He liked it in the style I wrote, but gave it the typical Devin Townsend treatment. Unfortunately his schedule was so busy that he wasn’t able to work on them, so I sent him some finished vocal lines and asked if they were okay and if he has time to record, if not, I understood. “I was bold enough to pop the question: ‘Would you like to sing on our album?’ But he wanted to work on his own vocal lines. “I sang on his album, so that is why we got in touch,” offers Jansen. Speaking of cool, one Devin Townsend pops up on “The Anatomy of a Nervous Breakdown: Neurasthenia,” lending his imitable and quirky vocal skills to the proceedings. We had a short list of ingredients: the songs should be heavy, louder, versatile and we wanted to have more vocal diversity and then you start to work, but it came out really cool.” “But, the guitar player proved to have very cool ideas, which made this music different. “The goal was to write with the band, but you don’t know if members that can integrate themselves into the writing because the first album wasn’t written with them,” lends Jansen.

The follow-up to the band’s self-titled 2010 effort, Wild Card finds Jansen and crew in a much more comfortable place with each other, and it shows – cuts like “I Can Become” and the three-part “The Anatomy of a Nervous Breakdown” are all progressive workouts that eschew traditional symphonic metal bounds. The point of our discussion was ReVamp’s sophomore album, Wild Card. To prepare me for this whirlwind, I brought certain things over to the Nightwish that made it work.” “Then again, there’s never any guarantee things like this will happen. Jansen’s considerable vocal talents aside, it was her professionalism and dependability (two things that might have been lacking with now-ex Nightwish vocalist Anette Olzon) that made her the obvious choice for one of metal’s most high-profile gigs. Previously known for her work in early 00’s symphonic metal sensations After Forever, Jansen has made a name for herself for guest work with such big names as Ayreon, Devin Townsend, and Mayan, all the while cementing herself as one of the premier female metal vocalists in the world. “Crazy!” She said it herself, but that seems to be the proper adjective to describe the last 12 months for Netherlands-based vocalist Floor Jansen of ReVamp, who went from being sidelined due to illness and exhaustion to symphonic metal’s top pedestal by joining (and bailing out) Nightwish at the last-minute during their 2012 fall North American tour.

Nightwish ever dream keyboard parts