appeared online. Quite frankly, I was prepared to be stonewalled when asking questions about Nightwish due to the fact Olzon came across as a self-centered diva when she slammed the band for playing to a Denver, CO audience in 2012 with stand-in vocalists Elize Ryd (Amaranthe) and Alissa White-Gluz (The Agonist) after she fell ill. Turns out I was way off the mark and had to give Olzon the benefit of the doubt.

Thus, in the interest of giving her solo album Shine a fair shake we’re getting the Nightwish debacle out of the way first, to be followed soon by a full story on the new record.

Rather than dig for the scurvy details and assorted dirt kicked up before and after her firing, the focus is on Olzon getting booted in the middle of the North American tour for Imaginaerum. It’s not a move most bands can afford to make in today’s music industry economy, sure as hell not without a back-up plan. And yet, 48 hours after Olzon was cut loose former After Forever vocalist Floor Jansen had taken over her post on stage, becoming the band’s permanent singer less than a year later.

“It’s hard for me to say why the firing happened when it did because I don’t really know what happened behind my back,” says Olzon. “I think there were some thing happening that I didn’t know about. It has become clearer to me now that they had some sort of a plan when I told them I was pregnant. I actually think they had some suspicions I was pregnant during the summer festivals, so I think they may have had a back-up plan.”

Olzon pegs the band’s reaction to her pregnancy as the primary reason for the falling out. She also claims Jansen wasn’t as much of a last minute consideration for the Nightwish line-up as people think, albeit in a temporary capacity.

“We had some discussions during the tour in America about how to cover the remaining gigs for the tours that were coming up, and we did have something of an argument before that. I didn’t want to have a substitute singer in the band, I wanted to do the South American shows. I would have been too pregnant to go to Australia so I wanted to push the dates back, but Tuomas (Holopainen / keyboards, founder) didn’t want that. Discussions about a substitute came up and at first I was like ‘Yeah, well…. okay…’ but when they mentioned Floor it was an automatic ‘No’ from me. I didn’t think it was a good idea because I knew what would happen; I knew the fans would love Floor because she’s a metal singer and I’m a pop singer, and I wanted to keep my job. Because I couldn’t do the Australian tour, I think that’s when they started thinking about a new singer. We had a bit of an argument, then I got ill, and after that…. I don’t know if they planned this.” Continue reading ANETTE OLZON – Careful What You ‘Wish For

NIGHTWISH – Floor Jansen: “I Think It’s Time For A Little Story…”

By Carl Begai

When it was announced in July 2013 that Nightwish would be filming their Wacken Open Air show for a future DVD release, it was a no-brainer hint that stand-in vocalist Floor Jansen had been elevated beyond temporary status. No band, not even a moneymaker like Nightwish, is going to blow their wad on a massive production like Showtime, Storytime featuring a singer with her days numbered. Keyboardist / mastermind Tuomas Holopainen confirmed as much in a separate interview (found here), admitting the decision to keep Jansen around was made during the summer even though Nightwish waited until October to make the news official. An exercise in patience and sitting on her proverbial hands for Jansen, to be sure.

“It was a challenge keeping it quiet, that’s for sure,” she agrees. “That’s the sort of thing where you just want to scream it to everybody, but even on the day itself I couldn’t really share the news with anyone. Only a few people knew. I’m happy the DVD is out now so I don’t have to worry about hiding the news anymore.”

“The DVD is a great way for people to sort of get used to my sound and hear how Nightwish has been part of my life for the last year,” Jansen adds. “It’s also a nice introduction for the new studio album. The documentary is a fantastic look behind-the-scenes because there’s so much mystery around Nightwish, so it gives a little peek at the guys. These days everyone can anonymously throw shit at people online, and I think the DVD shows a certain humanity and a different face of the band.”

For anyone living under a rock, Jansen got the job fronting Nightwish in the wake of the mid-tour booting of previous Nightwish singer, Anette Olzon, in October 2012. Jansen’s entrance was a troubleshooting effort that paid off as she gradually made the songs and the stage – and ultimately the band – her own. Quite the accomplishment considering she’d been sidelined since 2011 recovering from a burnout that put her post-After Forever band ReVamp on ice. And there’s nothing quite like recovering from being a mess by joining one of the most popular metal bands on the planet at the last minute.

“(Laughs) Definitely, but the peaks of the mountains seem even higher when you’ve been down really, really low. There was a period of a year-and-a-half where I wasn’t able to do anything. Getting asked to join Nightwish for the tour put everything back in balance and forced me to really consider what I want to do. At the same time it was really difficult because I was burnt out. When I slowly got my energy back and was able to think straight, I started to feel a lust for music. My normal levels of ambition started to come back, and just as I was making plans for ReVamp I got the call from Nightwish. That was a year ago and it’s been a non-stop run since. Hard work and doing a lot has never been a problem for me; it’s just the way of doing things that can be a challenge.” Continue reading NIGHTWISH – Floor Jansen: “I Think It’s Time For A Little Story…”

BW&BK Interview: NIGHTWISH – Going Dutch: “Floor Jansen Owns The Stage And The Audience”

By Carl Begai

The day after it was announced that Nightwish touring vocalist Floor Jansen (Revamp, ex-After Forever) had been made an official band member, BW&BK was given the opportunity to speak with keyboardist/mastermind Tuomas Holopainen about the band’s forthcoming live/tour documentary DVD Showtime, Storytime. Good thing they took care of business before press began, because if they hadn’t most of this conversation would have consisted of yours truly telling Holopainen he would have to be a special kind of insane to let Jansen slip away. But really, it’s no surprise that Jansen was asked to stay considering her monumental efforts since coming on board at the last minute to replace the booted Anette Olzon back in October 2012.

“I know it didn’t come as a surprise to anybody,” Holopainen says of the news. “We wanted to make it official at this point because we knew we were going to do a lot of promotion for the upcoming DVD. It’s just easier to do things this way; we don’t need to keep our mouths shut.”

The documentary portion of the DVD begins appropriately with footage from Denver, Colorado as Nightwish makes a mad scramble to put together some semblance of a setlist in the wake of Olzon falling ill. With their singer unable to perform and an audience willing to stick around for whatever the band can come up with, Nightwish enlist support band Kamelot’s backing singers Elize Ryd (Amaranthe) and Alissa White-Gluz (The Agonist). The rest is a pretty amazing piece of history. Holopainen is caught on camera after the show stating that he’d never been as scared as he was two hours earlier.

“That was the truth,” he admits. “The whole day is just a hazy dream to me now. It was such an awkward moment. A big hand to Elize and Alissa… they were amazing. But that’s what doing live shows is all about. Sometimes these things happen and it’s really memorable stuff; a mass karaoke with those two lovely girls joining us, doing some instrumental stuff as well. It was something different and I don’t think anybody left the venue upset or annoyed.”

Olzon, on the other hand, was genuinely upset and took to her official website to air her feelings. She made it clear she thought the band was wrong to go ahead without her. On October 1st the band released a statement announcing Olzon’s departure and that Jansen would be filling in for the rest of the tour.

“We got quite a bit of criticism for doing the show without Anette,” Holopainen reveals. “Some people asking us how we could be so selfish and do the show without her. It was quite the opposite. We had to think about the 1,600 fans, the promoter, the crew, everybody. Seriously, if something happened to me or any of the other band members, I’d do anything to still make the show happen. We offered the money back from the tickets. We told the fans how the show was going to be, so of course if they wanted to leave they should get their money back. It was seven refunds out of 1,600 so that was pretty good.” Continue reading BW&BK Interview: NIGHTWISH – Going Dutch: “Floor Jansen Owns The Stage And The Audience”

SINNER – Rocked And Loaded

By Carl Begai

On June 2nd the lamest of lame-ass festival line-ups descended upon Nuremberg, Germany for the annual Rock im Park, guaranteed to impress only those tweens and under-35s that consider MTV and Glee quality programming. Several kilometers away in the city’s old town, veteran German rockers Sinner were down to the far more satisfying business of filming a video for the song ‘Back On Trail’, the first single from their forthcoming album One Bullet Left.

Following is a photo-documentary of the shoot, which took place at the – for lack of a better word – abandoned Volksbad (which must have been bloody impressive when it was fully operational). And if some of the mugs in the shots below look familiar, they should, as Sinner’s present line-up consists of guitarists Christof Leim (The New Black), Alex Scholpp (Tarja) and Alex Beyrodt (Primal Fear) – yep, three of ’em – drummer André Hilgers (Rage), and last but never least, bassist and namesake Mat Sinner….

Continue reading SINNER – Rocked And Loaded