AVANTASIA's TOBIAS SAMMET Doesn't 'Get' Bands Who Are 'Wearing Masks' These Days: 'It Looks Almost Like A Masquerade'

In a new interview with Brazil's 92.5 Kiss FM, AVANTASIA frontman Tobias Sammet was asked how much he thinks the "cinematic and artistic production of a show influences the audience experience". He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I grew up with bands like KISS and QUEEN, and also then BON JOVI and DEF LEPPARD doing the in-the-round, in-your-face thing, with a stage in the middle, and starting off with [the DEF LEPPARD song] 'Stage Fright'… It was all big, it was high gloss, it was pyro and it was crazy and it was big hair, big shoulders and big poses. That's the music I grew up with. And I never really understood grunge music, where they were watching their shoes and playing, like, 'Here we are now. Entertain us.' No, no — you entertain us. You people on stage have to entertain people, not entertain us — the audience doesn't have to entertain the band. So I grew up with a completely different approach."

Tobias continued: "I want theatrics. I want a show, I want a spectacle. It can be basic, [like] AC/DC [was] in 1980 or 1979 with Bon Scott — but still it was theatrical. It was a guy dressed up in a schoolboy's uniform showing his bare ass, dancing around like crazy. And then you had Bon Scott with his torn jeans standing there like a rock god. It was still a show. And I think that's what it has to be — it has to be a show. But I don't want the show to get in the way of the music. That's always a fine line, because when I see [QUEEN's] Freddie Mercury, he never gets in the way of the music. He was going on stage. He was being himself. He made the whole world watch him. And that's the way you have to approach it, because it's like going into a lion's cage. As a frontman, you are stepping in front of 10,000 people and you have the biggest spot, and you can only do it if you have confidence and if you present a show and you say, 'Here I am, watch me. I'm doing it for you. I'm doing it for myself. Let's have a great time and put on a show.'"

Sammet added: "What I don't really get, I have to say, is many bands these days are wearing masks and everybody's having blood here, and it looks almost like a masquerade, it looks like carnival. I mean, everybody has to do it the way they wanna do it. KISS wore masks as well, but still it was an amplification of the music, their show. Today, when you open up a metal magazine — there are not so many anymore — but when you open up a metal magazine, it looks like watching a catalog for costumes for live-action roleplay. It's, like, one is a gladiator, one is a wolf, one is a this, that, this, that. Everybody has to know themselves, but I don't want the show to distract from the music… And it has to be balanced…. My creed is always, we wanna put on a show. I wanna be a showman. I go on stage and I don't change. It's not a masquerade. When I wear my top hat and my coat and I go on stage to enchant the people and be a frontman, this is just — my head and my clothes are an extension of my personality. I don't know if a gladiator's helmet or a Viking helmet is an extension of your personality unless you're a bit off to Cuckoo Island. To me, it's just like an extension, and I always wanna find the right balance. I want people to enjoy the music and have the visuals that accompany the music, but not distract from the music."

AVANTASIA's tenth studio album, "Here Be Dragons", was released in February via Napalm Records. The 10-track offering was written and composed in its entirety by Sammet himself, produced and recorded by Sammet together with Sascha Paeth, mixed by Paeth and mastered by Michael Rodenberg. The cover art was once again created by acclaimed British fantasy artist Rodney Matthews.

Photo credit: Kevin Nixon