AVANTASIA To Play Next Year's WACKEN OPEN AIR Festival

August 4, 2007

EDGUY frontman Tobias Sammet announced at a press conference at Wacken Open Air earlier today that his solo project AVANTASIA will perform at next year's installment of the festival, set to take place July 31 - August 2, 2008 in Wacken, Germany. Also scheduled to appear are IRON MAIDEN (headliners),CHILDREN OF BODOM and KREATOR.

Drummer Eric Singer (KISS, ALICE COOPER) revealed during a recent interview with rock and roll comic C.C. Banana at the 21st annual NY/NJ Kiss Expo that Alice Cooper has recorded a guest appearance on "The Scarecrow", the third full-length release from AVANTASIA. According to Singer, Michael Schenker (ex-UFO, SCORPIONS) and Michael's brother Rudolf (SCORPIONS) will also appear on the album, which features Eric on drums, Tobias on bass, and former MASTERPLAN/ARK frontman Jorn Lande and Amanda Somerville (the American singer-songwriter and vocal coach who is better known for her collaborations with various European metal bands, including EPICA, AFTER FOREVER and EDGUY) on additional vocals. More guest appearances are expected to be announced soon.

In a recent interview, Sammet described the music on the new AVANTASIA CD as "diversified, pomp metal with some classic rock elements, Classic orchestrated moments and Celtic stuff, a big timeless production and so on and so forth. It's going to consist of many different elements. Bombastic kick-ass music with a lot of heart and depth."

Check out photos from the recording sessions at this location.

The new AVANTASIA album will be a concept album featuring different singers singing different characters in a story. But the concept itself won't be a sequel to the first two AVANTASIA albums.

AVANTASIA's last release was the two-part epic called "The Metal Opera" (issued in 2001 and 2002),which featured an impressive array of guest vocalists playing the various characters of the opera, including Michael Kiske (ex-HELLOWEEN),David DeFeis (VIRGIN STEELE),Sharon Den Adel (WITHIN TEMPTATION),Kai Hansen (GAMMA RAY),André Matos (ANGRA, SHAAMAN),Timo Tolkki (STRATOVARIUS),Rob Rock (WARRIOR),and others.

For more information on AVANTASIA, visit www.avantasia.net.

(Thanks: Markus Rutten / www.sounds2move.de)

Find more on

Prev More News Next

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).