Sonata Arctica
Fly With The Black Swan

14.06.2007

Back in 2001, when I was only beginning my career as a reporter, one of my first interviews was with Tony Kakko of Sonata Arctica. It was surprisingly easy – send a request directly to the man’s e-mail address, get a positive reply nearly the next day and then submit the questions. Around that time I also made my first trip to Wacken Open Air, and one of the first musicians I met there was once again Tony Kakko. Back in those days, Sonata Arctica’s first two albums “Ecliptica” (1999) and “Silence” (2001) didn’t mean as much to me as they do now, for me it was just another excellent power metal band from Finland. But when I really got into the essence of those songs and realized how many meanings and feelings they contain, Tony was already out of my reach. But there’s (nearly) always a second chance, and finally, on the occasion of the release of the band’s fifth album “Unia” I got Tony on the phone. Unfortunately, the new record, in my opinion, is not nearly as good as the masterpieces I mentioned above, but well, maybe it will again take me a few years to figure out its real meaning?

I cannot but ask you about Wacken Open Air 2001. Do you still remember that festival, and what impression do you have about your performance there?

It was our first time at Wacken Open Air and our first experience in playing to such a big crowd. We were very nervous before the show, and after the show it was like a huge weight had been lifted from our shoulders. But it was fun.

It’s been six years since that time, and for me now it’s the third webzine I’m working with. But the core of Sonata Arctica has been the same four people. How do you manage to stay together for so long? Do you ever have any arguments in the band?

Of course! A band is like a family, you sometimes have little fights, but when the fight is over, the air is much better, it’s cleaner. It’s good to have a fight sometimes. But it’s never been anything serious, we’re like brothers, and brothers need to have some arguments every now and then. And we’re spending a lot of time on the bus together, and don’t see other people that much, so it’s like the same faces all the time. Sometimes it’s a bit annoying, but that’s life.

As far as I understand, for “Unia” every musician recorded his parts at home. Why did you decide to work this way? Do you dislike studio environment and prefer to work on your own?

Well, the drums were recorded in a studio, it was Tico-Tico Studio in Kemi, Finland. I recorded all my vocals at home, it’s easier, because I can work any time I want it, and I played most of the keyboards on the album myself, by the way. It’s just so much easier to do it at home – when I come up with a great idea, I can start recording it immediately without asking anybody to wake up. (laughs) Henrik (Klingenberg) recorded his keyboard parts at home, too, but we used quite a lot of real studios as well. Jani (Liimatainen) recorded his guitars in Helsinki at Sonic Pump Studios, Henrik also used a real Hammond organ, and his friend’s got a really good studio nearby Kokkola, his home town, he’s got 100 organs there. Also we have real strings on one song, “Good Enough Is Good Enough”, which is the last track on the album, and those were recorded in a real studio, too. This is a slightly bigger project in every way than the previous albums.

The new album has a Finnish name, but there’s not a single song in the Finnish language. What is the reason for giving the album such an intriguing title?

The original title I had in mind was in English and it was longer. I noticed around Christmas that people would get a kind of double meaning out of that title, it would be twisted into something completely wrong. It’s pretty much the same as with the word “gay” in the English language, its main meaning nowadays is “homosexual”, but the original meaning is, of course, “happy.” I had a kind of similar thing with the title, so I had to change it. But on the other hand, some of the graphics for the booklet were already done, and we had no time to redo them totally. The only way out for me was to find a name that would still justify and work with the graphics. The Finnish word “unia”, which is the plural of “uni”, which means “a dream” in English, was the best idea I could come up with. I figured out, “Hey, it’s a Finnish product, and it doesn’t really mean anything to anybody other than the Finnish people, it’s a kind of exotic thing outside Finland. It’s short and it’s different from the other ones we had before.”

For the previous two albums, you wrote most the material very quickly, in a month or two. What was the reason for such a rush? I guess it’s a very big stress when you have to compose 10 songs in 60 days…

Yes, it was a huge stress back then. (laughs) The only reason for that was that the touring went really quickly, and we had already reserved the time in the studio, so I had to start writing and write all the songs really quickly. I’m one of those persons who need some kind of deadline, when I’m working. When I was in school, I used to read all the materials I needed to get ready for a test one night before the test. (laughs) I’m really that kind of person. But as to “Unia”, I wrote it for a long time. I started writing already when we were touring with the “Reckoning Night” album (2004). We had the last show at the end of August 2006, it was the gig number 160 of that tour, and I had most of the songs already finished at that time. When we started rehearsing in October, we just practiced the songs together with the band, which was something we hadn’t done in a long time. I think I only finalized some of the songwriting things in the studio, it was a really stress-free thing. This also made it possible to concentrate on other things such as arranging the choir and the strings and other extra things on the album. It’s a much better way of working. I don’t recommend this rush writing to anybody.

Can you tell me a story about you and Henrik writing and recording a song for the “Revolver” magazine in just two hours during the latest promo trip to the U.S.?

(laughs) It was fun. We actually did that even quicker than in two hours. We arrived at their office, I had come up with the title for the song the previous day, and it was “The Best Song Ever”. (everybody laughs) We went there, they had guitars and bass there, we just watched them for a while, and I said, “Do you have a keyboard?” (laughs) We’re two keyboard players, we play it better than bass or guitar. They brought us keyboards, and we started writing, but Henkka actually also played guitars and bass. We played around for 45 minutes first and then started writing the song. The whole thing from the first recordings to the mastering took less than an hour.

Oh my God! Unbelievable…

But the song only lasts for one minute! However, it has everything that a real song needs – a verse, a chorus, a solo, everything. (laughs) But you should have been there to understand that. The rest of the guys in the band were wondering what’s so funny about this. But for myself it’s a lot of fun. The song is one minute long, and I sang three tracks – harmony and everything – in about four minutes. It was a real rush.

Some of the songs on “Unia” were originally written for the Finnish TV show “Idols”. How did you get involved in this show? And what do you think of such contests in general?

We first got in touch with “Idols” a year ago, when this “Idols” star, Agnes Pihlava, I think she was third or fourth in the competition, sang “Tallulah” from our “Silence” album, and it became a huge hit in Finland. It’s everywhere now, people sing it at karaoke and everything, so I was really happy about it. Agnes is a huge Sonata Arctica fan, and she did a great promotion for us by singing this song, there were about 1.4 million people watching the show. Then the label that is taking care of the “Idols” thing asked if it was possible for me to write a song for her album. I was like, “Yeah, I’m gonna try that.” I wrote a song the same night, and that song happened to be “Paid In Full.” (laughs) It was too good to be given to someone else, I wanted to record it with Sonata Arctica, and I wrote a different song for Agnes. This year, the guy who sang “Full Moon” at the finals (Ari Koivunen) won the whole thing, so again it’s huge publicity for us. Speaking about the show in general, I think it’s good for really talented artists, it’s a chance to start a career. But sometimes there is a lot of not so talented people in that competition, they record an album, and then little children take the money of their parents (laughs) and buy their CDs. It’s a little questionable sometimes, it’s a kind of business that labels are doing with this thing. But I think Agnes was really good, and she can really have a career. And Ari Koivunen, who won this year, is a real heavy metal singer, I think he’s got a great future. He only gotta keep this thing together now, and it’s hard, because he’s already a big star in Finland.

Your guitar player Jani wrote one song for “Reckoning Night” (“My Selene”). Was he involved in the songwriting this time?

No, he wasn’t he. He didn’t have the time to do that. He’s actually been writing for some other project, his own thing, and the songs I’ve heard from him are quite different, they don’t really fit the style of Sonata Arctica.

What’s the story with Jani having to stay at home for part of your upcoming European tour due to “civic duties”? In Russia you go to the military or opt for alternative civil service when you’re 18 years old or something, but Jani is 27 already…

In Finland you have to do that between 18 and 28 or 29, so you can postpone it for a while. And Jani just hit the wall (laughs), he postponed and postponed it again and again, and now there’s no chance for him to deny it anymore. He has to take care of that thing now, and at the moment we don’t know how long he will stay away. But he gave us no other option then to hire a replacement guitar player until he’s back in business. I hope people will welcome Elias Viljanen, the replacement guitar player, when they see the show, he’s a really talented guy.

It’s easy to notice that the new record is very different from the previous ones. Do you view it as a sort of experiment, or is it the direction you’re planning to take Sonata Arctica along in the future?

I hope we can do this kind of thing in the future. (laughs) For me this is truly the most mature thing we’ve done this far. It differs greatly from the earlier things, and we may open new doors and got new opportunities with this album, but we may also close some windows. Some old fans who are waiting for a straightforward double bass heavy metal kind of thing may not like the album, but well, you can’t win in this situation no mater what you do. If we had done the same type of album as we did before, there would have been people complaining about it anyway. This album was a really pleasant thing to do. In the past I used to write especially for Sonata Arctica, but the things I did for “Idols” kind of taught me to write without this burden of Sonata Arctica on my shoulders, and it was such a liberating feeling. I had so much fun writing because I didn’t feel I have to do songs in a certain way, I did everything the way I wanted, not in the way it has to be done.

As far as I understand, you’re getting tired of ultra fast songs that you had in multitude on early records. Does it mean that you will rearrange some of them for upcoming live shows?

No, no, the old songs will stay the way they are, absolutely. The whole of Sonata Arctica is built on that, and we will play the old songs on tour the way they are. (laughs) It’s really weird – on the previous two albums I would write six or seven songs and then notice that we were not having any of this fast stuff for the record, so I have to start writing them. I needed to write them, because having no material of this kind made me feel uneasy. This time I kind of skipped that part, I wrote what felt good, and I wrote a lot. We had 17 original songs, and that’s an achievement, because for the previous albums we had 10. This shows how much fun I had writing this album.

I’ve seen your live DVD from Japan (“For The Sake Of Revenge”, 2006), and the next question is about that. Does Henrik destroy his keyboard at every show, or was it something special for Japan?

No, that was only at that one show. (laughs) It’s pretty expensive. But the keyboard he broke was a bit out of order already, he could still play it, but some keys were not responding that well anymore. Thus, for the sake of art… (everybody laughs) Some people were actually pretty upset about that, they went like, “Instead of breaking a valuable instrument you could have given it away!” But this keyboard wasn’t really in good shape anymore, and this scene looked good at the show.

Another question about the DVD, this time it’s about its bonus section. Why did you decide to publish such an explicit tour report for the whole world to see? Don’t you think that some fans will be shocked by seeing Sonata Arctica guys totally drunk most of the time?

Well, I didn’t have anything to do with that part, I gave free hands for the guys, because I didn’t have the time to do the editing of the bonus section. And they probably went like, “Hey, let’s include whatever material we shot on the tour.” I was a bit shocked myself as well when I saw this, I can’t recall this drinking competition thing now. What you see there is somehow accurate as far as Henrik and Jani are concerned, they are pretty toasted (laughs) after the shows, they party a lot, but as to Marko (Paasikoski, bass), Tommy (Portimo, drums) and myself, we are not on the shots too much. (cracks) I mostly go to sleep as soon as we have a dinner after the show. This is the last time I’ve let the guys edit the bonus material, I’ll guard it a bit more closely next time. (laughs)

A lot of bands have told me that the vocalist has the hardest time on tour – when everybody else is partying, he has to stay in the hotel and take care of his voice. Is that also the case with you?

Yeah, absolutely. My body is my instrument, I gotta take care of it. Imagine if you were a guitar player, and someone would go and smash your fingers with some kind of iron bar, and then you wake up with swollen fingers in the morning, and it feels hard to play. The same thing happens to me – if I go partying, drinking and screaming the whole night, my voice will not be in a good shape in the morning. Having enough rest is the most important part for the singer. And the singer’s also the one to be most affected by various flues and colds. When you’re in a bus for five or six weeks with all the guys, someone gets a flu from somebody somewhere, and it’s supposed to go around in the bus, and then you get it, and nobody else will get really twisted by that but the singer. When you have a running nose and you sneeze a bit, it doesn’t matter if you’re a drummer or a guitar player, it doesn’t change anything, but for me it’s pretty devastating, it can spoil a lot.

Speaking about re-recordings and re-arrangements, why do you decide to re-record “Replica” and “My Land” for the best-of “Collection” (2006)? Are you dissatisfied with the sound on “Ecliptica”?

We wanted to have some sort of extra bonus for this compilation, because we wanted to work  with the old label Spinefarm rather than fight it. We knew that they would release this best-of thing no matter what we would say, and I think it was way too early, we only had four albums out. It was weird but understandable, it’s business, so I thought it’s better to work with them on that CD. I would have liked to record something completely new for them, but it wasn’t possible because of the business things with the new label, so the only chance we had was to re-do something old. We had played “Replica” and “My Land” at most of our shows, I think we had done more shows with them than without them, so we thought, “Hey, let’s do the songs in the studio the way we do them live at the moment.” Of course, I sang the hell of a lot more than I do live (laughs), but it was fun trying out how the songs naturally changed, and how much better or different we can make them. Some people still think and will always think that the originals are better, and, well, of course, they are. You always lose some of the original feeling when you re-do something, and I think we did that as well, but it’s technically much better. We now have a different view on the songs, and I think it’s sugar-topping the cake for those people who have not heard Sonata Arctica before. Maybe it will be easier for them to get into our music with the song that technically sounds much better than the original.

And what made you cover “Out In The Fields” by Gary Moore for the “Paid In Full” single? In Russia, Gary is mostly known as the blues guitar player, but Nightwish and now Sonata Arctica seem to be more fascinated with his earlier works, right?

Yeah, in the 1980s he was a rock star, and then he turned into blues. (laughs) He’s got really great rock tunes such as “Over The Hills And Far Away”, it’s the best rock song ever, in my opinion. Nightwish did it, and some other bands did it as well, and there are many bands that recorded “Out In The Fields” as well, but we like the song, and it’s fairly easy to record, there’s nothing really complicated about it. We needed some kind of bonus material for the single, and we thought, “The song is pretty good, let’s do it!”

The cover of the album “Reckoning Night” is obviously based on the song “White Pearl, Black Oceans”. But whose idea was to make two covers and put the second variant in the center of the booklet?

It was my idea. We had many different options for the cover and tried out different colors and styles. I liked two versions most of all, both of them are my favorites. If I had really done what I wanted to do, I would have put the version that we have inside the booklet on the front cover instead of the one that’s actually there. But well, we thought it would be something original, people could turn the booklet around and switch positions.

What inspired you to write “White Pearl, Black Oceans”? Was it any book or movie?

Around that time there were movies like “Master And Commander” and “Pirates Of The Caribbean” out. I had seen those movies, and those were an inspiration for me, I think.

I sometimes see people on the Internet calling Sonata Arctica something like “happy metal,” and I am surprised every time, because songs like “My Land” or “Last Drop Falls” are anything but happy. At the same time, many bands who, in my opinion, write dark music, don’t consider themselves dark at all. But what reaction do you have when you listen to your own songs? Do they make you happy? Or do they make you cry?

They make me happy, but not in the way that I’d call it “happy metal”, because the lyrical content is something else rather than happy. And I think why some really dark bands don’t consider themselves being really dark because the lyrical content might be some kind of humorous. People don’t always hear the music in the same way as the artists do. I don’t really mind if we’re called “happy metal” (laughs), but we’re not that at all.

Is there any song you’re most proud of, lyrically-wise? And what is your favorite song on the new album?

(sighs) It’s difficult to say what my favorite song is, but if I had to listen to one song from the new album right now, I would listen to “Fly With The Black Swan”. And what is the song I’m most proud of? This question is really difficult, because there are so many of them. Maybe it’s “My Dream’s But A Drop Of Fuel For A Nightmare”, this is a really theatrical piece, and I had a lot of work to do on that, so I’m proud that I actually finished it.

Now a traditional question. “Unia” is your second album on Nuclear Blast, and what are your impressions from working with this label? How did “Reckoning Night” sell as compared to the previous albums?

I think “Reckoning Night” is our best-selling album thus far. Not like by far (laughs), but anyway, it has sold at least the same amount as the previous albums have done. It’s not a huge step sales-wise, but Nuclear Blast are a really good label, and I enjoy being part of them. They are fans of music, they have great resources, and they can do pretty much anything – see Nightwish. Many labels could have done great things with Nightwish, but at least Nuclear Blast didn’t blow it. (laughs)

Sonata Arctica is probably the only famous Finnish band that has never played in Russia. What prevents you from visiting our country?

Eh, I don’t really know. We have tried to come there many times, but something always goes wrong, something happens, and we just have to cancel the whole thing, or our management has to cancel the whole thing. Now, once again we have plans to come to St. Petersburg and Moscow…

Really? Can you recall the date or something?

I can’t remember what the dates are, it might be that they’re not even for this year. But that’s basically the idea we have at the moment. Hopefully it will work this time (laughs), because we have been waiting to play in Russia for far too long. We will play in Iceland and Australia before Russia, and it’s really weird, because we’re living right next to you.

Sonata Artica on the Internet: http://www.sonataarctica.info

Special thanks to Alexei “KIDd” Kuzovlev (Irond Records) for arranging this interview.

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
April 15, 2007
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