Ex-STRATOVARIUS Guitarist TIMO TOLKKI Accuses Swedish Band ECLIPSE Of 'Ripping Off' His Song

November 17, 2019

Timo Tolkki has accused the Swedish band ECLIPSE of "ripping off" a song from his post-STRATOVARIUS project REVOLUTION RENAISSANCE.

According to the guitarist, the ECLIPSE track "The Masquerade", which appears on the group's latest album, "Paradigm", is a copy of the song "Revolution Renaissance" from the band he founded after he left STRATOVARIUS in 2008.

"It's a fucking rip-off of 'Revolution Renaissance'," Tolkki said during the first episode of "The Timo Tolkki Podcast", which can be heard exclusively on the Rat Salad Review network (audio below). "It's the fucking same song, man."

He continued: "I belong to the German [German performance rights organization] called GEMA, and Germans are really anal when it comes to copyright infringements. So they do the case. And I'm asking for, like, five hundred thousand euros. So Frontiers [ECLIPSE's record company, which also previously worked with Tolkki] fucked me up pretty bad. And even the lyrics are sort of direct to me… It's my song, man. My lyrics — my song."

Tolkki went on to say that he never borrowed ideas from other artists without acknowledging it openly.

"I copied all the stuff from HELLOWEEN and RAINBOW, but I always gave them credit," he said. "But they never did this."

Both "The Masquerade" and "Revolution Renaissance" can be streamed below.

REVOLUTION RENAISSANCE released three studio albums before disbanding in 2010. At the time, Tolkki said that it had "become impossible to continue the band" due to his "private problems, the lack of interest in REVOLUTION RENAISSANCE shows by the promoters, and the current situation in the music industry that affects to everything, including the production budgets."

ECLIPSE's seventh album, "Paradigm" was released in October. The melodic hard rock quartet is the primary musical vehicle of the prolific Swedish songwriter and producer Erik Martensson, who also comprises half of NORDIC UNION, an ongoing project with PRETTY MAIDS vocalist Ronnie Atkins. In addition, Martensson is one of three core members of the melodic rock/AOR supergroup W.E.T., which also features Jeff Scott Soto (SONS OF APOLLO, TALISMAN) and Robert Sall (WORK OF ART).

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