Floor Jansen | Biography, Albums, Songs, Awards, & Facts

Early Life and Musical Beginnings

Floor Jansen was born on February 21, 1981 in the small town of Goirle in the Netherlands. She had a younger sister named Irene Jansen. Floor’s family moved up frequently due to her father’s work. She struggled to make new friends and was often bullied by classmates. But everything changed when she discovered music. Her father, a musician himself, taught her to play the guitar, and soon, she found herself auditioning for a leading role in the school musical.

From that moment on, she knew that music was her calling. Her love for metal music was not immediate but a gradual process. She initially found the genre too heavy for her taste, but two bands, Pantera and Machine Head, caught her attention for their groovy and melodic qualities.

Joining After Forever and Musical Evolution

Floor was sixteen when she was asked to join After Forever in 1997. Originally, After Forever was a death metal cover band with harsh male vocals that shook the stage. But they were destined for something greater. They found their missing piece when Floor Jansen joined the band as their lead vocalist. Her soprano voice brought a new dimension to their sound, and they shifted towards symphonic gothic metal to emphasize her soaring vocals. With Floor Jansen in the band, Apocalypse transformed into After Forever. She finally found a place where she belonged, and her powerful voice perfectly fit the band. The band recorded their first demo, Ephemeral, which instantly caught the attention of several record labels.

After Forever’s Journey

Despite her success with After Forever, Floor remained dedicated to her studies and attended the Rock Academy in the Netherlands in 1999, where she honed her musical skills and gained valuable experience performing with various bands.

While recording their debut album, Floor Jansen was invited to lend her voice to Ayreon’s “Universal Migrator Part 1: The Dream Sequencer” album by legendary Dutch guitarist Arjen Anthony Lucassen. This marked the beginning of a long-lasting and fruitful collaboration between Floor and Arjen, and it opened up new doors for After Forever.

Floor Jansen’s journey to becoming a successful musician is a testament to the power of hard work and dedication. Despite facing adversity, she never gave up on her dreams and continued to pursue her passion for music. Her story inspires us to follow our dreams and never abandon what we genuinely love.

Their debut album, “Prison of Desire,” was released in 2000, featuring a guest appearance from Sharon den Adel of Within Temptation on the song “Beyond Me”. The album garnered enthusiastic acclaim across Europe, and by year’s end, the band had embraced drummer André Borgman and keyboardist Lando van Gils, who joined their lineup, succeeding former members.

With Floor Jansen leading the way, After Forever was on the brink of a new era of success and musical exploration. Their journey would lead them to collaborate with some of the most legendary names in the music industry, cementing their place in the annals of metal history.

After Forever gained a reputation as a rising star on the Dutch metal scene with the release of their second album, Decipher, in 2001. The album showcased the band’s symphonic metal sound, characterized by live classical instruments and a live choir. 

Despite the positive reception, there were tensions within the band. Founding member and guitarist Mark Jansen had a different vision for the band’s musical direction than the rest. He loved movie soundtracks and classical music that heavily influenced After Forever’s first two albums. His lyrics often explored religious and moral themes. The creative differences eventually led to Jansen leaving the band. He was replaced by Bas Maas, who had previously worked as the band’s guitar technician.

After Forever continued to gain exposure with a European tour supporting Finnish act Nightwish in 2002; despite the challenges they faced, After Forever’s popularity continued to grow, and their music continued to evolve. In October 2003, the EP Exordium was released, serving as an introduction to their upcoming album. The EP featured new songs and covers, with lyrics focusing on modern social issues.

The band’s next album, Invisible Circles, was released in 2004. The concept album dealt with childhood traumas and abuse and introduced progressive metal elements to their music. It also featured a clean male voice, a departure from their previous albums. The album climbed to No. 24 in the Dutch Top 100 musical chart, solidifying their place in the Dutch metal scene.

After Forever had gone through many changes over the years, with several band members coming and going, however, they continued to create music that was loved by their fans.

2005, their fourth album, “Remagine,” was released, but due to André Borgman’s illness, pre-recorded drum tracks were utilized. The album leaned towards a more direct approach than their earlier works, highlighting the band’s distinctive dual vocal style.

Due to the lack of promotion for their albums, the band decided to part ways with Transmission Records in March 2006. They released a compilation of rarities and B-sides titled Mea Culpa before signing with Nuclear Blast Records later that year.

With their new label, After Forever recorded their self-titled fifth and final album in late 2006, featuring guest appearances from Jeff Waters and Doro Pesch. However, the band announced in 2008 that they would take a break to assess the health problems of Sander Gommans, who had been absent for most of the tour supporting the album. By February 2009, the band had decided to call it quits due to a lack of passion.

After the split, the band members pursued their musical projects. Sander Gommans released two albums with his solo project HDK and created Magic-O-Metal, a metal/comic project for children, while Floor Jansen formed the band ReVamp and then became the lead singer for Nightwish. Joost van den Broek collaborated with Gommans and Jansen on their projects and led symphonic/crossover projects.

Bas Maas became a part of the live band backing German hard rock vocalist Doro Pesch, while Borgman and van Gerven ventured into other musical projects. Despite their breakup, the members of After Forever continued to make music and leave their mark on the metal scene

ReVamp and Burnout

On June 16, 2009, Jansen announced the formation of her band. Later that year, she unveiled the name ReVamp, which was officially presented on May 5, 2010. She primarily composed the music and lyrics herself. Joost van den Broek, the keyboardist of After Forever, initially took on a significant part of the music production.

Two albums were released: the self-titled debut album “ReVamp” in 2010 and “Wild Card” in 2013. The album “Wild Card” featured collaborations with numerous guest artists, including former After Forever member Mark Jansen (now a member of Epica), Devin Townsend, Johan van Stratum and Marcela Bovio of Stream of Passion.

Between the two albums, Jansen faced health issues and was diagnosed with burnout, leading to the cancellation of her concert tour in 2011. By the end of 2011, she had partially recovered and performed, among other events, with MaYaN in Brazil. A year later, in October 2012, Nightwish reached out to her to complete their tour as guest vocalists.

New Singer of Nightwish

Following her full integration into Nightwish in 2013, she found it increasingly challenging to allocate enough energy to ReVamp, leading to the band’s dissolution in September 2016.

From October 1, 2012, Jansen replaced Anette Olzon as the vocalist of Nightwish during the Imaginaerum World Tour. According to her account, she was asked over the phone during a family member’s wedding and had 48 hours to learn the setlist before the first performance. On October 9, 2013, it was announced that she would become the permanent new frontwoman of the group. In 2015, Nightwish released the album “Endless Forms Most Beautiful” with Jansen as the lead vocalist. Nightwish’s second studio album featuring Jansen as the frontwoman, “Human. :II: Nature.,” was released in April 2020.

Solo Career and Beyond

Despite Jansen’s global success with Nightwish (including two sold-out shows at AFAS Live in the Netherlands in 2015) and receiving the Buma Rocks Award in 2018 for the most successful Dutch artist abroad, she received little attention from the Dutch music press. She appeared as a guest on the TV program “De tiende van Tijl” in August 2010 and January 2013, performing Puccini arias on both occasions. In March 2016, she reunited with her classmates from the Rock Academy on the TV program “De Reünie.”

In late August 2019, her prominence soared in the Netherlands following her appearance on the television program “Beste Zangers.” Jansen’s standout moment came during a duet with Henk Poort, where they delivered a captivating rendition of “The Phantom of the Opera” from the musical of the same title. Her subsequent solo concerts from January to April 2020 in various Dutch music venues, culminating in a show at AFAS Live, sold out quickly. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the final concert was postponed several times and eventually took place as a seated concert in September 2021. These final shows were recorded, and a short documentary, “The Road to Amsterdam”, was produced. She performed songs from “Beste Zangers” and her repertoire with After Forever, ReVamp, Nightwish, and Northward.

On March 25, 2022, she released her official solo debut single, “Fire,” named NPO Radio 2 TopSong. Later that year, she participated in the German version of “Beste Zangers”: “Sing meinen Song – Das Tauschkonzert.” Also, in 2022, she performed solo with Nightwish on the same day at Pinkpop. She sang the Dutch national anthem at the opening of the Formula 1 race in Zandvoort in September 2022.

Her solo debut album, “Paragon”, was released on March 24, 2023. NPO Radio 2 described it as “an album that will appeal to pop music and metal fans with its mix of influences and powerful vocal performances.” The album received a rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars on the LouderSound website.