Interviews

(Selected parts from the interview)

Dimitris Melidis: Why you decided to use the name of the band as the title of your new album?
Timo Kotipelto: For once again, it was one of the normal ideas of this guy! (e.n.: He means Tolkki, of course) He decided that because it's a new fresh start for the band. This cover (e.n.: he shows me the cover of "Stratovarius") represents a new beginning. The colours are like metal gold and black. In the past our covers used to have a lot of colours. If you look at the cover, then you may already know what kind of music is inside. You know that it's STRATOVARIUS, but also the music is a bit different.

Dimitris: You made an unusual decision by using "Maniac Dance" as a single. It has nothing to do with "Hunting High And Low", or "Eagleheart". How did you come up with this decision?
Timo: Our record label wanted as a single the last song of the album ("United"), but it's too long, about 6 minutes. "Maniac Dance" is a different song for STRATOVARIUS, I also sing more aggressively. It's a very good song, a catchy song and when you start to listen to the album it shows you that it's just metal! Of course it´s a bit risky choice. We could of course have used "Just Carry On", which is a more close to our classic stuff, but we wanted to show to the people that there is something new on STRATOVARIUS. Heavier and darker as well. To me "Maniac Dance" is something between METALLICA's "Black Album" and STRATOVARIUS. The two first songs of "Stratovarius" album are really heavy, aggressive. We also made a video clip for "Maniac Dance".

Dimitris: Yes, I know. With the director that produced "Nemo" of NIGHTWISH and also many mainstream artists like Celine Dion or KORN.
Timo: Yes. And you can found this clip on-line on the STRATOVARIUS Official Website. A 10-minutes rockumentary plus the "Maniac Dance" video will be included in the limited edition of our new CD.

Dimitris: Which is the current condition of Tolkki?
Timo: He is getting better, he is quite active. This mental illness that he has, manic depression, has up and downs. He is becoming up and up, I don't know how high it's going...

Dimitris: Is he working at his studio now?
Timo: He doesn't have studio anymore, he sold the equipment.

(At this point, Jens Johansson enters the room, sits right next to Timo and takes his place in the conversation...)

Dimitris: Why he did that?
Timo: He spent a lot of money for the studio and he couldn't get any money because he couldn't handle it.
Jens Johansson: He owns the studio but he sold the equipment for one company that owns 1/5. It's quite complicated...

Dimitris: Ok, let's now speak about your label. How is your relationship with Sanctuary? Last year's rumours were talking about your label was pushing you to make an album.
Jens: No, no, nothing like that.
Timo: Our relationships are pretty good. We are not METALLICA or BLACK SABBATH and it's nice to have a label that is taking good care of us.

Dimitris: How did the reunion happen? All your fans were waiting to see what's going on and suddenly, one day, we've learnt from your web page that you have reunited.
Timo: I had the same feeling "what the fuck is going on". Finally the breaking point was a year ago, April I think. What do you think?
Jens: When you know someone for 10 years and then he is sick and because of his illness changes to a different character you may forgive him. It's complicated. Timo (Tolkki) had a lot of stress that he couldn't handle it. It's also a chemical issue.

Dimitris: When a guy has a mental illness, you can't accuse him for what he is doing 'cause of his illness.
Jens: The truth is somewhere between. Of course you can't leave him without responsibility for everything he does. He still has some brilliant ideas, that's the problem! (Laughing)

Dimitris: So the things are OK now? We won't wake up one morning and see a statement that you broke up again?
Timo: We can't plan that. We can plan a tour and maybe the next album but we can't plan for the distant future from now. If you are working with somebody who has different brain chemistry and says: "Let's do this and this and this", you can't be sure... The things are a little bit different now. He can decide about the music and he can decide something but now the rest of the band has more power. He has not all the power like in the past. We are a band but he used to decide about everything. If he had said: "Let's go for a 3 months tour in Russia", then all of us agreed and then we were in Russia. So, we used to work this way, but now things are a bit different.

Dimitris: Last October I spoke with Jorg Michael when he came in Greece with SAXON and he told me that some of the drums of the new album were recorded when Tolkki was at the hospital.
Jens: This was April, last year. Tolkki called Jorg for the drums, a nice studio was booked and everything was set up. At that time Tolkki went to the hospital. The studio was there ready and some of the new compositions were pre-recorded in mini-discs, so Jorg listened to them and went with me in the studio and recorded the drums. Then for seven-eight months the drums were not used, Tolkki was in hospital, the vocals were missing but when thinks got better we used these recordings.
Timo: Jens never heard the songs before. I mean, when they recorded the drums there was not guitar or bass. Very easy to record!