TOBIAS SAMMET Says He Tried To Get QUEEN Guitarist To Play On New AVANTASIA Album

A 17-minute audio interview with EDGUY/AVANTASIA frontman Tobias Sammet conducted earlier in the month by Vassil Varbanov of Bulgaria's Tangra Mega Rock is available for download at this location (MP3, 4 MB). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Tangra Mega Rock: Let's jump on AVANTASIA now. HELLOWEEN's bass player Markus Grosskopf, who used to be an important part of the first AVANTASIA releases, is not on board anymore, so...

Tobias: I'm playing bass myself now. Of course I love him — not on a physical basis, ha-ha! Markus is a nice and great guy, and the only reason was that I wanted to play bass myself. There are not many people that I love more than Markus... but of course, I am one of those few people that I love even more than Markus, ha-ha! I'm in love with myself, you know — I'm a heavy metal frontman!

Tangra Mega Rock: At the same time, you've got an impressive line of famous guests on your album, like Alice Cooper, Bob Catley, Jørn Lande, Michael Kiske, Eric Singer, Rudolf Schenker, Kai Hansen... Was the any person you invited to take part in the album that said no?

Tobias: Yeah, there was, however for time reasons. I tried to get Brian May [QUEEN] to play some lead guitars, but the problem is... he's Brian May, you know. He's one of the most important guitar players of all time, so I wanted to get him, but not by approaching him with a demo, so I decided to finish the songs first. So we produced and mixed the album, and then we sent him a song and asked him whether he'd like to play on it. He said, "It's a great song, but at the moment it's a bit bad with my schedule," and we had just one week to get the material back, so it didn't work out. I don't know if he was just bullshitting, but that's what he said.

Tangra Mega Rock: By the way, it's been five years since the former AVANTASIA release, "The Metal Opera Part II". Why did it take you so long to make "The Scarecrow"?

Tobias: Because I didn't plan to make another record at all. I just wanted to do the first two parts, but - as it always gets — some morning you just wake up and have an idea. In my case it wasn't a morning, but during a talk with some friends. They said, "Tobi, why don't you do it again?" I was like, "Because I don't want to. It was so much work and stress and I don't want that again. I've got EDGUY," but they said, "You're stupid! You've got so much experience, you know so many people and you've got enough money to make a really huge production. And you've got Sascha Paeth — a sidekick that everybody would love to have." So I said, "Alright, let's do it!"

Tangra Mega Rock: What are the other guys of EDGUY doing now?

Tobias: They're occupied as well. We'll play a show next Saturday in the Czech Republic, before that we did some other concerts and this huge American tour... Basically I'm working, but it's on and off, you know — sometimes I have to do things and I'm off for three days, then I'm back working with them... We're writing new songs and plan to start rehearsing for the new album early next year. You see, there's no long time gap.

Read the entire interview at this location.