03) Where’s Jani?
In 2023, Finnish melodic metal masters Insomnium enjoyed considerable success with their new album, Anno 1696, one of the year’s best. They introduced new tracks live at 70000tons of Metal and later embarked on a North American tour with Enslaved. Looking ahead to 2024, just two months before their spring tour with Omnium Gatherum and Wilderun, the band made a significant announcement on Friday (16th): guitarist Jani Liimatainen is no longer with the band.
“Many of you have been asked where Jani Liimatainen is and why there has been no update about his status in the band. The answer is weirdly simple: For a long time we didn’t know where he was and we could not reach him by any means.
The reason why we did not address this situation publicly was that we hadn’t given up hope yet. Obviously, Jani has been a close friend and much-valued member of this band for years. We wanted to allow him to either solve the situation or at least provide a statement to his fans.
Sadly it is now evident that Jani and the rest of Insomnium have different priorities. We have hence agreed to go separate ways and Insomnium will continue as a 4-piece unit here on.
This will not affect any of the following forthcoming live shows: Ville Friman will be joining for the Finnish shows, Brandon Ellis (The Black Dahlia Murder) and Nick Cordle (Omnium Gatherum) have agreed to fill in the second guitar during the forthcoming North American Tour.
We wish Jani all the best in the future and want to thank him for the past years spent with Insomnium.”
Delving deeper into the matter, it appears Insomnium had been sharing the stage with Cordle over the last few months, and the most recent sighting, via social media, with Jani was sixteen weeks ago. Jani’s sudden drop in his own social media activity more or less aligns with the last public appearance on Insomnium’s social media, give or take two weeks. This has ultimately raised concerns, but we respect Jani’s privacy and only wish him the best. We will keep everyone updated.
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