Looking back at her career, the words Tarja Turunen chooses to describe her climb to the top are “a turmoil” and “beautiful”. It’s the perfect way to sum up two decades of blissful highs and crushing lows. The singer was thrust into the limelight as the operatic vocalist of symphonic metallers Nightwish.
Their 2004 album, Once, turned them into superstars, but just a year later she was publicly sacked by the band in an open letter – a drama that rocked the metal scene. Since then, she’s built a successful solo career exploring metal and classical music, survived a stroke, and has just released the heaviest album of her career, Frisson Noir. Now she looks back on what life’s taught her.
KNOW WHAT YOU WANT
“When I left school, I got into the Sibelius Academy, the only university academy that we had in Finland. I was focused on becoming a professional opera singer at the time. I knew that, no matter what, I would fight my way to work in music; it was my only serious passion. I left my little village of 500 inhabitants for music, against the odds. Music was the only real thing that made me happy and confident in myself.”
LISTEN TO YOUR MUM
“A long time ago, my mother said to me that there is no way fame can change you. Keep your feet on the ground, reach for the clouds, but do not go there in your head. My mother was a very clever woman. When it started to go really fast with Nightwish, I told my brothers, ‘If you see me changing, punch me.’”
SOMETIMES YOU’VE JUST GOT TO TAKE THE LEAP
“We supported Iron Maiden [at Mystic Festival in Poland] in 2005. My strategy has always been to focus on the performance. I didn’t want to think about who I was performing for, I needed to get the best out of the situation. I didn’t remember hearing that the show sucked. I didn’t remember hearing, ‘Who is that bitch? What is she doing?’ So it must have gone pretty well.”
THERE’S NO RULEBOOK IN METAL
“It’s been seven years since my last metal album. My new one, Frisson Noir, is absolutely heavy. When it comes to my live performances, I have a really heavy band and they create this wall of sound, which I love very much. But on the records, I’ve been missing that.
On the new album, Blaze Forever was a song that, when I wrote it, I told my guitar player, ‘OK, this riff needs to be really heavy.’ The Eternal Return is also a really heavy track, then I broke down the heaviness with the middle eight, which is completely from the other world, with a classical cello. This is who I am. I’m not afraid of breaking the rules when it comes to music.”
FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS
“It’s very sad how everything ended up [with Nightwish], but the thing that I would have done differently is, I probably should have put them through hell. I had all my rights, there were contracts, and they would have been in deep shit for a long time if I had done that, according to my rights, but I didn’t. I just decided to move on and leave.”
YOU’RE NOT PARANOID IF THEY ARE OUT TO GET YOU
“What followed was their really great planning, how they wanted to destroy me publicly. That was something I never expected. It was nasty.”
SOMETIMES YOU HAVE JUST GOTTA GET AWAY
“It was an insane period [after the split], and in a small country like Finland, my face was covering the tabloids for three weeks or so. I left my home country. I had to. I went down to Buenos Aires.
It was tough, because it affected so many more people than just me. It affected my family, my friends. Everybody was destroyed. It took me a long time to gain trust in people again. But luckily, I have amazing relationships and a long-lasting marriage with my husband. My family, my friends were there for me in that very hard period.”
SOME BRIDGES CAN STILL BE MENDED… BUT NOT ALL
“I was one of the invited singers in [Finnish Christmas] production Raskasta Joulua. Marko [Hietala, former Nightwish bandmate] was also one of the singers. We hadn’t met each other, seen each other, or heard anything about each other in 12 years. He called in all the production – a huge production – and apologised to me in front of everybody. He apologised to me, he apologised to my husband. It was a ‘wow’ moment for me; he’s absolutely not the same person. We talk a lot about the past, and we call each other. He calls me when he needs advice; it’s a completely different scenario. He is the only person from my time in Nightwish I could work with again.”
SPEAK UP
“I’m still struggling with the fact that when it comes to something I don’t like, [I need to,] you know, say it out loud. I might say, ‘You better do this differently’ or, ‘Could you please do this differently?’ But it’s still a struggle for me to speak up.”
…AND DON’T LET ANYBODY BULLY YOU
“In my solo career, nobody has bullied me. My latest single, I Don’t Care, talks about it – that I don’t let anybody direct me anymore. Since I started to build my own career, people have tried to make me do things differently, but I’ve always fought my way through. I’ve collaborated, but never let anybody say, ‘OK, you should do it like this.’”
HITTING 40 GAVE ME A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE
“When I started, I was very innocent, not aware of anything. I’ve changed. When you hit the number 40, you start forgiving yourself. You live more in the moment by understanding the environment and the people you are with. You know there is a different depth in the world, which is beautiful. You live and learn.”
CORPORATE GIGS ARE WEIRD
“This one private event happened in Russia, in Sochi, many years ago. They wanted me to perform a half-hour set at a big corporate gig. They built a really small stage that we barely fit on with our gear, and there was a huge catwalk in front.
They have these gorgeous women there, these supermodels, two metres tall. These ladies came around on the edges of the catwalk where I’m performing, and they start throwing me rose petals. I am playing heavy metal music, and the ladies are throwing me rose petals. I felt so shit. It was humiliating. Nevertheless, we played for 30 minutes. People loved it, and we left.”
HAVING A STROKE CHANGED ME
“It’s unbelievable that we continue to do things that are hurting us, and we wait until something bad happens. They didn’t find any reason for the stroke. It was just stress. I made some changes. I learned [Japanese healing technique] reiki, and I went to therapy sessions. I have also shortened my touring periods. I need to. I don’t want to tour that much, it’s too stressful. It’s hard being a mother and an artist. The travelling part is hard, but physically being a singer is too. It’s healthy for everybody, though. My crew loves to go back home after 2.5 weeks of being on the road.”
MUSIC HAS SAVED ME IN MY DARKEST MOMENTS
“A few months after my stroke, I needed to start writing the lyrics for my new album. The songs were written, and the music was down. I had the blank paper and didn’t know how to start, and the music saved me. In that moment, I found my courage and my confidence. When I finished the lyrics, I was a wreck. But it gave me the satisfaction, the knowledge, the awareness – I’m alive. I mean, alive, and it was a beautiful feeling.”
YOU NEVER RUN OUT OF THINGS TO ACHIEVE
“I would love to find out if I’m capable of writing a score for a movie, or sing in an opera. I was asked [the latter] in the past, but I never had time. Time has been my biggest enemy, seriously. I have huge respect for the professionals in the field, I’m far away from being good at singing opera these days. I should take serious time off and only focus on that.”
IT’S WHAT I’M KNOWN FOR, BUT I DON’T CONSIDER MYSELF AN OPERA SINGER
“My singing teacher would probably kill me straight away. I never worked professionally in classical music. My whole education was geared towards chamber music – it’s different from opera. I still maintain that I did a classical album, and I hope to work on another one, but I’m a lead singer. ”
Frisson Noir is out now via Earmusic.