TOBIAS SAMMET Talks About AVANTASIA, Forthcoming EDGUY Album

Metal Asylum recently conducted an interview with AVANTASIA/EDGUY mainman and composer Tobias Sammet. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal Asylum: What steps have you taken to make "The Scarecrow" [AVANTASIA's latest album] different from "The Metal Opera" parts 1 and 2, since those are similar in sound and style? Because "The Scarecrow" clearly offers more variety and sounds.

Tobias: The answer is I really didn't want to do a copy of parts 1 and 2. Plus, there was a five- or six-year gap between "Part 2" and "The Scarecrow" and of course within that time I was writing and able to gather experience. And the motivation behind this whole thing was the same as when I started AVANTASIA "The Metal Opera Part 1", which was I wanted to release a conceptual project with different singers and musicians that had a huge influence on me. But I didn't want to accept any boundaries and I did not want the success of the past two albums to change what direction this album was going in.

Metal Asylum: After doing AVANTASIA which is more orchestrated, do you see the new EDGUY songs going in a more straight ahead maybe harder direction?

Tobias: It's hard to say, I really don't think the motivation to my writing is to do things to make them deliberately different. I think these first few songs are certainly not as funny as "Rocket Ride". I mean, I like that album but it was maybe too funny and it seems to me now as far as production and performance it's my favorite of EDGUY. But I think the songs were pulling in different directions. Some people had the impression that it was a comedy album and we were a comedy band, which we are not. I think these new songs are really heavy, not in the terms of as fast as possible but great riffs.

Metal Asylum: Would you say they are sounding like "Mysteria" or "Nailed to the Wheel" then?

Tobias: No, maybe "Tears of the Mandrake" — even heavier but anthemic, that's what I want to hear from EDGUY. "Rocket Ride" had many aspects of the '80s, yes, but I think the song "Sacrifice" represented EDGUY in a very good way, and "Rocket Ride" could have been like "Spotlight Kid" from RAINBOW, then you have "The Matrix" which sounds very modern, and then "Wasted Time" which sounds like a FIREHOUSE song, and then "Asylum" which sounds like DIO, and "Catch of the Century" had a weird vibe to that. It was like a "best of the '80s" compilation. But I still love the album but we'll see with these new ones.

Metal Asylum: Michael Kiske (ex-HELLOWEEN) has said in the past that he has tried to remove himself from doing any more metal music. How was his attitude towards doing this project then? Did he enjoy the songs or did he see this as just a paycheck?

Tobias: Well, he certainly didn't do it for free and I certainly didn't ask him to, and he certainly turned down other offers that were really good that he didn't want to do. So I think it's just a matter of what he likes. I just think he just doesn't like some aspects in the metal scene. I had no problems working with him. I think, and this is my impression, that he doesn't like the fact that a lot of metal fans preach freedom of speech, freedom of taste, freedom of being an individual and at the same time they accuse you of commercially selling out as soon as you do something that they personally don't like. I think that's what really pisses him off and what caused him to make certain statements. You have to realize that it's just a few people that have that opinion. He offended like 100% of his fans (laughs) while he should have only addressed his comments to only like three percent of the idiots. [Laughs] But we have a great working and personal relationship and he never said anything to me about not wanting to do hard rock songs anymore.

Read the entire interview at Metal Asylum.