Floor Jansen

Floor Jansen (; born 21 February 1981) is a Dutch singer, songwriter, and vocal coach. She is currently the lead vocalist of Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish.
Jansen first became known as a member of symphonic metal band After Forever, standing as their lead vocalist from 1997, when she joined at age 16, to their disbanding in 2009. When After Forever disbanded, she formed ReVamp and has released two albums with them. In 2012 following the departure of their lead vocalist Anette Olzon, Nightwish brought in Jansen as a touring member until the end of their Imaginaerum World Tour. In 2013, they announced Jansen was now their full-time lead vocalist; she subsequently disbanded ReVamp to focus on Nightwish. In 2018, she and Pagan's Mind guitarist Jørn Viggo Lofstad premiered their hard rock duo Northward.
A frequent collaborator of Arjen Anthony Lucassen, Jansen is a member of his progressive metal supergroup Star One, and sang in the Ayreon albums "", "01011001", and "The Source", as well as the live album "Ayreon Universe – The Best of Ayreon Live". She also sang lead vocals in several songs of the MaYan album "Quarterpast" and in Avalon's "Angels of the Apocalypse". She is the older sister of fellow singer Irene Jansen, who also worked with Ayreon.
Biography.
After Forever (1997–2009).
Jansen was sixteen when she joined Apocalypse (later known as After Forever) in 1997. Three years later the band released its first album, "Prison of Desire". She co-wrote the band's words and music with Mark Jansen (no relation) until he left in 2002, after which she was the band's sole composer. Before becoming a full-time musician, she worked as a singing teacher.
Because of the burnout that After Forever bandmate Sander Gommans underwent, the band took a year off starting in January 2008 but ultimately decided to call it quits in February 2009. Jansen posted on her website that she was writing music with Jørn Viggo Lofstad (Pagan's Mind, Jørn Lande) for a new musical project, but the two did not publish as Northward until ten years later.
ReVamp (2009–2016).
On 17 October 2009, Jansen announced via MySpace that the name of her new band was ReVamp. ReVamp's first album was produced with After Forever keyboardist Joost van den Broek, bass player Jaap Melman (formerly of Dreadlock Pussy) and guitarist Waldemar Sorychta (Grip Inc., Voodoocult, Eyes of Eden and Despair) as songwriters and producers. The final line-up of ReVamp featured keyboardist Ruben Wijga, bass player Jaap Melman, guitarists Jord Otto and Arjan Rijnen and drummer Matthias Landes.
In August 2011, Van Canto announced on Facebook, that ReVamp would no longer participate in their "Out of the Dark" tour, as Jansen suffered a burnout herself.
In late 2011, Jansen joined her former bandmate Mark Jansen in his band Mayan's Latin American tour, performing in São Paulo. In 2012, Jansen joined Adrenaline Mob on stage in Bochum and Weert. ReVamp's second album, "Wild Card," was released in 2013.
ReVamp announced its breakup in September 2016, citing Floor Jansen's inability to participate fully in both ReVamp and Nightwish.
Nightwish (2012–present).
After Nightwish's previous lead vocalist Anette Olzon parted ways with the band, Jansen acted as Nightwish's live lead vocalist for the remainder of the "Imaginaerum World Tour" in 2012. Her first show with the band was in Seattle in October. When commenting on the experience, she said:
On 9 October 2013, Nightwish announced Jansen as Olzon's permanent replacement in the band. In 2015, Nightwish released their first studio album featuring Jansen as the lead vocalist, "Endless Forms Most Beautiful". Out of this tour came the live album "Vehicle of Spirit" which is the second live album to feature Floor.
The second studio album with Jansen as lead vocalist, "", was released on 10 April 2020.
Other works.
Three albums by the Dutch composer and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen's project Ayreon include guest vocals from Jansen: she sang backing vocals on "My House on Mars" from the album "", played the character of Forever (referred to as Ω) on seven songs from the album "01011001", and was featured as a character named The Biologist on the album "The Source". She is also a member of Lucassen's heavy metal supergroup Star One, and was featured on the studio albums "Space Metal" and "Victims of the Modern Age". She was also featured in the 2018 live album "Ayreon Universe – The Best of Ayreon Live".
On 9 December 2013, she was also announced as the main vocalist, playing the lead role, for the second full-length album of former Stratovarius guitarist Timo Tolkki's metal opera act Avalon. The album, "Angels of the Apocalypse", was released on 16 May 2014. She has also been a guest for the metal band Nightmare.
On 22 February 2018, Northward, a hard rock project by Jansen and Pagan's Mind guitarist Jørn Viggo Lofstad, was unveiled. The two created the project in 2007, writing an entire album worth of music in 2008 but being unable to record previously due to their busy schedules; they ultimately reunited in 2017 to finally record the album, which was released on 19 October 2018 under their signed label Nuclear Blast. The album features a duet between Jansen and her sister Irene.
In 2019, Jansen participated in the Dutch TV-show "Beste Zangers" ("Best Singers"). During all episodes she impressed her fellow singers, but also the TV-audience with her voice. In the last episode she partnered with classical singer Henk Poort to perform Phantom of the Opera. The single of that performance reached the number one position in Dutch charts. That performance generated so much attention that she decided to plan a solo tour in the Netherlands. All venues were sold out.
She also won the "Popprijs 2019" - a prestigious Dutch award for the artist or band with an important contribution to Dutch pop music in the past year.
Personal life.
As a child, she wanted to be a biologist; coincidentally, she played the character "The Biologist" in the Ayreon album "The Source".
Between 2014 and 2015, Jansen lived in Joensuu, the capital of North Karelia. On 18 September 2016, it was announced, that Jansen and her husband Hannes Van Dahl, drummer of Sabaton, were expecting their first child. On 15 March 2017, Jansen announced via Instagram that she gave birth to a girl.
Jansen is vegetarian.
In 2018, a new species of beetle was discovered by scientist Andreas Weigel. It was named after Jansen, dubbing it "Tmesisternus floorjanseni". This makes Floor Jansen the second Nightwish member to be a namesake for a newly discovered species, as a new kind of fungus gnat was discovered back in 2017 by Finnish biologist Jukka Salmela, who named the species after Tuomas Holopainen. Jansen herself announced the news on Facebook.
Singing style.
Jansen can sing from classical to belting and raspy vocals like screaming and death growls. She is a soprano with a range of more than three octaves (D3 to F6).
Jansen started studying music at the Dutch Rock Academy in 1999, entering the Conservatorium Tilburg three years later. She studied musical theatre and a year of opera. When After Forever split up, she started teaching performing in her own course called "Wanna be a Star?!"
She used to play the guitar, piano and flute and has completed several years of music studies.