Interviews

Dimitris: Why you decided to release another live album after the Reckoning Night World Tour?
Henrik:

It was something that we've talked about it a long time ago. We wanted to do a DVD and our last album "Reckoning Night" gave us the chance to do it. We knew from the beginning of the tour that in Japan as always we were going to headline these shows so we chose to record it there to make it look at its best.

Dimitris: The playlist on the DVD is the one that you have played during all the shows of Reckoning Night Tour or you had put some extra songs because you wanted to be included on the DVD?
Henrik: The basic setlist is the same, some songs are different. The setlist was almost the same on all the shows of the Japan Tour, and we put a couple of extra tracks that we haven't played for a while.

Dimitris: It's about one and a half-year since the release of your last studio album "Reckoning Night". How you see "Reckoning Night" now, after all these months?
Henrik: It's always funny, because when you make an album and 1 or 2 years pass by then you know that you should make another one better. But I am pretty happy with the sound of the album and overall I think that this album was really an important step for our career. Several months have passed by and now it's time for us to record a new album.

imitris: What exactly does your new DVD include?
Henrik: It's actually a rockumentary of what happened in Japan. It contains the concert, some footage of us drinking and partying, traditional scenes that you can see in every DVD of this style, biography, discography. Basically, "For The Sake Of Revenge" is a release full of SONATA ARCTICA stuff that is focusing on the concert. In the future we are planning to release a DVD that will include all the story of SONATA ARCTICA where you will find more backstage videos etc.

Dimitris: Which is the current commercial status of the band right now? I know that in Japan you are a very big name, but what is happening to the rest of the world?
Henrik: During the Reckoning Night tour our 3 last studio albums became gold in Finland ("Silence", "Winterheart's Guild" and "Reckoning Night"), new markets are opening for us and we are visit new areas with every new album.

Dimitris: You are the newest member on SONATA ARCTICA family. Tell us the story behind your joining in SONATA ARCTICA.
Henrik: I was studying at the University and one day I entered the Sonata webpage and I saw that they were looking for a new keyboard player and I thought that I had to take my chances. An audition with a lot of drinking followed and after that when I joined the band I didn't really know what to expect, with the tour and all this stuff. The biggest shock came when I lived the life on the road, with all the live shows, meeting new people every day etc. Maybe the first six months were the harder for me.