Most people with an ounce of talent and skill can write a song. If they are lucky, the song they write is good and maybe it turns into a decent album of songs. The same can be said of the voice as an instrument. Anyone can sing. Plenty of people can even sing well. How many people can excel at both equally for over 20 years? It is a pretty short list if I am being honest. The names that come to mind immediately are John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Freddie Mercury, David Gilmour, Alice Cooper, Arjen Anthony Lucassen and Tobias Sammet. Tobi has been the driving force behind both Edguy and Avantasia, making awesome power metal since the mid-90s. I think many people (myself included) would go so far as to call Tobi a genius, especially as a songwriter. Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tobi and even though it was short, he had some really interesting insights about the creative process and what it was like to work with certain musicians.
Tobi: Recording in progress I heard. Hello Eric! It’s Tobi here. How you doing?
Eric: I’m doing well. How are you?
Tobi: I’m fine. I couldn’t do much better! I don’t know if I could do better in general or at all. I’m just saying this much better, just to leave a little room for improvement still. (laughs) No I’m doing fine. Absolutely.
Eric: That’s completely fair. Hey listen, nobody’s perfect you know?
Tobi: (laughs) yeah. Yeah.
Eric: So first of all, I just want to say this is incredible because I have been a fan of Avantasia for a long time. I have physical copies of every album except the last two (i.e. Moonglow and the new album) plus Angel of Babylon and that’s because I haven’t been able to find a copy of Angel of Babylon anywhere. I’m sure if I ordered it from Amazon, I could get it* but I like to just find things. I’m a big proponent of physical media.
*After the interview, I ordered physical copies of Angel of Babylon and the new album as well as Edguy’s Theater of Salvation and Iron Maiden – Fear of the Dark from Amazon.
Tobi: I prefer physical copies absolutely. Of course, it’s very convenient to stream music. I don’t have a streaming plan but I think it’s convenient to have music on your computer and your phone and everywhere but I prefer the physical copy as well. I’m a fan of physical copies when I can [get them]. Kiss just released a box set. It’s going to come out sometime in November I think. It’s Creatures of the Night and I have that record probably in 75 different formats and I’m one of those idiots who ordered even number 79 so I really want to have it. I want to possess things and I want to read the little liner notes of Vinnie Vincent or whoever writes them and I just, I’m crazy and I think that’s the way music should be listened to. I think listening to a new album, especially this. It’s no different with our new album. It’s a trip and it’s a journey. You can set off on that journey much better with all your senses when you hold the book in your hands and you’re reading the lyrics and feeling the paper and you’re smelling the paper, the print, which sometimes smells a bit strange. I have this strange habit of smelling things on books and CDs. Some smell nice and some smell a bit like vomit I have to say and this is no shit. It’s true actually! So anyway, our new book, CD book, whatever combination, it smells quite good. It doesn’t smell like vomit. You have to read the lyrics and you have to watch the pictures and you have to dive in to the whole experience and set off on a journey. That’s the way I want to perceive music.
Eric: That’s completely understandable. I would argue that every Avantasia album is in fact a journey. It’s a musical journey but one could argue that it’s a lyrical journey and that it’s a journey because every Avantasia album has a story, whether it’s the beginning, middle or end. Every album has a story so in that respect, it is a journey.
Tobi: Yeah! Well the new album I have to say is not one big story. It’s more of 11 individual stories or pictures if you like because even though they all belong to one world and it’s a very Gothic novel Victorian feeling that the whole album has and also that everything is placed in one world and speaking one language. I wanted to draw 11 individual pictures with this one and still, it’s a cohesive record and a journey as you put it. I wanted to write individual lyrics and paint individual scenes because I wanted to approach it more like a song cycle, more than sticking to a plot because that gave me the opportunity to put more of myself into each individual song. So you can just take those songs individually, read them, and use them as a trip for escapism but if you read between the lines, there’s a lot of myself going on in there and I also wrote them almost as self-therapy in a way.
Eric: Interesting. Self-therapy huh?
Tobi: Of course. I mean you got nothing else to do and you’re sitting at home and you have this COVID situation and the lockdown and everything and you’re sitting in your studio wondering what you’ve done in the past years. I have to say that as bad as the lockdown was economically for the world and for everybody socially, it had one little good thing about it. That was that I was forced to slow down. In the past, I had a really crazy pace. I had written 19 albums or 18 albums before that new one, within 20 years and I’d done 12 world tours and I organized and managed the bands myself. I had a crazy pace and that left its mark on me mentally and physically. I think that was also something that deep down, I had to get off my chest and process somehow in the lyrics. Here I was, presented with a situation where I was in lockdown and I had nothing to do. All of a sudden, all the pressure came off and I had nothing to do so I looked out the window and I saw the world crumbling down so to speak. So I said okay I might as well just take another year and work on music to keep my head sane and to get things off my chest. In that respect, I think it’s kind of self-therapy.
Eric: That makes perfect sense actually.
Tobi: Yeah! Of course! Not everything I say makes sense but that makes perfect sense! What you want to tell me with this? (Much laughter)
Eric: Listen, nobody said that everything anyone says has to make sense. We all have moments where we’re like “wait. What did I just say? Did that make sense to other people?”
Tobi: You know and sometimes, if I may interrupt you, you’re absolutely right and sometimes, hedonism and not making sense is very [good]. Let’s put it this way, I derive joy from not making sense when making sense is not required. In our lives, growing up is always about trying to be expressively mature and to make sense. I think it’s very immature to make sense when it’s not needed to make sense. This is actually what “Rhyme and Reason” on this record is about. It’s about the joy of not making sense when making sense is not required. Believe me, when you’re a rock musician, making sense is not required. I think 80% of my life it’s not required to make sense (laughs).
Eric: That’s probably a good thing.
Tobi: Yeah. Absolutely! It’s sheer hedonism!
Eric: Yeah. So to me, it’s interesting because when Ghostlights came out, I listened to it and I was like “wow!” It’s everything and then Moonglow came out and I have to say that I did not like it as much. It’s not a bad album at all. I think it’s a very good album. It’s a little different and I know that was part of the point but I did not like it as much. I feel like the new album is somewhere in between those two. It’s got elements from Ghostlights and Mystery of Time but it’s also got that more atmospheric, gothic feel from Moonglow.
Tobi: Yeah. It’s possible. I mean I don’t take offense from not matching anybody’s taste at all.
Eric: No, of course not.
Tobi: It’s absolutely perfectly fine. I know the feeling myself. I don’t like every Kiss or Iron Maiden record in the same way even though I would consider myself a fan. I don’t really know. I don’t overanalyze it too much. It’s really hard for me to say anything about that because I don’t analyze it. Whenever I write an album, I don’t think too much about it. I don’t analyze it. A lot of what I do is based on intuition and just doing what feels right to me in the very moment and it was like that always. There are very few songs that I have written with a certain task or target in mind. Even when I wrote a song like “Lost in Space,” which back then after the first two albums The Metal Opera I and The Metal Opera II, the next single, the big revival of Avantasia is “Lost in Space.” Let’s face it, it’s a song that is as heavy as U2. Back then, I think the word shitstorm was not invented yet.
Eric: (laughs) Probably not.
Tobi: What I generated was pretty much exactly what that word had been invented for later. The thing is, I hadn’t thought about it. I didn’t feel guilty and I still don’t feel guilty to this day. Some people said “oh he’s done that for commercial reasons, he wants to be Bon Jovi” but no. I innocently wrote that song simply for the sinful reason that I liked it. I was guilty of doing what I love and I thought back then, it’s so weird to apologize for doing what you love and analyzing something. Even back then, I had not analyzed a bit of it and I still don’t know why Ghostlights is different to Moonglow and the new album, you feel that it’s right in the middle of those two albums. I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. I haven’t analyzed it but what I do it pretty much always based on intuition. I just do what I love. A lot of people ask me, when you write for Avantasia, do you have a certain mindset or do you have certain limitations or do you say this goes too far. I can’t do it as Avantasia. No! None of it! I just write stuff, I create stuff and it is what it is and I don’t think about it. One criteria that is always most important is does it feel comfortable. Do I like it? Do I feel it is right? If I can say yes to that, then it’s right but I never analyze it.
Now, I would say, 14 years after The Scarecrow, 16 years after we recorded “Lost in Space,” I can tell why some people had problems with it. The funny thing is that now, even amongst the most metal fans of all metal fans, even amongst our first day Heavy Metal, Power Metal, Metal Opera fans, whenever we play that song live, which is funny now, and which in hindsight makes me a bit proud, is that this little U2/Bon Jovi wannabe song is the most celebrated song every night. Even among the people who are wearing their Iron Maiden or Manowar back patches, they go crazy to the song! So I think okay, I’ve won!
Eric: Oh for sure you have. A lot of the “true metal fans” kind of act that way because they feel like they have to but then when you actually get them in a live setting, it’s very different.
Tobi: Yeah! Absolutely! Also, it’s not just a live setting. I think it’s got something to do I think also with age. I’ve met a lot of people throughout the years who said “okay I was a bit harsh on it in the beginning. I get what you mean now.” To be honest, I can admit I’m the same. I mean sometimes when you’re younger it’s more piss and vinegar. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I’m telling the way I think things should be and you’re a bit more offensive about your opinions. I think we are all like that but in the end, as an artist, I think the most honest thing you can give as an artist is to do what you do without analyzing things too much. As long as you put your honesty in there and you give your very best you can give, then you’re innocent. You should get away with it.
Eric: Absolutely. So here’s one of my questions about the new album. You have always had a knack for knowing exactly who you want for a particular song. I know that’s not always the case while you’re writing the song. You have your regulars like Jorn, Michel Kiske, Eric Martin, Bob Catley but you always find new people who have never done Avantasia before that always fit right in and that’s always been so interesting and impressive to me. For Ghostlights you got Marco Hietala from Nightwish. For this album, you got Floor Jansen, who has always been one of my favorites, not from Nightwish but from After Forever. How did that come about? What was it like working with her?
Tobi: You know, I was always aware that Floor had a great voice. We had known each other briefly but for quite a while and that was because of what you just said, that she was the singer for After Forever. After Forever happened to have been moving in the same production circles as Edguy and Avantasia because it was produced by Sascha Paeth. After Forever had been mastered I think by Miro, our keyboard player. They were in the same production circles and I once mentioned to Sascha that Floor has got a great voice and that she kind of I don’t want to say rescued Nightwish but I think she is the best thing that could have happened to Nightwish. She proves how vertasile, vertasile, is that the right word? Vertasile, diverse.
Eric: Versatile.
Tobi: Versatile. Okay. (laughs). I mixed up two consonants but okay. [It shows] how diverse her singing is and vertasile. I learned a new word (laughs).
Anyway, yeah and he said “yeah and she’s also great in studio. She’s great technically, a great singer because he said that during her days with After Forever, it was a pleasure to produce her. So I said Sascha, we should ask Floor to be on this record because she’s got a great voice. We both love her voice so let’s ask her. I asked her and she said yes right away. She said send me the track and I sent her the track “Misplaced Among the Angels,” which had not been written for her specifically. It was a track that had been lying around since the Moonglow days and I thought her voice was perfect for that track. She listened to it and she said “mmm Tobi I’m not sure. It’s probably not exactly my range. My range is a bit higher.” So I said “okay Floor. Don’t bail out on this. Give me a few days. I’m going to write you something else” and I wrote “Kill the Pain Away” specifically with her in mind. It was tailor made for Floor Jansen’s voice or a duet between her and me. I sent her the track and she said “oh that’s perfect.” She recorded it in her own studio and a couple of days or maybe even a few weeks later, she got back to me and said “okay here’s the track. I recorded it and by the way Tobi, you were right on the other one. It fit. I tried it again and it suits my voice really well. It works to my surprise so I’ve recorded both of them. If you’ve got use for it, use it.” I said “Floor, are you serious? Are you kidding? You did an amazing job on this one. Of course I want to use it. It’s amazing.”
So she’s on two tracks that were not planned in the beginning but she delivered an absolutely amazing performance on both tracks. I had known her before we worked together but as I said, it was briefly. She’s lovely though and she’s got a great voice. Absolutely fantastic and she is absolutely the best thing that could have happened to Nightwish. I still stand by that even though I think both singers they had before were amazing but I think Floor is absolutely the best of both worlds.
Eric: Yes. Absolutely. I think that’s why Floor was the perfect choice for Nightwish at this moment.
Tobi: Yeah. Absolutely.
Eric: She can do all of the old Tarja Turunen material but she can also do the newer Annette Olzon material because she’s Floor and she has that range to be able to do both sides.
Tobi: Absolutely. It was really funny because she said “Kill the Pain Away” in essence if you take away the guitars, it’s an 80s pop song and she’s right. It’s an 80s pop song with a Heavy Metal, Symphonic Metal paint in a way. I never analyze it. It is what it is. I never sit down and say okay I’m going to write an 80s pop song with a Symphonic Metal approach but she analyzed it pretty accurately and correctly when she said it’s a pop song but she liked that about it. She said okay I’m going to sing like a pop singer here. She said “in fact, I’m going to put on my spandex, my 80s spandex and sing like a pop singer,” which was really funny and she sang it like a pop sing but very powerful. I don’t think there’s anything bad about pop. I like pop music. A lot of what I do has been inspired by 80s pop. I don’t like contemporary pop music very much I have to admit but in the 80s, you know bands like A-Ha or Cotton Crew or you name it, there’s been some great pop and that song has maybe been inspired by that type of music. Anyway, she did a real great job.
Eric: I agree. I don’t like contemporary pop either but I’m with you. I think there was a lot of excellent pop in the 80s.
Tobi: Absolutely. You know what? I think I really have to go because I have the next interview already. Do you have one last question for me?
Eric: Actually yes I do. As Avantasia, you are always getting other people to guest on what you’re doing but you have done a handful of guest appearances. The one that stuck out to me was your guest appearance for Arjen on Ayeron. What was that like, working with Arjen and being the guest instead of having others guest for you?
Tobi: It was an interesting experience. I had done that before. I was on Magnum’s record and I was working with Bruce Kulick and Eric Singer on the Bruce Kulick solo record. With Arjen, it was different because it was a lot of music. I think I was on 10 tracks and I had one of the main roles of his album. I know Arjen very well and we get along great and I have a lot of respect for Arjen. We’re doing the same thing but at the same time, it’s quite different. We often speak about things, how we do it and how the other one does it so we’re in touch. It was an interesting experience because his music is quite far away from the music that I do. At first, when I got his melodies and harmonies and his demos to sing on it, some of that stuff I got seasick when I was trying to imagine what I was going to do on it. Some of the melodies I had to listen to over and over again to memorize because they were so unusual. This is, I don’t want to say a bad thing about it because it’s high quality and he’s a nice guy and it is great stuff. I have a lot of respect for him as a songwriter, a producer, a musician and a band leader. It’s great stuff and great quality but it was so different from what I was doing.
So that was an interesting experience and I think it was quite a challenge and I think I was quite sweaty after I had sung my parts but I think the result was pretty good and it was a great experience to be part of Arjen’s weird prog rock universe but I say weird in a very positive way. Arjen is a very quirky character, a lovely character, and in the big picture, talking about quirky characters, he belongs to the Moonflower Society just like you do and just like I do. We are all living in this strange little parallel universe based on our musical preferences and we’re all members of this minority that escapes into our own little world at times. I think in that sense, Arjen and I have a lot in common. It was great. He’s a lovely character. I’d do it again anytime.
Eric: Yeah. His music is almost in a different universe than the music you do.
Tobi: Absolutely. Yeah. Hey, I really have to go because I think I’m 5 minutes, no 3 minutes over time. I’m sorry.
Eric: No it’s fine! It’s not your fault!
Tobi: I hope you have everything you need!
Eric: Yeah I mean, I’ll figure something out.
Tobi: Okay that’s great. Thank you for the lovely conversation! Thanks for your questions and thanks for supporting my music. I really appreciate that.
Eric: Absolutely!
Tobi: Thank you very much! Have a wonderful day.
Eric: You too.
Tobi: Thank you! Bye-bye!
