Stratovarius
We Never Stopped Trying

07.03.2013

When Timo Tolkki declared Stratovarius disbanded in 2008 there was hardly anybody who wasn’t sure that the story of the Finnish power metallers was over. Such was the importance of the man to the band. Who would have thought that five years later Stratovarius would release its third album without their former mastermind? Let alone that the record would be regarded as arguably the best in many years even by their long-term and the most hardcore fans. A band rarely benefits from its main songwriter’s departure but with Stratovarius we have a great exception to the rule. One can be convinced now that the band has survived and will continue “making people happy” (as their new guitar player Matias Kupiainen says) for quite a long time.
Our interview with Matias centered around the latest album “Nemesis” (it was still upcoming at the time of our conversation), and he proved to be the perfect person to talk about it as he did not only write most of the songs but also produced and mixed the record. Our more-than-an-hour-long conversation also covered other things such as the new drummer, Matias’ attitude towards the comparisons with Tolkki and his expectations for the upcoming European tour. By the way, Stratovarius will play two shows in Russia during this tour. Make sure you don’t miss one!

Hi Matias, how are you?

I’m fine. Actually I’m sitting in the studio practicing for that upcoming European tour.

Is it what you are doing these days?

Yeah, pretty much. It is rehearsing time for us. We are getting prepared for the tour. Basically, we do some promotional work, some interviews, stuff like that. I think Lauri [Porra, bassist] is rocking right now somewhere abroad on a small vacation, and after he returns we’ll go back to the rehearsal room and start building up the whole setup for the tour as a band. When do we start? The first gig is 9th of March (Mathias is one day wrong, the tour is starting March 8 – ed.) and we’ll be touring until late May. It’s really important for us to be prepared for the tour especially this time cause we are touring with this Swedish band, Amaranthe, and we have to kick their asses, you know! We have to be really in the shape.

Do you know the guys from Amaranthe?

Actually I haven’t met them. Jens [Johansson, keyboardist] must know them best of all, of course, 'cause he’s Swedish, and Amaranthe is a Swedish band too. And it seems to me, Rolf [Pilve, new drummer] has met them a few times at some festivals. I’m really waiting for this tour, 'cause it’s always fun to have another band on the same tour bus. There are going to be great parties in the bus when it’s moving. It’s gonna be lots of fun.

As far as I remember your last tour was with Helloween…

Yeah, it was a massive world tour, almost like a one year trip. I think it was a very good choice at the moment, but Timo [Kotipelto, vocalist] got really sick. It was in late… No, in early 2011 when the album came out, and he got some really bad bacteria. Basically, Helloween kinda saved our asses and we definitely owe them one. It was fun; we sold lots of tickets and got this kind of venues that we hadn’t played before. I’m happy we did it, and also I think most our fans liked that idea of having a nice power metal package, a kind of European power metal evening. You can even call it a small festival. That’s what we’ll try to achieve with Amaranthe, too.

Do you think it’s better to be on a tour with a big band? In this case you can reach more people at a time?

Yes, definitely, it’s a good thing, especially for a smaller band. It’s a chance to build an audience, gain some more fans, some kind of worldwide fan-club. It’s important especially these days, when the record sales are going down and blah-blah-blah, you know the story. The competition is so harsh nowadays, and fans have to choose which band they are going to see, 'cause there are so many bands touring at the same time. In this circumstances when you deliver a nice package of bands the people become a little bit more interested. Basically they can get more value for their money. Also that is how we try to boost the record sales a little bit. Fans come to the show, and there might be some new people among them who see the band for the very first time. If they like us they might go to a shop and buy a record, which is also, you know, helpful. At the end of the day it’s a business, and I think touring is the most important thing that you can do.

OK, shall we talk about your new album? It’s about 3 days left till the official release date, but the album is already on the Internet…

Yes, it was about a week ago when it leaked. I think it was when the physical copies of the CD came out, so it must be somebody in the stores who did it, I suppose... Nowadays it happens all the time. It’s impossible to get a record out of the Internet and stop people from using torrents, downloading songs and making Youtube videos. Our record label tried to get all those videos off Youtube, and basically there are only 3 days to go till the album is released after which they will not be able to do anything about it cause there will be a lot of people uploading it all the time. It’s a war that you can’t win, so…

It seems the album is very well received both by the fans and the critics. Did you expect this?

Honestly, when you are doing an album you don’t have a clue how it's gonna be. Of course I have to believe in what I’m doing. Especially with this album where I’ve done a lot of the songs, and also mixed and produced the album. It’s only natural I have to stand proud behind the album. But while you're doing a record, if you start thinking, maybe this kind of thing's gonna be successful and maybe we’ll get more audience, or something like that, it’s a really wrong approach. We try to deliver as good music as we can and that’s it. With “Nemesis” I’m very glad that people have taken it so warmly, we have some really nice reviews and it looks like people do like this album. As for me, I need to take a break from the album 'cause I’ve been doing it for like half a year. I’ll not listen to this album maybe for a month or two – and maybe I’ll be able to form my opinion. Of course I like the good stuff over there right now. When you have a baby, of course you love the baby, but you don’t know how the baby's gonna be after a few years, so…

It does take time…

Yes. In a few years I’ll have my opinion whether “Nemesis” is a good album or not. Time will help, yeah.

It was really surprising to hear this sort of music from Stratovarius. The album is quite dark and heavy… Did you intend to do the album like this?

Not really. You know, there was talk that about using some more modern synthesizer sounds or trying some electronic stuff, but there wasn’t any kind of agreement that we’re gonna do it more dark or heavy, create this techno-ish kind of sound, definitely no. I think it came really naturally. It was done in the same way like we did “Polaris” and “Elysium”. Everybody does their own songs at home and when you have a good song and you think it may fit under the Stratovarius title, then you present it to the rest of the band members. Together we decide if it is a good song and it goes to the album or we can use it as a bonus track or something. It’s always a democratic way of decision-making. If we do any kind of “now we do this kind of music only” agreement inside of the band it can affect the way we write music. Everybody has been really free to write any kind of music they like so far.

Now we have three albums released by the new version of Stratovarius, so to speak. All of them are really different. “Polaris” has a great variety of music, “Elysium” is more progressive, and now we have “Nemesis” which is the heaviest of the three. It looks like the band is looking for its own style. Can you say that you’ve already found it?

Yes, I would like to believe we have found it, finally. With “Polaris” there were a lot of open questions, you know. All that stuff was composed with that kind of belief that we’ll never be Stratovarius and we’ll continue as another band or something. When we recorded the album we didn’t have even a record label, we didn’t have anything, but we still did the record with our own money… When the album was ready we listened to it several times and we thought, “OK, it sounds like a Stratovarius album, so maybe we should continue as Stratovarius”. Talking about “Elysium”… Yeah, maybe everybody wanted to do a little bit more progressive music on that record. I don’t know, it was the same thing as with “Nemesis”, it just – you know – happened. We never discussed it before; it was rather a natural evolvement for us.

I think we were a little bit more prepared with “Nemesis”. We had more time to compose the stuff and there were lots of songs to choose from. There was a little bit more time for the production itself, like 4 months in the studio. There was enough time to think, to relax at some point and to think again how to do these songs. There is a creative kind of environment in the studio so that’s where a song takes the final form. All these little things affect what you are doing with the record and it’s the overall atmosphere that is really important.

Back to your original question, of course you have to always develop yourself as a player, as a musician, as a band. It’s important to become a little bit better player, songwriter, whatever, a better man, human being… Of course we are trying to find ourselves. Maybe that is the style that we’re gonna do and the next record will contain the same stuff or – I hope so – a little bit better songs. Or maybe we’ll make a country record, or a folk record, or something like that, you never know. (laughs)

You mentioned that the album is a little bit more modern. What do you mean by that?

I think our arrangements are a little bit more modern than what Stratovarius has done on the previous albums. Also I tried to achieve a little bit more modern sound when mixing the album. The drums are more authentic, there are no samples used on this record. At the same time there is a little bit more violent, really focused sound. Also this time we made a right decision about not using any orchestral stuff that much. Of course there are some massive choir arrangements but this time we left all this symphonic stuff out and replaced it with Jens’s synthesizer, which is more modern kind of sound. While doing the arrangements we tried to get this modern vibe and to figure out some kind of grooves that haven’t been in power metal before. Maybe that is what the modern approach is all about.

Can you tell us about the cover of the album? Where is that spaceship from the previous albums?

Well, the cover was made by the same guy who did the “Polaris” and “Elysium” covers as well. His name is Gyula Havancsák, he’s a Hungarian dude and a brilliant artist. If you have a physical copy of the CD or the vinyl or whatever you can find this thing in the booklet. We call it Polaris Star or Stratovarius Star. It was the first theme for the cover, but we thought it was too dark for main cover, so Gyula made this angel with the fire, and all the bombs falling from the sky, and stuff like that. When we got it ready there wasn’t this star on the cover and we were running out of time. It was a really cool cover so we decided, “OK, we’ll go with this one”, so we put the Star inside the booklet.

Let’s talk about producing the album. It must require not only certain skills but also, you know, some neutrality, objectivity, that kind of things…

Yes, of course. It’s really difficult, especially when we are talking about my own songs. It’s easier when it is someone else’s song. You know immediately what’s wrong with it, but when it comes to your own songs you have to be really critical, really honest to yourself. It’s a fucking ugly feeling. When I’m in the studio I have a lot of hats, you know. I have a producing hat and a recording and an engineering ones. I have different hats for guitarist and for the band member and so on. It’s difficult to decide which hat you are wearing at the moment. It showed very clear with this record. During the first few days we did a soundcheck with Rolf and I tried to be the sound engineer only. After that I switched to the producing mode and started recording and thinking about the arrangements and stuff like that. Well, it’s really difficult, but still I’m happy that the rest of the band believes in me and I have this great opportunity to do this record with them. It’s fucking Stratovarius, so I can’t be happier. Sure, there lies a great responsibility, too. If you fuck up it’s… (laughs) gonna be really important. I think about it a lot, “What if I fuck up, what if I can’t do it, if I can’t deliver the material and meet the deadline”. It’s all about decisions that you make with the producing hat on your head. Sometimes you have to decide something that you don’t like that much, but you have to think about what is the best for the band. It’s a difficult path.

Being now the main songwriter for the band, as well as the producer and everything… Can we call you the new mastermind of Stratovarius?

I don’t like the things being called that way. I’m not the mastermind of Stratovarius. I think it was Tolkki who was definitely the leader of the band. Now we have this democratic approach when basically everyone is the leader. Yeah, I write a lot of songs and of course the band rejects some of them. I feel very lucky to have so many songs on this “Nemesis” album. It’s really important to me. Though it is the same thing with the other guys. Timo has not been that creative, he has only 3 or 4 songs as have Lauri and Jens. If I write 3 songs, too, there would be not too many songs for the album. What it would be like? I try to work for the band, I do the best songs I can so… But I’m not the mastermind behind the band, I’m a band member in the end.

There are a lot of people who say you have outshined Tolkki already. What do you think about these comparisons?

Actually I hate all these comparisons, to me it’s a childish kind of thing. Of course there are people who try to compare things. Is an apple better than an orange? Is Chinese food better than Thai food? It’s all about opinions and everybody has one. It’s like an asshole, everybody has one. If you compare me and Tolkki…. I think he definitely is a great guitar player, but I have a different approach to my playing. It’s the same thing if you compare a jazz pianist and a classical one. And if you think this way, Tolkki did almost 99% of the stuff, he basically built Stratovarius from a scratch, sacrificed everything for this band. Without Tolkki I wouldn’t be here talking on the phone with you, actually. So it’s a really important thing that everybody should remember. If people like to compare they could do it. I respect everyone’s opinion and that’s it.

As far as I can notice you are not that much into writing lyrics, are you?

Yes, I like to write music and I think I’m not so good with lyrics. The most part of the stuff that I write is quite simple. In 99% of the time when doing a song I present it to Timo and he writes most of the lyrics. What I give him is a kind of hook lines that I had in my mind when I was composing the song. Something like (sings) “No one can bring me down” or “Unbreakable”, you know. I always try to have this kind of lyrical approach, not just deliver the music. I always start with this vocal melody line, I try to find that kind of rhythmical approach which comes from the text. When driving to the studio I don’t listen to any music, I try to sing some lines and if I come up with something cool I try to write it down in the studio and think about what kind of harmony there is.

This time, with “Nemesis”, the verses came out of nowhere. Like, “Unbreakable” has a really strong rhythmic thing. It helps me to write a good song when I have this rhythmical thing and there are a few words over there. Then I can think of the overall mood of the song and what kind of text Timo is going to write there. Everything goes hand in hand here.

You said somewhere that this song “Unbreakable” has a personal meaning to you. What did you mean?

Well, I think it was the most difficult song to write, I don’t know why. I was struggling with that one for I don’t know how many weeks or how many months. Though in the end it’s quite a simple song. The lyrical meaning is important to me, too. It’s about the short moments when you have this “fuck, it’s the best moment of my life” feeling. Everybody has this kind of moments and I think completing this song is one of these moments to me. When I got this song… What the fuck, it was a really nice moment listening to this song when it was ready! So it’s a really important song to me. I think it’s really cool, it turned out to be more poppy but at the same time the sound is really heavy.

Do you think lyrics are important for the song?

Yeah, of course. It’s really important to have this nice flowing lyrical thing. Most of the people are listening to the music and the lyrics are, you know, phonetic. So it’s important to have both the right verse phonetically and a nice story. Sometimes writing lyrics is the hardest thing for me. I don’t know why but that’s the way it has always been. Let’s hope l can change it at some point of my life, but you never know.

Obviously you prefer to write songs together with Timo Kotipelto, don’t you? Why don’t you cooperate with other guys?

Well, it’s about how you spend your spare time. I’m working 24/7 basically. If I’m not on tour with the band or doing recording or producing for another band, I’m sitting in the studio practicing guitar playing or maybe writing a song. And the other guys are also doing so many things. Timo is always gigging with this acoustic duo, Jens and Rolf are vey busy also. Lauri, I think, is the busiest guy of the band, he is writing music for these movies and TV series. That takes a lot of time and a lot of efforts…

When you compose a lot of stuff, maybe, the first thing that comes to your mind when you have free time is “let’s make another song for Stratovarius” or stuff like that. Songs should come out really naturally you can’t force them. You can spend many hours sitting in front of the paper or the computer and thinking about the song that you have in your mind. In my case 50% of the days when I try to compose the results are just zero, there is nothing coming out. But sometimes I have like a really creative day when I can write 2 or 3 things. And next day there may be 5 more. And then I decide, “Ok, that is a good idea and that is a good idea, maybe I just combine these ideas and maybe I’ll end up with one ready song”.

You didn’t answer my question, did you?

Ah, of course! Well, I think Timo writes brilliant lyrics. He has also very nice ear for the melody. Sometimes talking the melody with the lead singer is a good idea as you can try out something with his voice and decide what kind of melody is suitable for him. Anyway, he is a musical dude and has really nice ideas of what kind of melodies there should be and stuff like that. I think that’s the main reason. Also Timo is my friend so it’s really nice to hang out with him and maybe drink a few beers and just talk. It always helps to get a few more ideas.

Do you keep in touch with Jorg [Michael, ex-drummer]?

Yeah, of course. After he left Jorg has been organizing gigs and stuff like that. So he’s working in the background and we actually stay in touch almost every day. That’s not like we left Jorg somewhere and never called him. Stratovarius is like a second family to him and he is supporting us. He is really important to us.

I heard he might come to some of your gigs as a guest star or something…

Let’s see how it goes. Maybe that’s gonna happen, maybe not I’m not sure. There was talk that Jorg would come to Russia with us as a tour manager but there hasn’t been a confirmation yet. I can’t promise anything but that would be really fun to have him on the stage playing with us. 

How is it going with Rolf?

Rolf is a really nice guy and he is a fucking genius. He has this nice mellow personality, he’s a great player and he is willing to learn new things. He’s building his chops all the time and he’s getting better and better though he definitely was the best that came to us during this audition. That was the main thing that we were looking for when choosing a new drummer. And of course we wanted to have a Finnish dude so we could practice meanwhile we are not doing tour or recording an album. I think Rolf is doing a marvelous job. Especially what he did with “Nemesis”, it’s fucking brilliant.

For us it was really important to have this kind of more mellow and humble dude instead of that rock’n’roll approach, you know: “Fuck, I’m gonna drink all the fucking vodka backstage and then I’m gonna fucking crash everything” or something like that. We are not that kind of dudes. Of course we like having parties as well, we do a lot of parties, you know, drink beer, but it’s not the main thing. The main thing for us is doing music, making people happy, doing shows, making more people happy and for that we get some salary, so we can live, pay our rent and then we can do more music and make more people happy. If you want to put it in one phrase, it’s “Make people happy”, that’s the thing.

You see, there is a big age gap between some of you guys. Do you have anything in common? Can you still go out and drink beer together or something?

I think the main thing that unites is the music. It is what puts us together, we share this passion towards the music and making music. That’s the biggest thing. Then comes, maybe, drinking beer, having fun and listening to some good music.

The age gap doesn’t mean that much. Of course Rolf is really young but he’s also an extremely talented and intelligent dude. It’s always fun to have this kind of people around. If you are a great player and a brilliant musician, if you have your own opinion about the music and you can discuss this matter, that’s what is important. When I came to the band Timo, Jorg and Jens treated me like an equal and there were no any kind of hierarchy or something. We respect each other, we are all friends.

Now we have this youngster Rolf who gave us the flame, a little bit of punch. He’s such a brilliant player that we have to step up and build our chops and skills to keep the level. That’s how it happens when you have a young dude who is really motivated and willing to learn and to show people, “Fuck, from this moment I’m here”. This puts us in a kind of enthusiastic mode.

This year seems to be a great one for power metal. You did this “Nemesis” album, Helloween have just released their new album which is also very solid, now we are waiting for Gamma Ray and Avantasia. Do you think there is some kind of power metal revival?

Well, it’s hard to say. I can’t predict the future, I can’t tell how the metal music’s gonna be. We have always been trying to deliver as good music as possible, but the market went down after 2000. These were really tough days for all the power metal fans. Now it is starting to raise its head slowly. Maybe it’s gonna come back or maybe not, maybe it’s only a small trend coming and maybe all the power bands will think, “What the fuck, the market is going down, this music is dying, we should do something about it. Maybe we should produce better records”. These bands like Helloween and Gamma Ray have never stopped trying, and neither have we, we never stopped trying. And I hope one day power metal could be as glorious and awesome as it was over 15 years ago.

Is there any album you are personally waiting for this year?

Yes, I’m actually waiting for Timo Tolkki’s album. It is a kind of metal opera with a marvelous guest list with Russel Allen, Tobias Sammet, some really nice singers. Jens Johansson will take part there, too, so I’m really waiting for what Tolkki comes up with. There are some samples on Youtube already which are pretty exciting. You know, I don’t buy records very often, but sometimes my friends tell me, “You should check this album,” and of course I try it. I really hope there will be some nice surprises this year.

As far as I know you are more into a bit more progressive kind of music.

Actually, I listen to very different kinds of music. Lots of really straightforward metal. I think this Testament album that came out last year (“Dark Roots Of Earth”) is a fucking brilliant record. But I do enjoy this complicated music like Dream Theater and stuff like that. At the same time I like to listen to Swedish death metal like Entombed or Dismember, and pop metal, and a lot of classical music. Most of my ideas actually come from classical music. So it’s really important to me to have free days and listen to different classical music. I like both more modern classic and Bach or Beethoven, that kind of thing. There are lots of good melodies over there.

The last question. You are coming to Russia in March and you’ll play here alone, without Amaranthe. This gives you more time to play a lot of new songs.

Of course we’ll have more time, something about 90 minutes and our aim is to play a super long set with a lot of songs from the “Nemesis” album. Definitely we’re gonna play “Unbreakable”, “Halycon Days”. We talked with Timo on the phone these days and agreed that we should also check “Abandon”, “Nemesis”, “If The Story Is Over”, “Fantasy” and “Dragons”. There was talk that we should try “Castles In The Air” by Jens. So there are only two songs out: "Out Of The Fog" and "One Must Fall".  Of course we have to practice them first, to go to the rehearsal room as a whole band and see how they work out. I really hope we can play all of those songs.

But it depends on lot of things, on how Timo is feeling, ‘cause we have to respect him as he’s a lead singer. But let’s see… Last time we were in Russia it was a lot of fun. I was very surprised about how the fans were really welcoming us.

Do you want to leave a message for the Russian funs who are waiting for you?

Yeah, we are coming there and we’ll drink some vodka. (laughs)

Stratovarius on the Internet: http://www.stratovarius.com/

Special thanks to Maxim Bylkin (Soyuz Music) for arranging this interview

Ekaterina Akopova
February 19, 2013
(с) HeadBanger.ru