“Floor Jansen (pronounced [ˈfloːr ˈjɑnsə(n)]; 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, she is a member of his progressive metal supergroup Star One, and sang in the Ayreon albums Universal Migrator Part 1: The Dream Sequencer, 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.

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. Her ability to sing both classical and rock music has made her reasonably popular in the metal scene. She took sole charge of After Forever’s lyrics and vocal melodies since the departure of Mark Jansen (no relation) in 2002. Prior to this, up until the Decipher (2001) album, the two would write together. Before becoming a full-time musician, she worked as a singing teacher.

Jansen with After Forever at the Masters of Rock festival in 2007

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 while After Forever was on hold (and since then disbanded), she would use this opportunity to start writing music with Jørn Viggo Lofstad (Pagan’s Mind, Jørn Lande) for a new musical project; the two would not be able to make the project come to fruition at the time due to their respective busy schedules, but would eventually reunite in 2017 to give birth to the project as Northward. On 16 June 2009, Jansen announced through her MySpace site, that she had started a new metal band, which has put the project called Sinh with Lofstad on hold.

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.

ReVamp performing live in Oslo in September 2010

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 in After Forever Mark Jansen for 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 deliver 100% to 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. She was at her sister’s wedding when she received the call to replace Olzon. Her first show with the band was in Seattle in October. When commenting on the experience, she said:

“ There was this evil voice in my head that said, ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing? You don’t know these songs, you’ve had no time to learn them’. And everybody in the venue was holding a cell phone, so it would be on YouTube straight away. ”

On 9 October 2013, Jansen was announced as Olzon’s permanent replacement in the band, following an invitation she received from the band in a hotel bar. In 2015, Nightwish released their first studio album featuring Jansen as the lead vocalist, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, followed by a world tour. Out of this tour came the live album Vehicle of Spirit. Soon after the tour’s completion, Nightwish released the compilation album Decades on 9 March 2018 and announced yet another world tour. A new studio album is said to be released in 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 Universal Migrator Part 1: The Dream Sequencer, 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.”