Floor Jansen

[mabla]

8 hours ago, Fugazi said:

I don't understand a word of it, but there's a Floor feature on Swedish TV:

https://www.svtplay.se/video/Kqybzv4/sverige/floor-jansen-bor-langt-fran-skrikande-fans

It's another visit at Floor's place, feeding horses, walking dogs, unwrapping a Human Nature sales award (Platinum something, not sure what country?), probably some discussion about ying-yang wolf-dog things, but what caught my attention is the quality of the photography.

Nice find, Thanks. I understand a small word here and there but that's all 🤔 With this I think your assumptions on the topics are correct 😁 indeed nice footage 👍

[Fugazi]

Expecting a show announcement in the next few days...

Quote

Royal Park Live

 

Fans of Floor Jansen pay attention: there's some good news coming this week! We can't give too much away just yet, but sign up for our newsletter at www.royalparklive.nl/contact to be the first to know! Stay tuned!

That's in July 2023 though, let's see when the NW album rehearsals actually start.

[mabla]

On 11/26/2022 at 11:24 PM, mabla said:

Nice find, Thanks. I understand a small word here and there but that's all 🤔 With this I think your assumptions on the topics are correct 😁 indeed nice footage 👍

Yep, assumptions correct 😎

Floor Jansen on Swedish TV - "Floor Jansen lives far away from screaming fans" [English subtitles] - YouTube

 

[Fugazi]

Just a heads up, the release date for Floor's upcoming solo album 'Paragon' will be announced and the pre-orders will begin on December 12th. 👀

[Fugazi]

I never know if those should be going under Nightwish or Floor Jansen, but anyway here's another interview with Floor. It's just been released but it was done back in June 2022.

The Heavy Hooks Show - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMhmiA4XQ6I

A nice conversation but nothing really new. Floor does mention that NW are not doing long tours anymore in order to keep sane. 😁

[mabla]

Just hit this on Youtube. It's from 2006 but never seen this before.

Floor is at 3:45min

Games in Concert - 2006 recap - YouTube

Curious if there are connections with the sessions below .... 🤔 

Floor Jansen & Metropole Orchestra - Sound of the Wind (Final Fantasy Chronicles) - YouTube

 

[mabla]

Nightwish's Floor Jansen: "Life is short. Time is not endless" | Louder (loudersound.com)

Nice interview, but nothing really new for us. 

Edited March 12, 2023 by mabla

[mabla]

Great news from Floor and Hannes ☺️

Floor Jansen zwanger van tweede kindje: 'Het leven is mooi' (msn.com)

(20+) Facebook

 

[mabla]

Face Culture has always great interviews 👍

Floor Jansen interview - 'Paragon', pop music, focusing on the good in people + more! (2023) - YouTube

 

[Fugazi]

On 2/11/2023 at 4:22 PM, mabla said:

Just hit this on Youtube. It's from 2006 but never seen this before.

Floor is at 3:45min

Games in Concert - 2006 recap - YouTube

Curious if there are connections with the sessions below .... 🤔 

Floor Jansen & Metropole Orchestra - Sound of the Wind (Final Fantasy Chronicles) - YouTube

This is new to me as well! It would be around the time of the recording of the last After Forever album, I believe. Maybe one thing led to another, and this is how she was recruited for the Final Fantasy recordings.

[Fugazi]

On 3/12/2023 at 12:29 PM, mabla said:

Nightwish's Floor Jansen: "Life is short. Time is not endless" | Louder (loudersound.com)

Nice interview, but nothing really new for us. 

Interesting stuff indeed. There are a few items that deserve spotlighting.

 

Nightwish's Floor Jansen: "Life is short. Time is not endless"

By Polly Glass ( Metal Hammer ) March 10, 2023

 

About Nightwish:

 

It’s all so far removed from lingering notions of Nightwish as some sort of dictatorship or soap opera, with singers driven away by its founder’s maniacal demands. They seem like friends – as in, actual friends. “It’s absolute genuine fun,” she nods. “We’ve always had that. And there are always ups and downs; it’s like a big marriage. But we’ve been longing for this tour a lot. Especially after the pandemic, we don’t take it for granted at all.”

[...] “I would say [the upcoming NW album is] a pretty heavy album,” she muses, “but once again, it’s the multicolour diversity that is Nightwish. It’s all there. It’s going to once again take you by the hand through beautiful stories – whether they are stories from this Earth or stories about this Earth. They’re beautiful.”

About Paragon:

“I have a really hard time with love songs,” she says. “I know the majority of pop music is about love songs, and that’s also why I find it boring to listen to. So I wanted to create something that still has a message.” 

Accordingly, her solo album, Paragon, shuns frothy clichés in favour of meatier subjects. Fire is about returning to life after lockdown. One song, Invincible, was written for the injured war veterans at Prince Harry’s Invictus Games – originally planned to take place in 2020 in the Hague until the pandemic got in the way. 

“It’s inspired by the idea of being physically or mentally wounded, after you’ve just given everything you have,” she explains, “and something that’s left of you has to pick up life, and recover from something that you never really wanted to recover from. I want to raise awareness of the fact that this happens so incredibly often, but also to empower them. Like, ‘You already went through Hell, now you’re on your way back, you are invincible.’”

About cancer:

It’s hard to hear this story now without thinking of Floor’s recent health issues. Diagnosed in October 2022 at a routine mammogram screening, her breast cancer came as a total shock – two weeks before Nightwish were due to fly to South America. 

“They [the doctors] said, ‘We want you to come back.’ And the thing I thought, in my naïve brain, was, ‘Oh, they fucked up something with the pictures.’ Never, ‘Oh, they found something.’” She shakes her head. “Not a single moment. Until I was there.”

Surgery was planned for the day after they came home. Until then, she says, the intense business of touring Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico proved a good distraction. The pace of it all was brutal but helpful, and reading similar stories from her fans made her feel less alone – “But at the same time, it’s an overwhelming awareness of how many people actually got this fucking disease." 

“I put my emotions into the music,” she reasons, “and also had really wonderful conversations within the band, crew, management, everyone has really been there for me. It’s very tough to do it all that fast, but at the same time it helped because I didn’t have to walk around with thoughts of it too long. Because as soon as you know you have a tumour in your body, the only thing you can think of is ‘get it out’. The whole mental aspect of a cancer diagnosis is shit.” 

Back at home, she had three weeks after her operation before heading out in Europe and the UK. Scarred, bruised and exhausted, she was grateful for the support of her family. 

“Jesus, how I underestimated it,” she half-laughs, of the recovery process. “I was jet-lagged, I barely slept for nights after the surgery because my system was completely upside-down, you get morphine… So everyone’s been really having my back in this.”

Just a couple of days before the Wembley gig, she learned that the operation was successful. It was both a relief and a wake-up call. In Sweden, mammogram screenings start for women at the age of 40. In the Netherlands, her birthplace –and in the UK – it’s 50. Now looked up to by many, as a public figure as well as a musician, she’s determined to persuade more women to go for their scans. 

“On a purely personal level it’s a bit weird, because I’m just me,” she says, of her role-model status. “But from this position, I have the power to make a difference every now and then. I wanted to make sure it has this function by saying, ‘Go and get your mammogram done.’ If I had stayed in the Netherlands, this entire thing would have gone undetected. It was so small when they took it out, but it was growing, you know? I’m very lucky.” 

Cancer casts a pervasive shadow, even when it’s caught quickly. For Floor, who (when we speak to her) still has three weeks of radiation therapy to complete, it’s realigned her priorities. “It’s not like I think ‘I’m gonna die’ all the time,” she explains, “but I realise how life is short. Time is not endless. We have it now.”

[Fugazi]

A reddit translation of a Dutch article... I don't know how faithful the translation is, but Floor had a few choice words for NW management. 👀

https://www.ad.nl/show/floor-jansen-kreeg-kanker-maar-raakte-ook-zwanger-snap-dat-dat-onverwacht-is~abcc0237

''Floor Jansen got cancer, but also got pregnant: ''I understand it's unexpected''''

She had "no time for cancer," but she got it anyway. At the end of last year, singer Floor Jansen (42) alternated tours with Nightwish with hospital visits. She recovered, got pregnant unexpectedly quickly and is releasing Paragon, her first solo album, on Friday. "I didn't think my body would work so quickly again."

This Thursday, a day before the release of her album debut as a solo singer, Floor Jansen will board a plane to Japan. A trip that she is very disappointed/annoyed with. ,,With Nightwish we had to postpone concerts in Asia, I said: I can only do it after the 24th, because then my album will be released. Now we're performing on the 25th. Yes, it is after the 24th, but in fucking Japan. The management of the band could have thought of that honestly, I find this unforgivably stupid and a show of little respect towards me.”

So, at least she's got that off her chest. Floor Jansen tells her story on Tuesday, two days before her departure, in a Hilversum office. The festivities have been brought forward. “This afternoon we have a party with everyone who was involved with Paragon and with the people who are close to me, such as my parents and my sister with her kids.”

Breast cancer

The reason that the shows in Asia originally planned for January had to be rescheduled was the illness of Jansen, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in October. Fortunately, a less aggressive form, which was easily treatable with surgery and a series of preventive radiation treatments. The latter was the only reason that Jansen did not go to Asia with the Finnish band in January. The operation was 'just' scheduled between two weeks of touring in South America and two weeks on the road in Europe.

It characterizes Jansen, the eternal optimist who does not easily shy away from anything. It is an attitude to life in which she sometimes ''meets herself'' (idiom meaning ''being confronted with your own limits'', such as on Friday 7 October, when she 'just' had to drive from her home deep in the Swedish forests to the hospital because something was not quite right with the mammogram she had earlier. “I thought it was a defect in the device, or maybe they made a mistake themselves. I felt so good/healthy, I didn't think I could be sick. No, not even then. Crazy, huh?"

Sabaton

Her husband, the Swedish drummer Hannes Van Dahl, was on tour with his metal band Sabaton and was staying in the United States. When his wife got the bad news, he was still asleep. “I didn't want to wake him up, I called my sister first and then my parents. I stood in the parking lot for a few hours before I could think again. I hadn't brought anyone at all with me to that conversation, I hadn't even thought about that. I would just go to the hospital 'quickly' and would do some shopping on the way back, because I had to cook for my daughter Freja and myself. I think I did indeed go by the supermarket on my way back.”

Once home, the singer, who was born in Goirle, immediately took care of her then 5-year-old daughter. “I didn't say anything to her then. Only later did we tell her that Mum was ill, but would get better.”

Already about three days after the conversation in the hospital, Jansen had to go to South America with Nightwish for concerts. She did not see her husband again until she boarded the plane. She had to process the news, do her best during the concerts and upon returning, almost immediately the surgery awaited. “I had no time for cancer at all, I had to take care of it in between things. Fortunately, the band members looked after me extra carefully. Two weeks later I landed from South America, the day before surgery - and, the same day, my husband came back from North America. We hadn't even seen each other before and the next day he had to take me to the hospital right away. I was completely exhausted, massively jet lagged. As a result, I could not come out of the anaesthesia properly, I just kept not waking up.”

It sounds like madness. Someone with a 'normal' job calls in sick.

,,And three weeks after the operation I already had my first European show with Nightwish. I asked the doctor if that was responsible, the answer was that the mental aftermath of the operation would be more intense than the physical one.”

Did you feel free to say: I'm not going on tour?

“Yes, but we had already postponed these shows several times because of corona. It would have been a financial nightmare if we hadn't done them again. I did say to the band: playing two hours, as usual, I'm not going to be able to do that yet. We shortened the shows a bit, it was super tough, but I did it. And then I still had to work towards radiation treatments, which were finally scheduled in January. So for that we did have to end up moving concerts.”

And now it's March and you're announcing that you're expecting your second child.

“Yes, I understand that that is unexpected. It actually was unexpected for me too, because 60 percent of women over 40 fail to conceive within a year. With us it's immediately ''a hit''. The transition from cancer patient to pregnant woman has given me a huge boost. The confirmation that my body is healthy, apparently it collects itself/deals with a problem and it goes right back on. Mentally it (the pregnancy) does a lot for me, the thought of a child gives so much positive energy.”

Do you feel you have enough time to process everything? There will also be solo shows from April.

,,My illness is of course a traumatic experience and I have thought in recent months that I would irrevocably get another blow. But the pregnancy has provided a positive twist, gives me strength. It is also no coincidence that this is happening now, although of course it came sooner than I expected. But it was precisely because of that illness that my husband and I started to think about this. Life suddenly feels very short and you want to make more than just records. At the end of your life you may think about your own mortality, but not while you are in the midst of it. That suddenly changed for me.”

From mortality the focus went to new life. Literally, in her stomach, and figuratively, with her first album as a solo singer, which she made with the help of producers/composers Gordon Groothedde and Wouter Hardy, among others. “I am incredibly proud of that. The album turned out to be what I had hoped it would be on all fronts. Gordon produced and monitored the main line, Wouter co-wrote and added the atmosphere, the bombast and the drama that I was looking for.”

When she listens to the record herself, it seems as if some songs were written with foreknowledge. “ Hope and Invincible are songs that people think I wrote during or after my illness, but it was before. Forced into recovery, a choice no longer yours, that's exactly what happened to me. In hindsight it is precisely right.”

Floor Jansen has been touring solo since April, performing in Afas Live and open-air theater Caprera, among others.

[mabla]

On 4/15/2023 at 1:45 PM, Fugazi said:

A reddit translation of a Dutch article... I don't know how faithful the translation is, but Floor had a few choice words for NW management. 👀

Yep, it's faithful (Dutch directness 😁)

[Fugazi]

Since there have been no recent news about Floor's pregnancy and general well-being, here's her last update last month on FloorWorld (her fan community).

 

My dear fellow FloorWorlders,

Where do I begin? Life is a rollercoaster ride and once again I went from a great high to a shitty low. I almost managed to keep the energy up for all the last Nightwish shows before our break and album recording time. But the schedule was too much, the stress too high and the needs to really pull it off, not met. Many factors made me crash after our Nightwish show in Vaasa. A scary experience, especially now it’s not only my health that’s on the line. Letting go was inevitable and hard. I don’t easily give up.

In all hardship I felt your support and I want to thank you for that so much! In the last few months, I feel I got to know so many more of you. Met so many, read your letters and heard your stories. The family feeling grew tighter! A large one with amazing individuals, with many stories and now also, shared experiences!

I’m doing much better, and the pregnancy is going very well. Hitting the last weeks, and those are pretty tough. I’m round and heavy and eager to meet my second child 🙂

I feel grateful for all I could do while pregnant, and now for the down time needed to pull off the last bits.

Another massive thanks for all the thoughtful and sweet gifts we so abundantly received! All are either already gratefully used (like the teas and creams!) and the baby stuff is patiently awaiting the arrival of our second little monster (more patiently than me haha, I can’t wait!) We cherish them and will put it to use with good memories to you!!!!!!

After my German tour, and right before continuing for the Nightwish shows in June, I had a terrible loss to endure. I had such a hard time with it, that I didn’t tell you yet. You know of my deep love for animals. And so I deeply loved my dream horse Dara. But she had hoof problems since I got her. It turned out that it was worse than I knew of. I had felt it, and I could see it. But she only gave off subtle hints. I got her checked just to be sure and bam…there it was. A shitty combination of problems that gave her pain with every step. And due to that combination, there was nothing I could do to help her move pain free. Within a week she ran into the eternal green fields. This is my last picture with her.

I carry a pendant with some of her hair with me. To remember her by daily. She went way too young. And despite her pain, she always wanted to do her utmost best. Heartbreaking.

After this loss I spent a good amount of time rethinking having horses. But they bring something in my life I can’t miss. And so I started thinking, feeling, and looking.

After a long search I found this handsome young, 2 year old. Meet Man’O War! Named after a battleship…not the band haha.

He will come and live with us, and JumJum, as soon as he is recovered from his castration (sorry big fellow…) I don’t see myself calling him by his birth name on a daily basis here in our paddocks. I want to rename him with a Nordic name like Loke or Grim. What do you think fits him?

The stables where he is from (Stal Herkules, in the south of Sweden) also happened to have puppies….And I happened to have looked for a friend for Fenris because he loves the company of other dogs so much. And so we decided to have a baby before our baby would come…;-) Meet Saga, a now 10 weeks old chocolate Labrador girl.

And so, from the shitty low of late June, to a healthier and happier situation in August.

Thank you for all your support, I good and bad times!!!! Miss you!

With love and respect,

Floor

[Fugazi]

Fresh news!

Thankfully, everything seems to be fine with both Floor and the baby.

Quote

There she is!  With great happiness we can announce the birth of our second daughter Lucy! Big sister Freja is delighted with our dark haired little girl too! 👶🏻

Health is not a given fact, and so it’s humbling to report that both our baby girl as mom are in a great one! We are enjoying these special moments to the fullest and ask for understanding of our privacy in this intimate time! Big thanks for all the love and support we received during the pregnancy! We have now welcomed our dear Lucy into this beautiful world 🙏🏻

[Moondance]

Congratulations Floor!

[Fugazi]

This announcement may also be on of interest to some:

https://www.facebook.com/bestezangerslive/posts/pfbid0UzSDw5XLgPExyPTR653NLCAiZ1BmEZPHBVLozy6Ax3QdQkWQ1628tuJF2LXf7y72l

 

Quote

Floor Jansen will be present on May 10th during Best Singers Live

Since her participation in Best Singers in 2019, she has grown into one of the most beloved contestants ever! The singer impressed with beautiful versions of 'Winner' and 'Phantom of The Opera'

We can't wait to see her shine on May 10, 2024 at Ahoy!

What's your favorite song by Floor?

https://bestezangerslive.nl/

[Fugazi]

Tomorrow Floor is back on stage in Amsterdam, first show since the end of the Human Nature tour. She mentioned that her sister Irene will be on stage with her, I wonder if there's anything from Ayreon on the setlist? 😮

Also, the second solo album is already in the works, I wonder how much songwriting will be Floor's this time?

[Fugazi]

I forgot to mention, but recently Floor posted a surprising update on social media:

Quote

Moving & A Birthday Horse

Happy birthday to Sam! This little man turned 3 years old today 🥳 Lots happened in my life on the private end. We moved! Amidst the boxes and diapers. Have a lovely Sunday!  

I assume she still lives in the Sweden countryside, but so far no other details are available.

[Fugazi]

Floor has posted an update as her album Paragon hits the one year mark.

https://floorworld.floorjansen.com/c/announcements/paragon-anniversary

---

PARAGON Anniversary

One year ago, I flew from Amsterdam to Japan for the Nightwish tour there. Drinking champagne to celebrate the release wasn’t possible because Lucy was with me in my belly. Very very little still 🙏🏻

I had a chance to have a proper release party though, a few days before this release day, and I look back to that with warmth in my heart. Many came to join me, many who had been a part in the making of this album. Many of with whom I still work with today, to create a second album!

‘Paragon’ was an album long in the making. The ideas of actually going solo started after the tv show ‘Beste Zangers’. (I will do a live show with them on the 10th of May!)

Soon after the success of the tv show, the pandemic hit. I got time to write, and I did. Due to the long break, an entire world tour with Nightwish came at the same time as the release of this album. The schedules are almost impossible as they all happened at the same time. And while that was going on, I got cancer, Nightwish decided on the break from live shows, and I got pregnant.

After the release I started playing live shows for both Nightwish and solo and I even got invited to open a show for Metallica!

There is so much to look back to, both crazy great and horribly bad. It is not the first time I have used the word ‘rollercoaster ride’ for my life’s stories. I was on one for sure, a fast and long one.

I am writing this to you now, a year after this wonderful album saw the light of day, with Lucy next to me. Nightwish’ break from shows has started, yet a new album is ready and will come this year. My trip to The Netherlands is booked, more shows will soon be played and more songs will soon be written. But today it’s a beautiful spring Sunday, a year after the release of my pride ‘Paragon’.