Interview

As you're approching the release of "Nemesis", the brand new album of STRATOVARIUS we had some questions. Jens kindly asnwered to my questions...

(After the interview I had the chance to talk to Timo who answered to several questions, you could read this after Jens's interview)


SBM: Hello how are you!?
Jens: Good!

First of all, thank you for the time you’re giving to us. I also would like to wish you a happy new year…

Hey thank you!

Hope everything will be fine.

Till now everything’s really good!

Great! Well we’ll talk about Nemesis, which follows “Elysium”. This last one was received very well by the fans and the journalists. Now that time has passed, what do you think about this album and the work you’ve done on it?

I think that it was a very long process, since 2008 when we thought about this reboot for the band, and at this time I think that everybody knew each other better, knew the main differences. We’ve completely evolved until the point where we have a completely new work in the situation in 2008. But the album “Elysium” was the first one where our guitar player and bass player played on the record, and worked together with the band.
And I think that with “Nemesis”, everybody knew each other even better, it’s a question of getting a little better in work procedures, processes. I think we’re getting better at working together and a little bit better at making albums for the band and of course for people.
They are not so different albums; they come from the same process, we all participate and make music, then we record it and we see what people think. (Laugh).
It sounds very simple, but it’s not quite that simple… The basic idea is simple.

Two years ago you did a nice farewell tour for Jorg Michael. How was this tour going? Some special feelings?

Ah little bit, it was bittersweet. It’s of course very sad; he spent the same time in the band as me: about 16 years or something like that. But it was not as emotional as you might think, because we’ve known for a little while that he was considering for retiring from the band, so it was not a complete surprise, but I think actually that it is one of the best way for someone to leave a band. And when he felt like leaving, all the stuff have been made properly, no bad feelings or whatever because he also considered our feelings at the moment: he said “I’d like to quit, but I want to do that for you guys, I don’t want to leave in the summer right before a long tour”.
It was a really good way to quit. You know, in the history of rock’n roll, how many guys quit or get fired, or band break up, explode on stage, or die. So it was a really good way of leaving.

And have you heard his new band “Devil’s Train”? If yes, what do you think about that?

Well, I think that for him it’s more like a hobby level band, he enjoys it; he’ll do one festival or two, playing basic rock songs, just for fun I think. And if it’s getting very successful I think he would have the same problem, because one of the reasons he left the band was because of his booking agency; and trying to have your own booking company when you’re a full time drummer for a band that goes on tour for many months is very hard. So I think they’ll do a few festivals, they do fun kickass music; I think he does it for fun, completely by passion, and it’s really awesome, it’s cool stuff.

As you said he’s been part of the band for about 16 years, so was it hard for you to find his successor?

A little bit yeah. We were almost in a state of denial and we thought like “Well, maybe he changed his mind…” But he didn’t change and he was not coming back. So yes it took a little while, picking one or two alternatives, considering how it would be, because it’s the kind of decision that we have to make right. It’s not like these systems where a guy joins and if it doesn’t work out it will be somebody else. It has to be, from the beginning a different point of view, we just should take the guy that we should have, that’s that, and he becomes like a full member. But I think we really picked the right guy, because of course playing abilities are important, but personality is important too. If you make somebody a full member, it has to be a good, musically intelligent person and I think we found it in Rolf.

Yeah so it’s a really good thing!

Exactly.

Well now let’s talk about the release, “Nemesis”. The first impression I had when I listened to it was the feeling of discovering a happier side of Stratovarius, some kind of joy and good vibes. Do you agree with that?

Yes I quite agree with that. You know, we’re not really pessimistic, brooding guys and during the history of the band we always tried to cheer people up and don’t make them depressed. And of course every person who would listen to that will have a different feeling for it, and even if it’s called “Nemesis” which is a little bit sinister and dark in a way. But I think most of the materials were written before we called it “Nemesis”. Of course your perception is influenced by the title and the cover, but we didn’t think into negative terms when we made music.

And why “Nemesis”? Is there anything behind the title? Any idea?

Oh no, not really… it’s just a word that sounds like an album title (Laugh)

(Laugh) Well ok… Thinking about what you said about people in the band knowing each other better and better. On this album have you worked a different way during writing or recording?

It’s appreciably the same way as we did before, but I think we have refined the process because everyone knows each other better. I would say the stuff is more refined but the idea is the same.

On the record we can hear lot of great choirs. Is there any reason to this comeback?

I think that, in a way, we’re always experimenting. At the end of the composing process there’s this system where everybody’s driving this on their home to work on it. Then we meet with the other guys to see what should be on the record.

I really love the song “Halcyon Days”, the mixing of speed metal and electro. What’s your favorite song of the album?

Hum… maybe this “Halcyon Days” or something like “If the Story is Over” which is more like traditional folk. I don’t know but, there’s a lot of interesting things on the record: the first song “Abandon” is pretty cool.

After the release you’ll go touring in Europe. What is the next step for Stratovarius in 2013?

Well nothing is on a schedule yet. We planned to go to North America in May but I don’t know if it will happen yet. Besides the summer festivals we’ll see what kind of live we can do, but I don’t know…

And do you have any personal projects beside Stratovarius?

I haven’t so much time for me but there’s a thing I’ve been doing with my brother, which is completely different, it’s not rock, it’s a duet where he plays double bass, like contrabass. Usually he plays drums in the band Hammerfall. We had a break so we have planned to do this piano/contrabass gigs.
We played in local churches, it was interesting but of course it’s really different because in this kind of music, there are no electronic elements or drums, no vocals. But I don’t think there will be other mutual projects. That’s easy here because there are only two people involved, there is no crew or stuff like that, 80 people travelling in the bus, just two people.
Apart from that I don’t think that I have enough time… There’s still a lot of work to be done with the band.

Well I guess we’ve reached the end of the interview. Thanks again for your time. I let you conclude if you want to say something to the French fans. Or fans in general…

Well I hope you’ll like the record we’ve made; we’ll do a lot of gigs, we’ll be in Lyon in the beginning of April. It’s going to be with Amaranthe, a Swedish band and a US band called Seven Kingdoms, with female singers it’s more a traditional power metal. It should be an interesting show.

Can’t wait to be there! Once again thank you so such Jens. I wish you a good day and well, see you in Lyon!

See you there! Bye!

Bye!



As we had some questions for Timo, I had the chance to have few minutes with him. We talked about Stratovarius and his personal projects. Here it is:



Timo: Hi Nicolas how are you!

SBM: Hey what’s up?! How are you?

Oh pretty good! It’s a little cold in this Hard Rock Café but I’m ok!

OK. Thank you for giving me your time. It’s late so I’ll try to do this very quickly.
First question: two years ago you did a farewell tour for Jorg Michael. It is the very first one that Stratovarius have done over the years. How was this tour going for you?

Well we learned it years ago, something like three or four years ago. So it was not a surprise for us. And he didn’t want to stop playing music and he wanted to do it nicely for himself and for the band. There was no drama and of course we’ve been in the same band for almost 18 years so it was a little bit sad but I feel happy for him and he has not really left the band, he’s still booking the shows for us and he’s still a friend of mine. And we’ll see him, if not before our Russian tour, after Russia, he’ll be our tour manager.
Of course this was sad and melancholic, but we enjoyed playing live so it was not a big drama or anything.

Concerning the album “Nemesis”, now that Jorg left the band, have you worked in a different way? In what state of mind have you approached the writing?

I think that the main difference between “Elysium” and “Nemesis” is that, this time, we had more time to do the album, because with “Elysium” we had already booked a tour with Helloween, so we really had to hurry and try to make the album. But this time we had much more time. It was like when Jorg was living in Germany and when he came to Finland, here we have recorded the drum with Rolf; it was like three weeks in the studio before the drum was all set up, and then Rolf tried different things, so it was little differences but not like major differences.

Well I guess we’ve finished with Stratovarius because Jens told me everything. (Laugh)
I have few questions for you.
In the end of 2012 you did an acoustic cover project with Jani Liimatainen. You were covering Stratovarius, Sonata Arctica, Deep Purple etc… How have you chosen the songs and the way to sing it?

The whole album is based on songs we’ve been playing live the last three years or something like that. We’ve been doing a lot of these acoustic shows, and the fans who came there wanted to have the album, this was not our idea. It was not meant to be a commercial album, but when we’ve decided to do the album, we were thinking about what songs could be of the album. When we are playing live, we’re playing lot of ballads, but on the album it can remain two of them, that’s why we left rock songs on the album.
And we’ve decided not to do something special about that, some songs are better when they’re recorded, some songs are better when they’re played live.

And how does it feel to play songs of your own band in this way?

In my opinion, if the song is good then it can be played with one acoustic guitar and one vocal, because it has a proper vocal melody, and I think that with Stratovarius we have good vocal melodies, so it’s not simple but it’s possible to play them with acoustic guitar.
And during this promotional tour we’ve been playing songs acoustically on the radios in Germany, so to me this promotion was a new experiment because there was just keyboard and vocals. But it’s not bad, I just love to sing acoustically but of course I also love to sing with the band but it’s different worlds. When I sing acoustically I have to be careful, I’m not singing too much but I have to sing more than when I sing with the band because there’s only one instrument.
I love it, playing live acoustically, it’s different style, it’s very nice because the fans are close to you and you can have immediate feedback.

As you spent time with Jani, have you spoken about a second “Cain’s Offering” album??

Hum… some people have asked me that, but I don’t know Jani’s plans and I don’t know about Cain’s Offering, but we’ll do something else together, some rock project in the future. We have some songs we’ve been composing but we’ll see on which album this will feature.
Of course Stratovarius is the priority so it will be later, when we’ll have time.

I guess we’ll have to be patient. Well we’ve reached the end, so thank you for this short time, I really appreciate this. I hope we’ll meet in Lyon…

I really want to be in the shows in France, you will see really something special…

Can’t wait to be there! Well I let you conclude, if you want to say something to the fans.

Of course I’m really thankful for the support all over the years, it’s very important for Stratovarius, and this time like I said, I’m looking for the shows. Check out “Nemesis”, I hope you’ll like the album and come to see us playing live; we’ll share some great moments together.
Thank you so much!

Ok thank you Timo! Bye!

Thank man! Bye bye!