MAL-
Speaking to Toby again, from AVANTASIA.Toby, thanks for taking the time to talk to me tonight.
TOBY-
Thanks for talking to me. Not many want to do that. Thank you. It’s an honour, the pleasure’s, all mine.
MAL-
Anytime you want to call, you know, where I am. A lot’s happened to the world since the last AVANTASIA album. So, explain to me and everyone who cares to listen what you were up to when it all turned to shit, where you were in the middle of a tour? Had you finished a tour? How was the timing for you?
TOBY-
We had just finished a tour, a very successful tour. We were on a wave. Everything was going going better and better for AVANTASIA and I had just begun to built a studio. I had commissioned a company to build a studio in our house or to improve my old studio and we were in the middle of construction work when they said, ‘Oh apparently there’s a virus and it’s dangerous.’ I thought. Yeah, of course, like so so often, but it turned out to be really serious issue and and everything shut down here, and here I was with an expensive new studio, and which I had built to invest in the future and to have a nice working retreat. And I thought, okay, now you’re going to have a nice studio and no business anymore, but it turned out to be a blessing. The studio turned out to be a blessing because when everything fell asleep or or turned to shit as you put it, I had a place to hide away and to focus on what makes me happy and disappear in my own little world, and to encounter my invisible friends, my muses and inspiration and the spectres and spirits that helped me to enter a different world, my own world, and, yeah, the Moonflower Society in a way those characters, and I built a studio where I was on my own with them and, and that helped me. But, of course, it was mentally challenging at least at times definitely but we can’t change that. I’m not a person to complain about things. Things are what they are. You can’t change them anyway so you make the best out of it. I mean it’s difficult with this corona shit to see the positive sides of it because there is hardly any but I have to say if there if there is one positive aspect about it is that for the first time in probably 25 years of a career or 30 years now, I didn’t feel any anybody wanted something from me. I didn’t feel any pressure or any expectations because everybody was busy with their own problems and business and nobody asked me for, ‘Oh, when’s the new AVANTASIA Album comes out? When are you coming to this place? When you come to that place, oh, could you hurry a little bit? What about EDGUY?’ Nobody was bothering me. I was on my own and that kind of helped me to reconnect with pure joy of music I have to say.
MAL-
You would have ended up with a lot more time than you would have had in the past to create new music. Did you overthink it? Did you have to sort of pull back and say ‘Hang on this is too much’, and take a break and maybe come back to it or did you just totally immerse yourself and just keep going with it?
TOBY-
No, I didn’t overthink it. Some people would say, with my mental capacities, there’s absolutely no risk to overthink anything. I didn’t overthink it. Most of what I do is really based on intuition and instinct and I’m not a big thinker. I don’t think that much when I’m creating music. A lot of people ask me. ‘Oh, how did you come up with that? And how did you come up with that? And what’s the concept behind this? What what did you think and what was your intention?’ And most of the time it’s just oh I went in there and I wanted to play music and I had some thoughts of course, about the lyrics, I think a lot. And I have to say, I think a lot, I do think a lot, but when it comes to playing music, I always want to let my intuition and instincts take over and I didn’t overthink anything. I don’t think so.
MAL-
Okay, now, as usual with AVANTASIA albums, the guest list is long and impressive, was all this done remotely with all these people involved or did they come in to your studio? How did it go?
TOBY-
No, it was all done remotely and we had done, we have worked like that before. I think, since the first AVANTASIA album, ‘The Metal Opera’, even then most of the stuff was done remotely. Most of the stff was done in so many different studios. Everybody working on their own or renting out a place in their environment. It was the same here and for obvious reasons because on previous records, I always had. For example, Jorn Lande, or Geoff Tate, they came to our places, and we did it together and recorded everything together and went through the performance and the different passages. But this time for obvious reasons that was not an option. Still, I think AVANTASIA is not one of those projects that you have so many of where, you know, with 20 singers, 15 bass players and 78 guitar players, and everybody working to their own studio. And then it’s put together and released on Frontiers records. There are those projects and many of them are really good I have to say, but I AVANTASIA has always been more of a, I don’t want to say band thing because I don’t know, it could be really a band but it’s it’s more than just one of those anonymous All-Star projects that are just being put together, everybody working remotely, people not knowing each other. I think everybody who’s on that record knows pretty much everybody else who’s on that record and the big advantages, most of us have toured together. I mean, there’s one singer on that record that has not toured with us, that’s Floor Jansen. I think the rest of the people, they know each other, everybody who’s on the record. And that’s a band and family thing, and Floor knows many of us as well, because she’s been in the business forever. And here’s another little thing. She’s part of the family because her previous band AFTER FOREVER. They always used to work in the same studio we were in the same working environment in a way she’s been working with Sascha and with Miro, on many records of her career. So it’s, it’s a small and incestuous world.
MAL-
So, this Friday, we’ve got ‘A Paranormal Evening With The Moon Flower Society’ gracing our presence. You must be excited for that.
TOBY-
Yeah, of course I mean, I think we’ve done a great job and I’m very, very happy with the record, and I would probably be a bit nervous if I had done something that I would not be really convinced of. I am very happy with everything. So yes, I’m excited to finally share it with the world, to Unleash the Beast, but not nervous I have to say.
MAL-
Good answer. I’ll just give you some feedback, favorite track for me is ‘Arabesque’. That’s an epic that one I really like that one. You couldn’t have made any longer could you?
TOBY-
I mean I’ve done longer tracks but is to 10 minutes so I love it as well. I think, in general, most of the songs are little shorter than the average song on previous records. And that was something I did intentionally because in the past I realized especially when doing setlists for live shows, I realized how long our songs are and I thought, maybe it’s good to not beat around the bush and have some real brief tracks that are that hit the nail on the head, and that was a goal of mine. With ‘Arabesque’, it was one of those songs, and this song was a pretty much a leftover, from our ‘Moonglow’ writing session or an arrangement session. Just the lyrics were not there, but on ‘Moonglow’ we already had so many long songs that I put this one on the backburner. Now, with ‘Arabesque’, what I like about this song so much is that the the song takes all the time it needs, and sometimes you need to do that as an artist, even though it is not with the spirit of the times, what reflects the spirit of the times, it sometimes takes three minutes especially the beginning. I think it takes two and a half minutes or something until the vocals start, it’s a very long intro and every marketing specialist would say it’s not a good idea to to release music like that these days. ‘Yeah, fuck you. I don’t care’. It’s like sometimes, you know, if Richard Wagner, if you would have told something like this to Richard Wagner, he would have gone insane and not just Richard Wagner, ask Steve Harris. It’s the same thing. Sometimes you just need to let a song breathe and give it the time and I love to do those things. It’s not really fashionable, it doesn’t really reflect the Zeitgeist I have to say but it is damn important to sometimes do these kinds of things and make a statement and give the song what it needs.
MAL-
I agree 100%. Right when are you taking this on the road?
TOBY-
I don’t know the form of the tour. We’re going to do some touring. We have just confirmed Brazil next spring. I think there’s going to be some more shows in South America. I guess there’s going to be Asia. There is talk about Australia. I have to say, I cannot confirm anything. Don’t know if it’s gonna happen if it’s economically possible because bringing a juggernaut like AVANTASIA over to Australia. I know it’s great to have such a remote island, to be living on such a remote island because the rest of the world can go fuck themselves and you’re doing your own thing which I love, I can absolutely relate to that. Absolutely, but it makes it a bit hard for this weird German to bring his Juggernaut over because it’s so far away. But if it wasn’t so far away, your island would be fucked like every other place in the world so be happy you’re so far away and we try to make it happen, we try to make it happen, and as for Europe, I don’t know. Europe is in dire straits these days, economincallt, politically. With a pandemic, everything is bit difficult over here, so I guess we’re going to do some shows. I’m not sure it’s going to be a tour as it used to be, with 40 shows and or 35 shows back to back. It’s difficult to predict right now. So I don’t really know. I want to play as much as possible with this album because I think the album deserves it and I think that those songs will work great live.
MAL-
Yeah. Have you noticed a bit of a log Jam happening with venues? Because everybody’s been cooped up for a couple of years. Suddenly, the gates are open and every band wants to tour at the same time, so you get venues unavailable. Have you noticed that happening there?
TOBY-
Yeah, I have. But a lot of things are getting cancelled again, which means the logjam is postponed. There’s gonna be another one next year because now, with the numbers of covid going up again, and of course, some of the venues have been closing. All the band’s want to go out and make some money because they have to. It’s like that and pretty much also, what’s been going on for quite a while is that, you know, the big global players in the rock concert business, they’re not just booking shows. They also buying property and they’re buying concert venues and then you either sell your soul to the devil too and you’re part of their family, and their business, and you get great dates, or your little independent donkey shot (is this right?), tilting at windmills, flicking the bird at the system and you have to deal with what’s left. You have to take the crumbs and you get, ‘Oh there’s some Monday, AVANTASIA are you saying, there’s a Monday night in December, 2025, we have it in the lobby of the of the venue, we can set up a little stage, costs you 12,000 an hour’, it is a little bit. Like that. That was an exaggeration but that’s also part of the problem. If it was easy, everybody would do that and that it would be boring.
MAL-
Hey Toby, looking forward to the new album, coming out on Friday, ‘A Paranormal Evening With The Moonflower Society’, best of luck with that. Thanks for chatting to me tonight. And when you go out on the road, hope it’s magnificent for you. Maybe we’ll see you down here again someday soon.
TOBY-
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Thanks for spreading the word, and there’s hope to see you on the road down in Australia.
Darkness descends over the hall, the curtain rises. Dear audience, welcome to the wondrous otherworld of AVANTASIA!
With his ninth album, “A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society“, Tobias Sammet invites you to join him on an enchanted journey into his own version of reality, which is full of fantastic events and encounters.
It is a captivating, deeply magical universe that Tobias Sammet has built over the past two decades. Since his debut “The Metal Opera” (2001), the Peter Pan of international rock and metal has romped between metal, classical and rock, beguiling the biggest festivals around the world with his traveling circus and working with the greatest voices in the metal world including Alice Cooper and Scorpions’ Klaus Meine.
The reward for his passionate work and years on the road: number one in the German album charts for the latest record “Moonglow” (2019), more than three million albums sold, over 250 million streams, sold-out world tours, and a fan base that listens to him live and in front of the home speakers with excitement and enthusiasm. Sometimes Tobias Sammet, also renowned for being singer, producer and songwriter in EDGUY, cannot quite believe it all himself. “My whole life is based on childish ideas and dreams, which amazingly I still get away with,” he says incredulously. “Even after 30 years, music is my favourite, biggest, only hobby. And the fact that I can make a living from it fills me with deep gratitude.”
But of course he also does a lot for it. The construction of a new studio, for example – an investment that proves to be a pandemic stroke of luck in 2020: In his new realm, Sammet could indulge in his art while ignoring the world outside. “I was faced with more time than ever before,” he looks back. “So I was paying as much attention to details and little things as I had in my early years. On the last records, I outsourced certain things to my producer Sascha Paeth, mostly just to save time. However, now I didn’t have to save time. There hasn’t been a record that sounded so much like me.” Tinkering with sounds for nights, writing parts for his duet partners, arranging and singing the choirs himself – on “A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society” Sammet is not only impresario, conductor and musician, he also handles a majority of the vocals, and presents himself at the top of his game.
Thus, a truly powerful, enchanted album was created in his new studio that proves to be equally furious, playful, orchestral, epic and profits from Tobias Sammet’s musical past and upbringing. “I’m a child of the eighties. I grew up with ‘Holy Diver,’ Queen, but also ‘Take On Me.’ Maybe I have given a little more room to my many influences yet the result feels very consistent and coherent.” One thing is for sure: AVANTASIA has never sounded so fresh, so dynamic and refined, so detached from time and space – a perfect union of the young, hot-headed Sammet and the accomplished storyteller of the here and now. Because above all, AVANTASIA is about stories, set in a strange, mythical and unique world. “I have processed many things from my life and tailored them to my fantastic characters. As a result, the songs develop a life of their own that others can identify with,” Sammet says. “Songs are therapeutical for me, so there is always something personal behind the fantastic themes. I want to stimulate the listener’s imagination, but not simply offer bland escapism. AVANTASIA is not a musical where the wizard defeats the evil forest spirit in the seventh song. There’s always more to it.”
The project, which used to be particularly famous for its changing guest singers, has long since become a band, a family. “We even have a joint WhatsApp group where there’s always something going on,” Sammet grins. “We are a conspiratorial bunch, a gang.”
Also on “A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society” a lot of old acquaintances duel with Tobias Sammet in the vocal department: Eric Martin, Michael Kiske, Ronnie Atkins, Geoff Tate or Bob Catley, for example. “I wanted a classic AVANTASIA album, so of course I relied on people who accompany AVANTASIA for a long time. They are also part of this band, thus there is no need to change that all of a sudden.”
Still, of course, there are still voices he has always wanted to work with. On his new album, the contributions from Floor Jansen and Ralf Scheepers make him particulay happy. He had intended the power ballad ‘Misplaced Among the Angels’ for the Nighwish vocalist. “The song was ready and she could well imagine to sing it but was not sure if it would fit her tone”, Sammet details. So, he quickly wrote the rocking, symphonic “Kill The Pain Away” for their duet. “The rest was a matter of days and after she had finished nailing this track, she was more comfortable with “Misplaced Among the Angels”, too, and sang it without further ado. And delivered like a beast!”
As first single, Sammet picked the hard-hitting, galloping “The Wicked Rule The Night”, a perfect choice for vocal tornado Ralf Scheepers. “Nobody on this planet could have sung this song better,” Sammet notes. “I wanted to hit people right away with the first single. Can’t always be about the gummy bear gang in magic land,” he laughs.
From the mystical, driving title track to fragile moments like in “Paper Planes” to the ten-minute closing sensation “Arabesque,” AVANTASIA go all in. And hit the jackpot.
And this ominous Moonflower Society? For Sammet, it symbolises his band: “A moonflower is a creature of the night that blossoms when the world is asleep. For me, it stands on one hand for the weird characters I populate my songs with, and on the other for the weird characters I surround myself with in AVANTASIA.”
