NIGHTWISH: Audio Interview With ANETTE OLZON Available

A brand new audio interview with NIGHTWISH singer Anette Olzon conducted on October 15, 2007 in West Springfield, Virginia has been posted online at MetalExposed.com.

In a recent interview with Metal Hammer magazine, NIGHTWISH mainman Tuomas Holopainen recalled how fragile the working relationship with the group's former singer Turunen had become during the months before Turunen was booted from the band out via an "open letter" posted on NIGHTWISH's web site.

"If we met during breakfast at the hotel, we wouldn't even say 'hi' anymore," he sighed. "Tarja and Marcello [Turunen's husband] sat at another table. That was quite nasty. We wouldn't see her until 15 minutes before the show — no soundchecks or anything — and afterwards she left right away."

NIGHTWISH attempted to hold crisis talks, but "each time we had to go through him [Marcelo Cabuli]; he even replied to her texts. Looking back, it's amazing that we managed to pull off the year of 2005," marvelled Tuomas.

In her most recent interview with Metal Hammer, before reports of alleged prima donna behaviour surfaced, Turunen had insisted: "I am not a diva!" And yet, that's exactly how the band's official book "Once upon a Nightwish" paints her, right down to demanding to be presented with a lavish bouquet of flowers by the Mayor of Bucharest before a show in that same city.

"Tarja was very good at being a diva on the stage, that was her role," acknowledged Tuomas carefully. "But in your free time that's a very bad thing."

Regarding the band's decision to replace Turunen with a relatively unknown Swede with a less operatic approach, Tuomas said, "Tarja was the finest operatically trained singer on the planet, so to have picked someone else in that style would always have been second best. Anette and Tarja are different, but both have immense vocal power and an ability to share emotion. What we're doing's still metal, but the voice is a bit more approachable."