Avantasia
Another Angel Down

19.01.2008

Metal operas can be considered a trend nowadays, but when one of the persons who started it all gets down to business, he is fully authorized to do so. After all it is Tobias Sammet of Edguy, who, by releasing “Avantasia – The Metal Opera” back in 2000 and hitting the charts in most of Europe, paved the way for a huge number of similar fantasy-themed projects featuring a variety of superstar singers. We have yet to hear the third installment of Avantasia, which is called “The Scarecrow” and due in late Janiary, but judging by two EPs called “Lost In Space”, the new metal opera of Herr Sammet is going to be nothing less than spectacular. For me personally Tobias has also been nothing less than an spectacular interview subject. We have made numerous attempts at getting the guy for a little conversation, coming very close once at Wacken Open Air 2004, but the “Napoleon of power metal” mysteriously disappeared at the very last minute, and even the mighty staff of Nuclear Blast Records were unable to find him backstage. This time he did appear on my phone, but... 24 hours earlier than I expected the call. Read on to see the result of so many attempts and such an unexpected success…

A couple of weeks ago you played your third gig in Russia with Edguy. What are your impressions from the latest visit to Moscow?

We’ve been to the city before a few times, so we knew what to expect, and it was great. We feel very comfortable in Moscow, the food is great, and it was like returning to a place that we were quite aware of. I was not so sure it would be like that, because the club we played was different this time, it was a smaller club, but it was packed to the last person. The people were great, they were loud, they were appreciating the show, and we were appreciating the show, so I was really happy with it.

I’ve talked to people who saw you after the show, and they said that Tobias onstage and Tobias backstage are very very different. Would you agree with this opinion? Is for you the live show a game you play?

No, not really. After the show everything is always different, because you have worked for two hours on stage, which takes as much energy as having a football match. You go off, you have all the pressure of the audience screaming at you, and you give everything. Then you cool down, you have a shower, and you get more silent, because all the energy is gone. I don’t think I’m necessarily different, it’s just that I’m a little more silent, because I’ve let all the energy out onstage, so I don’t have it after the show. I don’t know what people were referring to, I don’t know why they thought I was different. I was just a little more introverted, because I wasn’t too energetic after the show.

I’ve always wondered how you pick up songs for your setlists. Many bands start their sets with the first track off their latest record, but you don’t seem to do that. Why did you choose “Catch Of The Century” to begin all your shows on the current tour with?

It’s really hard to say. We thought it was a good first song. The song “Sacrifice” that opens the  album (“Rocket Ride”, 2006) has its mood going up and down – it starts softly, then it gets loud, then it gets soft again, and then loud again. There are too much ups and downs in the mood of the song, and we didn’t want to start a show with that, so we took a song that just goes like, “Ta-dam, ta-dam, here we are!”, to which it is good to go on stage and start to rock.  

You’ve toured quite a lot in support of “Rocket Ride” over the past two years, but still you managed to compose and record a whole album with Avantasia. How do you combine touring and recording? Are you able to compose on the road?

Not really. If you take a closer look at our schedule, you will see that there’s always a few weeks in between when we’re not on the road. Then you can perfectly go to the studio and work on songs. Writing songs – I’m talking about the initial first ideas – is not something you do in a certain specific time. You just go there, you sit at the piano, you have a new idea, and you record it – it can happen anytime. It’s not that I sit down at 8 o’clock and say, “I’m gonna write a song now.” If you have an idea in the middle of the night, you get up, you record it, and in 20 minutes you go back to bed. And when I had the ideas, I went to Sascha Paeth’s studio in Wolfsburg, and we arranged the material together. That didn’t take very long, because the ideas were there. As I said, we were not constantly on the road, we had little breaks now and then in between.

Can you compare the recording process of “The Scarecrow” and the previous two Avantasia albums? What were the main differences and what were the similarities?

I think the similarities are that the material was arranged and rehearsed in a real situation. When we were working on the first Avantasia album, we were in the studio – Henjo Richter (guitar, Gamma Ray), Markus Grosskopf (bass, Helloween), Alex Holzwarth (drums, Rhapsody) and me – and we were arranging the stuff together. This time it was just Sascha and me, but still we were two people sitting there and arranging the stuff – Sascha on the drums and guitar, and me on the bass and keyboards, and then I was singing a little bit to it. That was the similarity. The difference… I don’t know… I was probably more experienced this time, and Sascha took a lot of responsibility for the final result as well. It’s not that he was interfering in the songwriting itself so much, but he was taking responsibility for the organization and supervision of the whole thing. I didn’t have to have all the burden on my shoulders only.

This time you also played bass on the record. Why did you decide to do it? Did you miss playing bass for all these years? (Tobias hasn’t played bass on records in the studio since 1998’s “Vain Glory Opera” – ed.)

No. (laughs) To be quite honest, I didn’t miss it. It was just a very natural thing: I can play bass, I have bass guitars, I buy one every now and then – not very often, but sometimes. I think I have four or five, I don’t know exactly how many I have at the moment. They are spread all over the places – in the studio, in the rehearsal room, I’ve got two here. (laughs) The thing is that I’ve always played a little bass. I didn’t feel like a bass player, I started playing bass because I had to, there was no bass player in Edguy in the beginning. This time I felt like, “It’s my solo album in a way, I can play the instrument, and I can play it quite well, so why shouldn’t I do it?” Of course, if I wouldn’t have played it, I would have invited Markus Grosskopf to do it, because he’s a friend of mine and a very good player. But I’m not a complete idiot on bass, so I said, “OK, why am I not playing it myself this time again?” I don’t wanna play it on stage, actually when we were in Moscow three weeks ago, I played bass on the soundcheck, because our bass player wasn’t there during the soundcheck. Somehow I’ve never unlearned it, I still can do it, but it’s not my favorite instrument.

Apart from the full-length album “The Scarecrow”, you are releasing two mini-albums, “Lost In Space Part 1” and “Lost In Space Part 2”. Will they contain everything you have recorded, or are there leftovers still?

No, there are no leftovers anymore. (laughs) We never really produce leftovers, we produce first-class material or no material at all. We just produced a little too much cool material, so we put that on the two EPs. There is also a demo version of “I Don’t Believe In Your Love”, maybe we will put it as a bonus on the first edition of the album or whatever, but it’s not really that we have songs left over.

There are quite a few cover songs on the two mini-albums. I’ve read Internet forums to find what people think about them, and some fans wonder why you chose to record famous songs such as “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” (by Ultravox), while other didn’t quite understand why you covered a not so famous song – “Ride The Sky” (Lucifer’s Friend). Can you comment on the reason for doing these songs?

“Dancing With Tears In My Eyes”, just like ABBA’s “Lay All Your Love On Me” – I wanted to record those two songs for quite a long time. We did a version of “Hymn” by Ultravox back in 1997 with Edguy, in 1999 we wanted to record “Lay All Your Love On Me”, but we didn’t do it just because at the same time Helloween did it, and we didn’t wanna follow Helloween and do the same thing. Still I had those two songs on my mind for a long time, because I thought they had very gracious melody lines, they had great harmonies and everything that a good bombastic metal song needs, it’s just the guitars that are missing. So I said, “If we had some guitars here, it’s gonna be big, and it’s gonna be huge.”

As to “Ride The Sky”, we were in the studio recording the drums, and Eric Singer (drums) played the video of that song to me. Lucifer’s Friend was a German band with singer John Lawton, who went on to join Uriah Heep, and Eric said that this was the kind of bands that he listened to when he was a kid. Moreover, we found out that this was not only one of Eric’s favorite songs, but it was also co-produced by the guy who own the studio where we were producing Avantasia albums. So we were jamming it, we were just having fun in the studio, and that was the whole reason. We could do it, we had great fun doing it, so we said, “OK, that’s why we got into this business in the first place – to have fun! So why not do it?”

Another very interesting song is Freddie Mercury’s “In My Defense”. What is the story behind doing this track? Very few singers dare to cover Freddie Mercury and get away with it, but in your case it fits to the other tracks very well.

It’s funny that you say that it fits pretty good to the other tracks, because that was the suggestion of Sascha Paeth. I would never be that arrogant to have even the idea of covering Freddie Mercury. (laughs) But the song lyrically fit very well to the rest of the album “The Scarecrow”, it fit to the concept, it had the epic element and the attitude. So I said, “OK, why not cover the song? Let’s hope I can get away with it pretty good.” Like I said, it’s very “devil-may-care” to cover Freddie Mercury. (everybody laughs) It’s a great song, and the original version gives me goose-bumps, it’s like a tribute to Freddie Mercury, if you like so.

The guest list for Avantasia is really impressive, but the biggest name on it is Alice Cooper. How did you manage to get Alice? I guess it was through Eric Singer, right? (Eric is the drummer in the current line-up of the Alice Cooper band – ed.)

Yes, definitely! I was just asking Eric if he could imagine asking Alice, and he could imagine asking Alice, so he asked Alice. (laughs) Alice just did it as a favor to Eric. He was like, “OK, I’m gonna do the track for your friend.” Which was great for me, I was the one who was happy. I wish I could tell you that Alice Cooper is a big Tobias Sammet fan (everybody laughs), but honestly speaking, I think he didn’t even know me. So it was Eric getting in touch with Alice and asking him for me.

And what is the role that Alice is playing on “The Scarecrow”? How much did he contribute, and to how many songs?

Well, he’s contributing to one song, but he’s singing that one song almost alone. It’s a song called “The Toy Master”, and the song has a very eerie, dark and heavy atmosphere. At the first listening session some press people said that this is the best Alice Cooper song he has sung in quite a while. I don’t wanna judge, I’m not in the position to say that, but it makes me proud, because I’m a big Alice Cooper fan, and it seems like I tailored a song that is perfect for him. It’s very eerie, it sounds a bit lunatic, it sounds dangerous and heavy, I really like the song. And I like the way he sings it.

Have you ever been disappointed by any guest musician you have worked with? For example, you expect a lot from somebody, and when he shows up and sings, you don’t like it at all…

(thoughtfully) No… I’m just thinking about it, but… no! I remember a funny thing – Michael Kiske was singing vocals for the song “Lost In Space”, there’s a special version featuring Michael Kiske which is available on iTunes. He sent it to us, we were listening to it, and we thought, “Somehow it sounds pretty fast and a bit high.” And then Sascha and me found out that it was a wrong sampling rate that he was using in the studio. If you pick a wrong sampling rate on your Pro-Tools system, the song is a faster and a little higher than the original version. It’s just slightly, but you can hear it and you cannot use it, you cannot turn it down, because then it doesn’t sound like a human voice anymore. I remember that we felt like, “This is really weird.” We told Michael about it, and he was like, “No, I spent so much time working on this song, I tried to do such a great performance, and now I have to do everything again.” So I think he was disappointed by his own performance (laughs), actually not by the performance itself, but by the technical mistake he made while recording it. Apart from that, I don’t recall any incident where I wasn’t happy. I was happy with everything.

Can you say a few words about the storyline of “The Scarecrow”? All I know about it now is that it’s not a sequel to the previous parts…

No, it’s not a sequel, it’s completely new. It’s a story about a young man, who’s emotionally isolated, because he’s disconnected from his environment in an emotional way. He’s got a distorted sense of perception, if you like so. That’s why the title “The Scarecrow” is chosen – he feels like a scarecrow, he scares other people away, not on purpose, but other people keep away from him. Because he’s so emotionally isolated, and because the love of his life is unrequited, he finds out that he feels cozy and comfortable listening to audio signals. It sounds weird now, but what I’m trying to say is that he learns to communicate and cope with the world around him because of perceiving sounds, different that other people, and developing a love for sounds. Which leads us to the next step - first substitute for love, affection and communication is music, and he develops that talent. In the beginning being a scarecrow, being a fool, being derided by other people, he slowly but surely develops a lot of talent for what he’s doing, and rises on a social ladder. Those people who were laughing at him immediately start praising him as a kind of messiah. While rising socially, he gets closer and closer to the inner depth of the human soul, to the edge of temptation, if you like so.

The story is basically a mixture of the normal artist’s tragedy, Goethe’s “Faust”, and the movie “Edward Scissor Hands”, it’s very emotional and very personal. It’s not typical stuff for a metal opera or for musical, it’s more abstract, it’s not fit into the type corset of pedantry, it’s looser, and each song makes sense on its own as well. I think there’s a lot of things in the story that a lot of people in real life can refer to as well.

You know, after “Rocket Ride” I was really wondering what the next Avantasia was gonna be about, because I couldn’t imagine you doing a fantasy album nowadays…

And you’re right, it’s not a fantasy, but it’s mystic. It’s got a lot of depth, I think it’s a very dark, very tragic and very philosophic story. I’m happy with the concept, it’s pretty heavy stuff, a very tragic “Faust”-type story.

I remember a song called “Out Of Vogue” from the “Rocket Ride” album, where you sing “So out of vogue to lead a way outside your catalogue”. But how “Lost In Space” is in Top 10 of the German charts, which means that you are en vogue now. How do you feel about it?

(laughs) It’s not on purpose, I didn’t choose it. I don’t complain, but I think I’m far from being in vogue. If you would see what is in vogue in Germany, you would not call me in vogue. (everybody laughs) I think it’s just proof that I have a lot of loyal die-hard fans with a good taste in music, but I’m not really what I would call to be in vogue. I’m much too old for being in vogue. (everybody laughs)

A lot of bands, when they become famous, get a lot of problems with being afraid to disappoint their fans, or being able not to surpass their previous albums. Of course, you know that a lot of people love Edguy for funny songs such as “Lavatory Love Machine” and don’t really expect any dark and mystic stuff from you.  Do you feel any pressure like that?

Of course, I know that people expect things, but at the same time, after a while in this business, you learn that you can never please everybody, so you have to do what you feel like. With Edguy, we started as a traditional pomp metal band, and once people got used to our sound, we included a little bit of humor. I mean, we’ve always had some humor in your music, but we increased the humor side a bit and the entertainment factor. And now that people are used to the humor and entertainment side of Edguy, I’m coming with a very sad and dark story. I think it’s funny to be unpredictable. People shall expect quality, but they shall not expect anything specific, because that doesn’t make sense, that makes it boring for everyone of us – the press, the band and the fans as well. And I wanna keep it exciting, do whatever I like to do, so I don’t feel any pressure. You have to be aware that whatever you do, some people will hate it. What you can do is be true to yourself and just go for it.

Avantasia has been announced as one of the headliners of next year’s Wacken Open Air. How are you going to present this material live? Do you hope to get every singer and performer for that show, or will there be some replacements?

I will not bring all the cast onstage, because you can’t go onstage with ten singers and play 12 songs. That means that one singer is gonna show up just for one song and sing one verse. It doesn’t make sense. We’re gonna come up with a lot of people, but it’s not like in a musical, it’s gonna be more of a big epic rock and metal show. We want to keep the epic element, we just don’t want to come up and play an opera onstage. Apart from that, I can’t tell you what people will be onstage with me, I think you will hear and see a lot of people that are on the album, Sascha is gonna be there, I hope Eric is gonna be there, Miro (keyboards) is gonna be there… Let’s see what kind of singers we will have, but I think we’re gonna bring out four or five people that you hear on the record.  

You’ve filmed a video for “Lost In Space”, and I remember that you are quite critical about some of the videos you shot with Egduy. What do you think about this particular video?

Well, I think it doesn’t really make sense, but I don’t know whether it has to make sense. (laughs) I saw the video, and I was thinking, “What is the director trying to tell us?” I was thinking and scratching my head for 2.5 hours, and then I said, “I don’t know what the fuck he is trying to tell us, but it’s looking cool!” (laughs) And that’s the most important thing - there are very strong pictures. I really like the video, it’s a bit artsy, it can be a Bjork video, and I haven’t seen another video like this before. But that’s a good thing

You had a birthday just a few days ago. First of all, I wish you a happy birthday, but we would also like to ask you - do you feel any changes when one more year of your life is over?

I think I’m not the same person that I was 28 years ago, I think my interests and my hobbies were different 28 years ago, but I didn’t wake up in the morning on the 21st of November and said, “My god, my life has completely changed!” (According to the official website of Tobias, he is now 30, not 28 years old, but the man should know better how old is he – ed.) I’m much too busy to think about that. I think I’m in a good physical shape, it’s even better than ever before, I can run quite longer than I could 10 years ago. I feel like a wine – the older I get, the more I’m capable of doing. It’s just that the age takes hair off my forehead and puts more of it on my chest, that’s the only thing that happens with age, but apart from that I’m quite happy! (laughs)

As long as you mentioned hair - when the cover artwork for “Lost In Space Part 1” was posted online, a lot of people were surprised to see you with short hair. Was there any particular reason for having your hair cut that short?

No! A lot of people think I plan everything in advance, but I was just going to the barber, and I said, “What can we do? I haven’t been here for two years. Is there anything we can do?” He said, “What do you want me to do? Just cut the tops off?” I said, “No, cut it all off!” He said, “Are you sure?” I said, “Yeah, let’s try it out! It’s gonna grow again if I don’t like it.” And I liked it. I don’t believe that you lose your voice when cut your hair! (everybody laughs)

Avantasia on the Internet: http://www.tobiassammet.com

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

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
November 27, 2007
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