At the start of the 90s, it would have been folly to predict that power metal would be the big thing in the metal world by the end of the decade, yet that's just what happened. One of the bands leading that revolution was Finland's masters of bigger-than-life metal, Stratovarius. Their slick combination of melody, speed, orchestration and, yes dammit, metal has made them one of the biggest bands in the genre the world over. The thing that amazes me the most about the band is they somehow manage to make each new album even better than the previous ones and Elements Pt. 1 is utterly brilliant. Keyboard maestro Jens Johansson recently gave me the background on this phenomenal release…
Prior to recording Elements, the band took an extended break. Do you think it helped to get away from it for a while?
I think so. Of course, it's difficult to say how the album would have turned out if we had just forced it without the break. Maybe the listener wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but for us it was much nicer recording it this way. When we finally got back in the studio, everybody was really excited about the prospect. The problem was we did five records and five tours in five years, basically. It got very hectic and that's when we decided to take this break. Perhaps it shows in the record because everyone was confident that we had enough time. It gave us more time to do anything we wanted to do, explore every little avenue or waste time on stupid stuff in case it turns out better.
So you got to experiment a little more this time then?
A little bit. More in the sense of production or trying out different ideas. I wouldn't say it was a highly experimental record compared to the other ones, it's still well within the style.
What did everyone do during the break? Did you work on other music or just totally get away from it?
I think a couple of us did that. Timo the guitarist and Timo the singer made solo records, but that didn't take so much time. I think in the case of Timo the guitar player, it took maybe a couple of months at the most. I guess everybody just sort of relaxed and then this September 11th crap happened in the middle of everything, too. It was a good time to take a break.
This is possibly the most diverse collection of songs you guys have done yet. Did it just work out that way?
I don't know. It could maybe stem from the fact that the tempos are a little lower. The average tempo is maybe lower than the previous one, but beyond that I think maybe just because we had more time to work on the stuff. Of course, if you have very high tempos, you can't fill in with too many things because it becomes too cluttered. I think it's just a combination of everyone being happy to go back to work and having more than enough time.
"Soul of a Vagabond" is quite possibly my favorite Stratovarius song ever. What are your thoughts on that track? It seems to have a little of everything.
When you record something, you really don't know what's going to turn out good or bad, but I like it, too. A lot of those orchestral songs are very slow and I would say that is the fastest of the orchestral songs, the epic songs. It's got more of a driving pulse to it. A lot of people like it, but then they had this vote on the web page on which song people liked best and a lot of people voted for the first, very poppy song ["Eagleheart"], so you can never really second-guess what people will think, it's impossible. You can't really get inside people's heads…fortunately, I guess (laughs). You just have to throw shit against the wall and see what sticks. (laughs)
Can you tell me a bit about the concept behind Elements and when we can expect a pt. 2?
Actually, it's pretty close to being finished right now. It's not really a concept record, though. I think we have some sort of tradition that we name the album after one of the longer tracks - it doesn't really mean it's a concept album. That of course becomes a problem with Elements 2because that album has nothing to do with Elements whatsoever. I don't know why it's going to be called Elements 2 (laughs). I think, in my mind, it's more like a double-album; it's just released over the span of a year. When the first one was released, we were still working on the second one and we'll put that out as soon as it's finished, which should be at the end of this year.
Did the band do anything new this time recording wise?
Not as far as completely bold ideas. The only thing we did now that we haven't done is to be consciously aware of not compromising, because we had so much time. If there was some strange avenue to go down, more often it was explored than not. The songs are what they are - I mean, they're not going to be reggae songs or anything very experimental. Production-wise, technically and stuff like that, we really took care to make it sound as good as it can. And also arrangement-wise. Apart from that, there's not a huge difference. It's done in the same studio up in Helsinki as the other albums. There's more orchestral stuff, because of the slower songs, it makes sense to spend the money to have the full orchestra do a lot of the stuff.
How hard is it to arrange all of the orchestral side of things?
We delegate parts of that as well. There's this one guy who has very good contacts and I think he gets special prices. He's done it on a couple of the other records for us as well. We tell the guy approximately how it should sound, sometimes very specifically, and after that he works on making the orchestration, printing up all the parts for the guys to play it. If we didn't delegate that, I think it would be very messy. We'd have to learn a whole new process of interaction with these people. He's like our intermediary, which is very handy, and he's quite talented as well. Some of the ideas he came up with as well, with the arrangements, and some of it was too crazy so they ended up cutting it out. He's a cool guy. That's basically how we worked. He would have tapes and we would have meetings with him about stuff and then he would contact the orchestra to actually record the parts. It's like a very expensive and very sophisticated, thinking keyboard (laughs) that you can tell sometimes very vague things or hum things and all of sudden they appear in orchestral form. It's the best way to do it, I think. If you want to have that fine of control over it without knowing the mechanics in such detail, I think you'd be in a bit of trouble when the time comes to record. I think you'd be nervous and want to change things at the last minute. You'd be running around with a pencil and penciling things into people's scores and stuff. (laughs) I think it's worth it because you can sometimes make this kind of orchestral stuff with keyboards and samplers, but it doesn't sound as good. It doesn't sound as organic or living, basically - it's canned. You're always playing canned notes. It's like somebody else is recording the orchestra playing one note and then you're basically playing those back in different combinations. It's not as living as when you have all the people focusing on the parts at the same time in real time - it's a completely different sound. And it's fucking expensive. (laughs) They've gone to the conservatory for ten years, so they don't really play for pizza and beers, like in the rock world.
Can you give me an idea of your involvement in the creative side of the band and how it has changed since you joined?
I think that's where we spend most of the energy this time, in the rehearsals. We allowed ourselves a lot of rehearsal time, like a month or something, and that's where you hash out what goes where. You need to do that, just playing through the songs and thinking of new things, new approaches. That's still the time-tested and best way to deal with it, I think. It's like three guys in the bands that have even tried to write songs and that's me and the singer and Tolkki. We have decided that what we do is when the time comes around to make a new record, each one of us pull out what we have in terms of material at the time that could fit; then we let Timo Tolkki decide which songs we should rehearse and which we should record. It becomes very simple. I had maybe four or five songs that I thought could remotely fit on either of the albums and I think Timo the singer had two or something. In the end, it's just best if he decides because otherwise we would just argue too much about it (laughs). We would waste more time on that than recording. He's the longest-surviving member of the band, even though he's not an original member, but there's nobody left form the first line-up. So far, it's worked really well, really smooth recordings. The natural instinct when you start out is, 'Oh yeah, I have to have my songs on the album,' but as long as the albums are good, I don't really care who is writing the stuff. I try to make as much material as I can that might fit, but it's difficult. It has to be a certain style and I'm not so good at writing that style.
Stratovarius has done a number of albums now. Is it hard to come up with new ideas?
Yeah, a little bit. Of course, you have the old albums as baggage and the people who listen to those old albums, so you have in your mind that you don't want to make too much of a departure. Even if we completely became reggae fans, it would be very difficult to make a reggae record - people would be very angry. We would spend more time fending off our old fans than we would our brand new reggae album (laughs). I still can imagine that we can make more records without it being too much cliché, but who knows. It's very hard to say. It's a fine line to tread if you want to make something too different or too much like the old stuff.
I saw you had a song you wrote called "Run Away" on the single - why is it not on the album?
I don't know. I guess we had a limit on how long we could make it and had lots of songs that we could have thrown on there. It's also like, you need songs for a single, so we always record a few more than we need and they end up getting used somehow.
What are some of the most challenging songs for you to play?
I think the songs are quite easy to play, actually. They're a lot harder to write and record. Once that part is done, there is nothing technically difficult about them. I think any decent prog metal might be able to play this stuff half asleep. Some of the fast stuff might be difficult to play on the drums unless you're used to that type of stuff. The kids nowadays, the tempos that they play in death metal bands, they could probably do it completely drunk and with one foot amputated. (laughs) It's not technically challenging, none of it. But the writing and the production - you have to be inspired.
Can you give me your idea of the personality of each member of Stratovarius?
We all have a lot in common actually, which is why I think we've stayed together so long, like six years now. We have four Scandinavian guys and one German, the center of gravity is somewhere up in Scandinavia, which is in itself a bit strange with how many people up there a little weird. One of the central things with people up there is that people don't talk so much. There are good sides to that and bad sides as well, but people don't tend to waste words. I know that that has created problems in the past because if you are used to people communicating, you just don't understand why they don’t' say anything. If something is wrong, why don' they speak up? It's just a cultural thing that is sometimes very hard to understand for people who aren't used to it. Of course, I am completely used to it and in a sense it's good because there's not so much bullshit flying around. People speak when they need to. Apart from that, there are like different personalities, but in a sense everybody focuses on the big picture of the band. There's no really big fights or drug use or anything and I think that contributes to the stability. There are no really crazy people in the band. Everybody has a clear understanding of what needs to be done and everybody trusts Timo the guitar player with a lot of the decisions. Unlike some other bands I've been in where people are constantly fighting over control over the whole situation, whether it is money or creative-wise, you get these skirmishes or all-out wars on these things. It eats up a lot f the time you could spend doing other stuff. Everybody in this band is on the same page. The outside of the band is the drummer; of course because he's from Germany, but he's spent so much time in the band, he's turning into a Scandinavian guy as well. He's being poisoned by the sick shit going on up there (laughs). He was a normal talkative guy when he joined the band. (laughs)
Do you enjoy touring?
I actually like touring - it's the traveling I don't like. The playing part is very nice; the other 23 hours a day wears you down in the end. Living without a fixed point, cramped spaces, sometimes bad food, staying up late and having to wake up. But the playing of course is nice; we all still enjoy that bit. With this break behind us now, I think some of us might even be excited to go out traveling again, which is unheard of.
Stratovarius at The Metal Archives
