Location: Ljubljana / Cvetličarna MediaPark / Slovenia
Interview date: 17.03.2011
Tony Kakko is the lead voice, main songwriter and driving force of Finnish power metallers Sonata Arctica. We had a chat with Tony about his latest impressions of the new marathon tour, the new album “The Days Of Grays” and the band’s future musical challenges. All of this went down before the band’s show in Ljubljana on 26.02.2011.
The “The Days Of Grays” tour is hitting new epic proportions. If we count the whole stretch since November 2009, you’ve actually been on the road for a year and a half, and this Ljubljana stop is already part of the second leg of the European tour, where you’re still presenting your current studio album “The Days Of Grays”. In that time you’ve visited almost every corner of the planet. How are you feeling so far? Tired at all? In Australia, for example, you met up again with your old buddies from Vanishing Point, who toured Europe with you once before, back in 2001…
Tony: Actually, we had a three-month break before this leg of the tour, and tonight’s show in Ljubljana is only our second gig on the new tour, so we’re fresh and rested and absolutely in full swing. Yeah. We’ve already covered a good chunk of the road as far as promoting the new album goes. As for Vanishing Point, we’ve kept in touch since 2001, when we spent six weeks together on a bus on the tour with Gamma Ray, and in that time of hanging out we became real brothers. We even recorded one of their songs and did our own version of it! That’s Two Minds, One Soul from the album “Tangled In Dream”. We figured this was a unique chance to relive that European tour, so we invited them to play the Australian shows with us. We’ve been in touch with the guys the whole time, all those years. Not often, but we’ve kept the contact alive.
How do you, and you personally, experience the crowd reactions on different stages around the world on this new tour?
Tony: Everywhere we get waves of huge enthusiasm. On this tour we also visited some parts of Asia, like China and Taiwan, plus the already mentioned Australia, where we’d never played before. The feeling was fantastic everywhere, but Japan deserves a special mention. We’ve played there many times and it’s a special country for us, where the devotion of the fans knows no limits.
Let’s talk about the new album “The Days Of Grays”. With “Unia” you explored some new musical horizons, while “The Days Of Grays” kind of goes back to the classic Sonata Arctica approach, but with a much more mature, organic sound. How would you describe the story behind your new studio effort?
Tony: “Unia” was definitely something special for us. For me personally it was a catharsis, a kind of personal cleansing. “The Days Of Grays” is a combination of “Unia” and our standard “pre-Unia” approach. Both albums are great, but before we started recording the new one, we felt we couldn’t keep going in the direction of “Unia”. As a songwriter I wanted a change. I looked back to our roots and brought our classic approach into what we’d achieved with “Unia”. “The Days Of Grays” is more accessible again, compared to the more complex “Unia”. “Unia” is packed with detail and you really have to give it time to get under your skin. With “The Days Of Grays”, though, I feel pulled toward our older albums, especially the first two. Of course we’re older and more mature now, and we express much more clearly what we actually feel inside. We express what drives our development, the guiding force of our musical vision..
Did the arrival of new guitarist Elias Viljanen affect the writing and creative process of the new Sonata Arctica in any way, or the look of your musical language?
Tony: I still write everything myself. All the music. Everything I record, all the ideas, I send to the guys so they can listen through the material and add their own ideas to mine, building up the platform. Elias has been with us since 2007, and the first album he worked on with Sonata Arctica was a kind of test for him. You could feel he was a bit nervous, less relaxed, probably some spark of too much respect was smoldering in him, though I can’t say that for sure. So he didn’t pay much attention to making the most of the chance to actually put himself, as a musician, into creating the individual ideas for “Unia”. He was a bit shy. For our new album “The Days Of Grays”, though, he threw off those shackles and brought his own musical self, his charisma, into our music, which definitely shows in the freshness of the record itself.
Did you search long for a suitable replacement for Jani Liimatainen on guitar?
Tony: Not really. We’d known Elias for a long time. We knew he was a musician of exceptional caliber when it comes to guitar playing. But above all, what mattered most was that Elias clicked perfectly personality-wise with the other members of our crew, and that outweighed everything in deciding to take him on board. That’s absolutely the most important thing. It’s no good having the best guitarist in the world on the team – I’m exaggerating here. It’s really no good if he’s also a huge jerk and everyone has a hard time getting along with him because of his moods. Elias found himself in the right place. He gave us back freshness, ease, a sense of humor… Elias is a very fun guy.
The new album also features Apocalyptica cellist Perttu Kivilaakso.
Tony: It was summer 2008, when both bands were playing summer festivals across Europe. When we met up in Finland, the guys from Apocalyptica invited me on stage to sing vocals on a few songs at some of their shows. I happily agreed. Of course, right then I got the idea to ask the guys if anyone would want to work with us on the new album. That was actually always my wish, to collaborate someday. It so happened that when we were putting the new album together, Perttu was the one who had time, and he enriched the look of the songs on the album and breathed something special into the arrangements. I’m very happy we managed to get him on board.
I’d like to ask you something the way a total layman would ask a singer. Is there a special recipe you use to keep your voice in top form throughout your career, since you’re constantly exposed to truly the hardest passages and demanding vocal articulation whenever you hit the concert stage?
Tony: It’s actually physically demanding for me, since I don’t use falsetto, I just “scream”. Of course that shows most in the high lines, the lower ones are easier. The fact is that your voice drops with the years. I’m careful not to drink cold drinks, and I keep myself in check at parties to avoid them. Now and then I’ll have a beer, and that’s about it. On tour I don’t drink alcohol. Tommy (Tommy Portimo, drums, editor’s note) can’t do it either, since he has to keep his physical stamina high. The difference is that in this case my voice is actually an instrument I have to look after all the time. The other members mostly have to rein themselves in only during tours, but for me that’s not an option. I watch my voice all the time. Whether I’m at home or on tour.
Legendary vocalist Rob Rock recently said in an interview for RockLine that the older you get, the more “thickness” your voice gains.
Tony: Definitely! But with any cold at all, that can be a real nightmare for a singer like me. Simple as that. Because of the way I interpret the songs. You know, if I were sure my voice wouldn’t change even after twenty years, I wouldn’t give a second thought to jumping around the stage for twenty nights in a row through smoke, steam, smoky air, sometimes unbearable heat. But it doesn’t work like that anymore. Now that I’m more mature and experienced, I make sure to write songs in lower ranges that suit my voice, and on stage I also improvise from time to time so I preserve my vocal strength and don’t wear it out. At the same time it’s a lot of fun, because it forces me to try new things. For instance, “The Days Of Grays” is composed in such a way that I can perform all of its songs on stage with great ease.
When did you decide, as a kid or a teenager, to try yourself out as a singer? What was the turning point of your life in that regard?
Tony: I was three years old, standing with my parents at a bus stop in winter. I was playing with the snow while we waited for the bus. An older man, who’d been watching me the whole time, came up to me and asked: “What are you going to do when you grow up?” And I told him: “I’ll be a singer.” So he asked back: “An opera singer?” and I said: “No! A rock singer!” So from the very beginning, something was smoldering deep inside me, telling me to follow that feeling, which eventually led me down the right path. Of course I never consciously pushed for it. But there was always some ambition smoldering in me, even if I didn’t realize it right away. I always loved singing and testing my voice. Then I came across the music of Queen, in 1985 or 1986. That was the band that shaped my musical perception while I was growing up and formed my musical development….
…in the end that’s reflected especially on the album “Unia”, and also on your latest album…
Tony: Yeah, yeah. You hear Queen. You can’t escape it with Sonata Arctica. Anyway, I’ve always paid attention to and been drawn to anything with clearly emphasized melody. And that covers a wide spectrum. From classical music to black metal and everything in between.
Before we wrap up this interview, I’d like to ask you one more thing. Are you planning a live release in the near future, maybe a DVD or something similar?
Tony: Yes. In April this year, when we get home to Finland, we plan to record one of our concerts and put it on a DVD. We’ll be playing in the city of Oulu, which is close to where Sonata Arctica is actually from. That will be the highlight of the current European tour for us, which will end just 20km from our homes in Finland, which is a hugely exciting experience and we’re really looking forward to it. Other than that, we’ll spend the summer playing festivals, and in the fall we head back to writing material for the new studio album.
Tony, thanks for your valuable time. I wish you lots of success on the new European tour and above all that you pull it off safely.
Tony: Thanks to you guys too.
photos: Nina Grad
The interview was made in collaboration between RockLine and Rock Hard Slovenija.
You can read the live report from the Sonata Arctica show of 26.02.2011 in Ljubljana HERE.
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