NIGHTWISH leader Tuomas Holopainen says that the band would split up if singer Floor Jansen ever chose to leave. Holopainen, who formed NIGHTWISH in 1996 with guitarist Emppu Vuorinen and original singer Tarja Turunen, made the comment while discussing the recent departure of longtime bassist/vocalist Marko "Marco" Hietala. Pressed by U.K.'s Metal Hammer magazine about his 2019 statement that NIGHTWISH would disband if another member opted to depart, Tuomas said: "That's how I felt back in 2019, and that's also how I felt when Marko left. I take my words back when it comes to that. But if it would be Floor leaving, that's it, it's the end of NIGHTWISH. Absolutely, 100%." Asked how he would feel about the end of NIGHTWISH if the band called it quits tomorrow, he said: "If NIGHTWISH ends, it was a great run, a wonderful adventure of 25 years. Then I'd just have to come up with something else." Jansen made her live debut as the frontwoman of NIGHTWISH on October 1, 2012 at Showbox Sodo in Seattle, Washington following the abrupt departure of the band's lead singer of five years, Anette Olzon. Jansen officially joined NIGHTWISH in 2013 and made her recording debut with the group on 2015's "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" album. Turunen was fired from NIGHTWISH at the end of the band's 2005 tour by being presented with an open letter which was published on the NIGHTWISH web site at the same time. In the letter, the other members of NIGHTWISH wrote: "To you, unfortunately, business, money, and things that have nothing to do with emotions have become much more important." Holopainen later called the decision to part ways with Turunen "the most difficult thing I ever had to do." For her part, Tarja said the way she was kicked out of the group proved that her former bandmates were not her friends. "Maybe one day I'll forgive, but I will never forget," she said. In 2019, Turunen dismissed Internet chatter about her possible return to NIGHTWISH after her December 2017 onstage reunion with Hietala during a "Raskasta Joulua" concert in Hämeenlinna, Finland. "I know a lot of fans would love to see something happen, but it's a very long distance away," she told Kerrang! magazine. "Personally, I don't see anything happening with me and them, to be perfectly honest. Marko came a little later into the band; he wasn't there since the beginning. He was always a guy I was close to. Me and Tuomas Holopainen, however, haven't seen each other in a long time… but we have been in touch. It's not bad. The past is what it is; we can't change that. We can only change the future."
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