AVANTASIA's TOBIAS SAMMET: 'Heavy Metal And Hard Rock Unite People'

In a recent interview with Brazil's Bate Cabeça, AVANTASIA mastermind Tobias Sammet was asked if it was always his intention to use the project to unite musicians from different nations, having previously featured notable vocalists like Jørn Lande, Michael Kiske, Bob Catley, Dee Snider, Klaus Meine and Sharon Den Adel, plus many others from the global metal/rock scene. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, it's certainly united people from Finland, from Brazil, from America, England and all the people who are on stage with me and in Norway and Denmark and Italy and Canada. Now Tommy [Karevik, KAMELOT singer and current AVANTASIA touring vocalist], he's residing, Tommy Karevik is in Canada.

"It was not meant to be something political," Tobias explained. "In general what I wanna say is that heavy metal and hard rock unites people, because wherever you go, you meet people who are like you, you meet people who share the same values, you meet people who share the same love for music. It doesn't matter if you grew up in Australia or Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, or — I don't know where — in South Africa, it's just we all agree that the 'Turbo' album of JUDAS PRIEST is a great album [laughs] — and things like that. We all agree that our type of music started with [HELLOWEEN's] 'Keeper Of The Seven Keys: Part I' — period; no discussion. We all agree that HELLOWEEN is not spelled with an 'A' and has nothing to do with a holiday. HELLOWEEN is spelled with an 'E' and has to do with German-made power metal. So that's what the whole world agrees on."

Sammet added: "Apart from that, my approach is just not to divide people and not to spread negativity. I wanna spread positivity. My music, personally, is very personal music. It's always been music speaking from my heart as the underdog that I always felt I was as a kid, bullied kid or whatever you have. And I think I spoke on behalf, without intending it, on behalf of other people who feel the same way, who didn't feel too comfortable in the world of the mainstream, of the bold and the beautiful, but who, just like me, felt like, 'I'm living in the shades and I'm probably a bit different to everybody else. And my musical taste is not exactly what is being played on radio. I'm maybe a bit different, but I got a right to be myself.' And that's something, I think, that a lot of people can identify with, and I think that's a very uniting feeling and it comes from the heart."

AVANTASIA's tenth studio album, "Here Be Dragons", was released in February 2025 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.

AVANTASIA's impressive success story has seen nine previous studio albums (including the 2019 offering "Moonglow" that charted at No. 1 in Germany),gold awards, hundreds of millions of streams as well as headline shows at all important metal festivals and worldwide sold-out arena tours with tens of thousands of devoted fans.