In a new interview with Hakos Pervanidis of the Metal Hammer Greece TV program TV War, NIGHTWISH‘s Floor Jansen discussed her decision to go public with her breast cancer diagnosis back in October 2022. Asked why she felt the need to share her diagnosis with her fans and not keep it private, the 44-year-old Dutch-born vocalist, who resides in Sweden with her husband, SABATON drummer Hannes Van Dahl, said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It’s a good question because, of course, at first I did not want to tell it to anyone. It’s sort of your own thing until you share it with your family, share it with the people close to you, and it, all of a sudden, becomes a thing. But the thing that I found the scariest of everything, and which I’m sure many other people that have been sick, cancer or not, can relate to, you think that you’re healthy and then you’re not. And hopefully in Greece, surely the Netherlands where I’m from, Sweden, where I live, there are many tests that make sure that whenever there is something that grew in the time that in between the previous tests and then to see what’s going on in your body, there is enough knowhow. So, had I not gone to a standard mammogram, I would’ve not seen it. And I think a lot of people take these tests either for granted or they don’t fit them into their schedule. You don’t think about getting sick until you do. And I wanted to warn everybody, women and men, do these checkups because they’re there for a reason and it’s lifesaving. It’s not a cliché. And, yeah, in that sense, I found that even if I can convince one woman to take the mammogram or one man to go and check up the prostate when it’s their time, do it. So that was my choice.”
Jansen also talked about NIGHTWISH‘s surprise April 2023 announcement that the band was not going to be playing any live shows for the foreseeable future and would be not be touring in support of the group’s latest studio album, “Yesterwynde”, which arrived in September 2024 via Nuclear Blast. She said: “We have always toured with a hundred percent energy, a hundred percent of us. We give everything we have. You have to be able to keep that up, I think. If it starts to feel like you cannot, hard as it might be, you have to take the decision to not do it. But letting it all go felt way too hard, and we love making music. So that’s when the decision came, ‘Okay, if we can’t guarantee this a hundred percent, then we do not. There is an album in the making. Let’s make the album, let’s release the album, and then we see when the battery is charged.’ I hope tomorrow. I hope next year. That’s not something for anyone to predict, unfortunately… And also, it’s always the same thing. I think for many of us, it’s very nice to also make this step away from the thing that we’ve been doing so intensely. I already notice now about coming back, in a metal festival in a different setting, that I look upon the whole thing differently. And it kind of helps. It brings light to situations. And I think it was a very smart move, and I think we’re all dearly gonna miss it. But it’s exactly that we will need to recharge the batteries.”
Regarding her future plans when it comes to her music career, Floor said: “I’m working on a new album as we speak. So this summer I will do a couple of metal festivals throughout Europe and continue writing. In the fall, I will do a theater tour in the Netherlands, making my show into something really small and theatrical, without actors or something. It’s still a pop show — not ‘theater theater’ but my music in that form. So I think it’s gonna be a very nice challenge. I’ll keep writing, and then the next year a new album will appear that as it starts to feel clearly is gonna be a whole lot heavier than the first. So, that’s coming up.”
On November 18, 2022, Floor revealed that she was “cancer free” after undergoing surgery to have a tumor removed following a breast cancer diagnosis. At the time, she wrote on social media that “the surgery took everything cancerous out and it hasn’t spread!”
When Jansen went public with her diagnosis less than three years ago, she wrote on her social media: “The word cancer is a shocker. All that you found important in life before this diagnosis changes radically within minutes. Now I just want to be healthy again. I want to see my daughter grow into a woman; I want to live! And the scariest part of this diagnosis is that I thought I was healthy! I didn’t feel the cancer, I didn’t know it was there until I, as a 40+ woman, went to a standard mammogram checkup. Something many countries offer, for free even for the lucky ones. Had I not gone there, the tumor would have gone undetected. In a year from now this could have grown much bigger. The thought of that makes me share this story with you. A mammogram is lifesaving! It’s uncomfortable and you might think that you won’t have something in your breasts anyway but GO! And for the men reading this: remind your wife, girlfriend, mother, sister to go and get checked. Even without the luxury I as a western woman experience with free mammogram checkups: GO! Luckily, there are many organizations that offer information about self-detection if you do not have access or funds for a mammogram. If I might inspire you to take good care of yourself, then something good will come out of this cancer diagnosis.”
Floor‘s debut solo album, “Paragon”, arrived in March 2023.
As part of NIGHTWISH, Jansen has landed two No. 1 albums in Finland, and Top Five albums in Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
Born in the Netherlands, Jansen joined her first band, one of the world’s first symphonic metal bands, AFTER FOREVER, when she was only 16 years old. The group went on to release five albums from 2000 to 2007, before they broke up in 2009.
Jansen‘s next band, REVAMP, released two albums in 2010 and 2013, before she joined NIGHTWISH as a full-time member.
NIGHTWISH‘s first album with Jansen as the lead singer was 2015’s “Endless Forms Most Beautiful”, which landed in Top 10s around the world. This was followed by 2020’s “Human. :II: Nature.”, which was also an international success.
Jansen has toured extensively with the band and appeared on three of NIGHTWISH‘s live albums “Showtime, Storytime”, “Vehicle Of Spirit” and “Decades: Live In Buenos Aires”.
In October 2023, Jansen and Van Dahl welcomed their second child, Lucy. Jansen and Van Dahl also have an eight-year-old daughter named Freja, who was born on March 15, 2017.
