Metal Breakdown Daily is one page, every weekday: the episode on the player below and the three stories in print, so you can listen, read, or both. Today’s lead: Floor Jansen leaves Nightwish after fourteen years, ‘in mutual agreement’, five years after Tuomas Holopainen said her leaving would be ‘one hundred percent’ the end of the band. It isn’t. Nightwish say they’ll record a new album in 2027, and Floor’s second solo record, Hytress, is out January 15.
Also today: Sammy Hagar turned 79 this week and told Billboard he would ‘love to bury the hatchet with Alex’ Van Halen, the man who called him ‘a complete idiot’ and hasn’t spoken to him in a quarter of a century. And Steve Harris follows Iron Maiden’s biggest tour by booking British Lion into the Cart & Horses, the 120-capacity East London pub where Maiden played their first show, for six nights at Christmas.
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Scott Penfold opens today’s Metal Breakdown Daily with the promise Tuomas Holopainen made in 2021 and broke this morning, then asks why Sammy Hagar said ‘I’d love to be friends again’ to Billboard instead of to Alex, and finishes with the Iron Maiden founder who’d rather play a pub than a residency. Download the free Loaded Radio App on Apple iOS and Google Play and stream the show now.
Floor Jansen Leaves Nightwish, And Nightwish Keep Going
Nightwish and Floor Jansen announced on October 15 that they have parted ways ‘in mutual agreement’ after fourteen years; the band say they will record a new album in 2027, and Jansen’s solo album Hytress is due January 15.
The band’s statement was short and formal: ‘After careful consideration, we have, in mutual agreement, decided to part ways.’ It framed the split as two sets of ambitions that no longer fit in one band, and called the Jansen years ‘the end of a truly great voyage.’ Jansen’s own post was warmer. ‘Endings create new beginnings, and even though it was a hard decision to make,’ she wrote, she sees ‘a bright musical journey ahead,’ and thanked fans for staying with her ‘through the rollercoasters of life.’
The shape of it is not hard to read. Nightwish haven’t toured since 2022; they said in 2023 they wouldn’t play live for the foreseeable future and didn’t tour Yesterwynde, their 2024 album. Jansen, meanwhile, had a cancer diagnosis in 2022, a second daughter in 2023, and a solo debut, Paragon, closing in on 150 million streams. One side wanted to stay home and write. The other had a career that needed a stage. ‘Mutual’ may be the honest word for once.
What sticks is the promise. In August 2021, after Marko Hietala left, Holopainen said that if Jansen ever went, ‘that’s it, it’s the end of Nightwish. Absolutely, 100%.’ Five years later the band are booking studio time around their thirtieth anniversary, with no singer named. Tarja Turunen went by open letter in 2005, and isn’t coming back. Anette Olzon went mid-tour in 2012. Jansen goes by mutual agreement in 2026, which is at least an upgrade in manners. But three singers, three exits, one songwriter: at some point the common factor isn’t the singers.
Sammy Hagar Wants To Bury The Hatchet With Alex Van Halen
Sammy Hagar, who turned 79 on October 13, told Billboard he would ‘love to bury the hatchet with Alex’ Van Halen and ‘love to be friends again’; Alex has not spoken to him in roughly 25 years and has not responded.
‘If we played music, mo’ better,’ Hagar added, and said that bringing the two Van Halen eras back together ‘might be my future.’ It’s a long way from April 2025, when he told Rolling Stone, ‘I think Al’s angry because I’m out doing it,’ and added, ‘I’m making you money, by the way, Al.’ That exchange was the low point of a feud that has outlived the band.
The hatchet is real. Alex’s 2024 memoir, Brothers, ends in 1984 and gives the Hagar years a single sentence: ‘We had a lot of other singers over the years.’ Asked about Hagar’s Best Of All Worlds tour, with Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani and Kenny Aronoff playing the Van Halen catalogue, Alex said, ‘They’re not doing the band justice,’ and described the band’s magic as ‘Dave, Ed, Mike and me.’ In a Brazilian magazine interview he called Hagar ‘a complete idiot.’ Hagar says he and Eddie made their peace before Eddie died in October 2020. Alex has never picked up the phone, and the legacy fight has only hardened since.
Hagar probably means it. He has also said it to Billboard rather than to Alex, and the man extending the olive branch is the one on tour selling the other man’s songs. Both things can be true, and in the long history of metal feuds they usually are. The sad part is simpler: Alex is the only one left who can decide, and nothing he has said suggests he wants to.
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Steve Harris Takes British Lion Back To The Cart & Horses For Six Nights
Steve Harris’s British Lion will play six shows at the Cart & Horses in Stratford, East London, from December 13 to 18, 2026, with Albion supporting; tickets are £38.50 through britishlionuk.com.
‘We’re really happy to be coming back to the Cart & Horses for six nights in December,’ Harris said. ‘We’ve had some fantastic shows there over the years.’ Albion, the support, is built around two Jethro Tull guitarists, Jack Clark and Joe Parrish-James. British Lion played five Christmas shows at the pub in 2025 and four in 2024, so this is a tradition that keeps growing by one.
He’s underselling the venue. The Cart & Horses is where Iron Maiden played their first show, in June 1976, and dozens more over the next two years, before anyone outside East London knew the name; the pub calls itself the birthplace of Iron Maiden and it has the right. The story of Maiden’s first two albums starts in that room. It holds 120 people.
Harris is 70. He has just finished the biggest tour of a catalogue that fills stadiums on four continents, and he’s spending December in a room smaller than his stage. That isn’t nostalgia. That’s a man who still likes playing bass more than he likes being famous for it. Given the choice between that and a Las Vegas residency, take that every time.
The Take: A Band Belongs To Whoever Keeps Showing Up
Three stories about the same question: what is a band, once the people change?
Nightwish say the band is the songs and the songwriter, and a third singer can carry them. Sammy Hagar says Van Halen without the brothers and the singers at peace is incomplete, and he’s the one trying to complete it. Steve Harris says Iron Maiden is a thing you can leave at Wembley while you go and be a bass player in a pub.
Here’s the counter-argument, and it’s a good one. Fans don’t buy songs, they buy people. Nightwish fans bought Floor, and the band took years to recover the audience it lost when Tarja left. Van Halen fans buy a brotherhood, which is why Alex’s book sold and Sammy’s tour draws. Maiden fans buy Bruce and Steve and the other four, not a discography. Change the people and the thing isn’t the thing. The great frontmen are proof: nobody replaced any of them.
The counter-argument is right about the fans and wrong about the band. A band belongs to whoever keeps showing up to make it. Tuomas keeps showing up, so Nightwish continues, and he gets to break his own promise about it. Alex doesn’t show up, so Van Halen is over, whatever Sammy wants. And Steve Harris has shown up every year for fifty years, including to a pub in Stratford in December. That’s the whole definition. The band is the people who still want to play. Everyone else is the audience, and the audience doesn’t get a vote.
TL;DR
- Floor Jansen and Nightwish have parted ways ‘in mutual agreement’ after fourteen years; Nightwish will record a new album in 2027 with no singer named, and Jansen’s second solo album Hytress is out January 15.
- Sammy Hagar, 79 this week, told Billboard he’d ‘love to bury the hatchet with Alex’ Van Halen; Alex, who called him ‘a complete idiot’ and hasn’t spoken to him in about 25 years, hasn’t responded.
- Steve Harris’s British Lion play six nights at the Cart & Horses in Stratford, December 13–18, the 120-capacity pub where Iron Maiden played their first show in 1976.
- The Take: a band belongs to whoever keeps showing up to make it, which is why Nightwish continue, Van Halen is over, and Harris is playing a pub.
FAQ
Why did Floor Jansen leave Nightwish?
Nightwish and Floor Jansen said on October 15, 2026 that they had parted ways ‘in mutual agreement’, with each side pursuing goals that no longer fit in one band. Nightwish have not toured since 2022 and did not tour their 2024 album Yesterwynde; Jansen’s solo career, including the album Hytress due January 15, 2027, now takes her full focus.
Who is the new singer of Nightwish?
No replacement has been named. Nightwish say they will go into the studio in 2027 to record a new album around the band’s thirtieth anniversary. Jansen was the band’s third lead singer, after Tarja Turunen (1996–2005) and Anette Olzon (2007–2012).
Are Sammy Hagar and Alex Van Halen friends again?
No. Hagar told Billboard in October 2026 that he would ‘love to bury the hatchet with Alex’ and ‘love to be friends again’, but Alex Van Halen has not responded and has not spoken to Hagar in about 25 years. Alex’s 2024 memoir Brothers largely omits the Hagar era, and he has called Hagar ‘a complete idiot’ in a separate interview.
When is British Lion playing the Cart & Horses?
Steve Harris’s British Lion play the Cart & Horses in Stratford, East London, for six nights from December 13 to 18, 2026. Tickets are £38.50 through britishlionuk.com, with Albion supporting. The 120-capacity pub is where Iron Maiden played their first show in June 1976.
What is The Metal Breakdown Daily?
Metal Breakdown Daily is Loaded Radio’s weekday rock and metal news show, hosted by Scott Penfold: three stories, one opinion, under five minutes. Each episode is published with this one-page article carrying the stories in print, and streams free on the Loaded Radio app for Apple iOS and Google Play.
The Metal Breakdown Daily is Loaded Radio’s weekday rock and metal news show, three stories and one opinion in under five minutes. New episode every weekday on the free Loaded Radio app for Apple iOS and Google Play. Follow Loaded Radio for the stories as they break.
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