Author: Urban Bolta
Location: Cvetličarna / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Interview date: 22.02.2011
Apocalyptica are one of the most unique bands of the modern era, having built their style by combining the incompatible: heavy metal and classical music. The band was born in 1993, when four classically trained cellists from Helsinki’s renowned Sibelius Academy joined forces. They started out by covering Metallica, but unexpected success and huge interest in the band steered Apocalyptica, after two albums of covers, toward their own original material. Today, seven albums in, the Finnish quartet, which has meanwhile taken a drummer on board and thereby “liberalized” its unique style a little, is an established name in the world of heavy metal, and even classical music fans credit them with bringing the genre up to date. Before their show at Ljubljana’s Cvetličarna (report here), we talked with the band’s founders, Eicca Toppinen and Paavo Lötjönen.
After almost five years, you’re back in Ljubljana. How do you feel?
Eicca Toppinen: Good, really good. We’ve just had a three-and-a-half-month break, which did us good. Now we’re kicking off the tour and we’re already incredibly excited about tonight’s show!
Perttu had some health problems. Has he recovered?
Eicca: Yes, Perttu is fine, the break was long enough for him to get back on his feet.
Your new tour starts today. What can we expect tonight?
Eicca: We don’t know yet (laughs). I hope a good gig! We’re a little nervous, but we’ll get over the first-night jitters, especially since we haven’t changed the show much compared to our last concerts. I heard tonight’s show is sold out. From what I remember of our past shows here, the Slovenian crowd is phenomenal, so I’m expecting a great atmosphere and an even better gig.
Let’s talk about your new album for a bit. You called it “7th Symphony”. How did you come up with that title?
Paavo Lötjönen: First of all, I should stress that it’s not a symphony in the original sense, a classical symphony, even though it has plenty of classical elements.
Eicca: Compared to our earlier albums, “7th Symphony” is more classically inspired. We wanted to offer our fans something new, so compared to the previous album, “Worlds Collide”, we included more classical elements as well as more varied, more abstract compositional structures. There are more longer tracks with progressive touches on the album, which is why we gave it the title “7th Symphony”. Of course, it’s not a classical Seventh Symphony, we’re not as good as Beethoven was (laughs).
On the album we can hear, as you said yourself, plenty of interesting compositions that mix everything from heavy metal riffs to more classical stuff on the other side. What’s your secret for making such a cohesive, compact album as “7th Symphony” out of so many different elements?
Eicca: I think it comes from our personal musical tastes. We listen to a lot of different genres.
Paavo: But you have to understand that Apocalyptica’s music is built on a classical foundation. If we played our songs on typical metal instruments, guitars and bass, they’d sound much more metal.
Eicca: Actually, metal has always had plenty of classical foundations too. When we were covering Metallica songs, people heard that they can be approached in a more classical way as well. We grew up listening to all kinds of music, we studied classical music and were big metal fans at the same time, and the mix of the two became part of who we are, so our music is above all a result of our life experience, where those two genres have always been intertwined.
Eicca, you’ve been the main songwriter for Apocalyptica since the very beginning, but on the new album it seems to me you came across more like a band than ever before, with the other members, Perttu, Paavo and Mikko, also contributing a big share of the (co-)writing.
Eicca: We all wrote songs, and in the end we picked the strongest ones for the album. We wrote and recorded the material at home in Helsinki, which was great for the whole process of making the album. Being on home turf meant we could all be in the studio, we could adapt to one another, one person would come into the studio, another would leave, the whole workflow was very relaxed. Totally different from making “Worlds Collide”, which we recorded in Stockholm, where it sometimes happened that one of us couldn’t be there while the material was being worked on. In short, it was much more complicated than this time. This time we were much more flexible, and as a result each individual’s influence was much stronger. We found that when we work on new material together, our different musical backgrounds produce songs with very diverse designs, which is definitely new for Apocalyptica. Our songs are therefore even more branching and colorful, since each of us imagines creating new music differently. For the first time we also started collaborating with people outside the band while writing. Dave Lombardo helped us, for example, and Johnny Andrews co-shaped a few songs too.
I read about some trouble surrounding the release of the single for Not Strong Enough. What actually happened?
Eicca: Yeah, that was one big “bullshit”! (laughs) Setting up collaborations is a real nightmare, for example. We agreed on working with Brent Smith more than two years ago, and back then we had no idea his band Shinedown would be so successful in America by now. Shinedown recently released a new single, and the music industry has its rules, so it simply wouldn’t let us put out our single at the same time. But despite the mess we couldn’t just throw Not Strong Enough away, because we need it for the American market, so we made a second version of the song. It was really all just silly record label politics.
So the version with a new vocalist on board was basically the only logical solution for you?
Eicca: Yes, because the song is very strong and therefore important for promoting the album. So we recorded it with a new vocalist and got a good result. But you can’t compare the two songs, they’re very different.
Paavo: I think the songs shouldn’t be compared at all!
Eicca: We learned that it’s very tricky to work with artists who have current releases at the same time, even if it’s only because of record label interests. The same thing happened to us in the “Worlds Collide” era, when we were forced to delay the release of the single I’m Not Jesus with Corey Taylor, because Stone Sour were all over the radio in America at the time. Two songs with the same vocalist at the same time? Impossible. Cases like that are a real nightmare for us.
Paavo: We focus purely on playing music, so stuff like this really gets on our nerves.
Eicca: The American music market especially is built on singles. Labels promote their releases very strategically, you have to be in the right place at the right time, so any unplanned hiccup can cost you big in promotion. That’s just the music industry for you, one big shitty business (laughs).
Over the years you’ve worked with many well-known musicians, like Sandra Nasić, Till Lindemann, Dave Lombardo… How do you choose the musicians you collaborate with?
Eicca: It depends, every case is different. Sometimes we already have a song written and then decide who it would suit perfectly, other times we work with the guest singer from the very start of the writing process. So it really depends, there’s no single script. We invite musicians we respect, and then we enjoy working together, co-creating the final shape of the songs.
You started your career playing covers, with songs by Metallica, Pantera, Sepultura on the menu. What were the main factors that took you from a covers band to your own vision and creativity?
Paavo: I think it was the moment we kicked our first label in the ass (laughs). Our third album, “The Cult”, was the turning point. The label wanted us to record another covers album, which no longer challenged us, because back then we were increasingly gravitating toward our own original music.
Eicca: After the first two albums we felt we had to start developing as a band. Writing our own music was the way to get even better. The beginning of that turning point was very exciting, because we were feeling our way through waters we didn’t know before.
Paavo: It was a very risky decision. After playing covers everybody knew, we overnight released an album of original songs that nobody knew, you know, we were that weird “cello band” from Finland…
Eicca: At first everybody thought Apocalyptica was just about playing Metallica. If we’d made another covers album, it would have been the end of Apocalyptica, we’d have stifled our own creativity.
Paavo: The “The Cult” era was the start of Apocalyptica’s real identity, as we know it now. And then things started moving fast, we became successful quickly. Working with Sandra Nasić helped a lot. She contributed vocals to the song Path, which came out as a special edition of the album “The Cult”, and that very collaboration drew huge attention and opened a lot of doors for us.
Which role models influenced your musical style the most?
Eicca: Our idea was very simple at first: play metal on cellos. Back when we started, twenty years ago, our main inspirations were all the big thrash bands: Metallica, Sepultura, Pantera…
Paavo: The cello as an instrument was a mighty challenge for us, because it’s a lot of fun. A big part of our inspiration came from the instrument itself, since playing metal on it is a really eccentric choice. Of course we were also influenced by the music we’ve always listened to, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, and on the other side Metallica and all the other metal. But when you’re composing your own music, it’s hard to pin down what influenced your work the most.
What are your plans for the future, are you going to be touring a lot now?
Paavo: Yes, Europe first, then America, then we’ll come back to Europe, France, followed by another jump across the pond for a tour that hasn’t even been announced yet. In the summer we’ll be playing festivals starting in August.
Have you maybe thought about releasing a DVD?
Eicca: Yes, we’ve talked about it. The Worlds Collide tour never got a proper video release, so we’ve been thinking about documenting the current tour, but all options are still open.
Paavo: In September we’ll play a very special show…
Where, in Helsinki?
Paavo: Nobody knows, in a very special place… (laughs). It’s going to be a big event.
One last question, a very cliché one, but still: what would you like to tell all of Apocalyptica’s Slovenian supporters?
Eicca: We’ve had a strong fan base in Slovenia from the beginning, and we’re very proud of that. We take good care of it, and I promise that every time we come back to your parts, we’ll spoil it rotten!
Eicca and Paavo, thanks for the chat, and I wish you a great show tonight!
Interview conducted, translated and edited by: Urban Bolta
Photos: Branka Istenič
This interview was made in collaboration between RockLine and Rock Hard Slovenija.
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