Sami Vänskä

Sami Vänskä (born 26 September 1976) is the former bassist of Finnish symphonic-power metal band Nightwish.

Background story

He started playing bass as a private study. He has played in a few bands which have been mostly from the metal genre.

Nattvindens Gråt

He started his career in the band Nattvindens Gråt, with Tuomas Holopainen. He made 2 albums, A Bard's Tale (1995), Chaos Without Theory (1997) and a demo, Dar Svanar Flyger (1995), with them.

Nightwish

He joined Nightwish for their second studio album, Oceanborn. He played on the following tour, on Wishmaster and on the tour afterwards. He also played bass on Over the Hills and Far Away right before Tuomas Holopainen, band leader, song writer and keyboardist, asked the band's manager, Ewo Rytkönen, to tell Vänskä to leave Nightwish, when he felt that the musical differences between the two men were posing a threat to the band. He was soon replaced by session member Marco Hietala, former bassist of Sinergy, who also sings male vocals. Marco Hietala became a fulltime member sometime during the recording of Century Child.

Root Remedy

Vänskä has played in the blues band Root Remedy after leaving Nightwish. He recorded three albums with them, Medication Time With, Root Remedy and The Crawler. He quit the band in 2008 and has not started a new project yet.

Gear

Sami used a natural finish Warwick Corvette and a white Spector bass guitar during his time in Nightwish.

This article about a bass guitarist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e