Sami Vänskä

Sami Vänskä (born September 26, 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.