Tobias Sammet, Edguy För ett tag sedan blev jag uppringd av herr Sammet när han befann sig i Stockholm. Han var en glad typ och vi pratade om allt från längden på KISS skivor till hans hemstad Fulda och väntan på den ryska invasionen. Edguy kommer ju snart till våra breddgrader och bandet lovar att bjuda på sin största scenproduktion hittills. Niclas Muller-Hansen TS: Hi, itīs Bon Scott! Nice! I thought that guy was dead? So, you expected my call? Yes I did! How are you? Fine thank you! How are you? Iīm fine! Youīre in Stockholm, right? What do you think of the weather? Same as Germany? Yeah! Exactly the same kind of weather. I was in Athens and even there the weather was like this. Crappy! Yeah, and Athens? You see all those cypress trees in the hills with snow on them. Itīs such a weird look. Like from a fantasy movie. Strange! The new album sounds good! Iīve been listening to it for the last couple of days now. Excellent production and good songs. How long did it take to put it all together? Well, a lot of work, but when you do something that you like to do it is...I wouldnīt say it was hard work, it was just pleasure to do it. There was no trouble. Hard work would be when you go into the studio and you come out and youīre really burned out. Like a lion in a cage, you know, waiting for the food. I was like "When the fuck can we start to record?". I mean, the songwriting is a constant process, so I canīt say exactly when that started. Many ideas had been gathered since the last album, but the real creation process, when we started arranging it, started at the end of February and then it was finished at the end of October. Rehearsing, arranging, recording and mixing took like eight months. How come you release it in March if it was already done in October? It was finished in October and at the end of October it was mastered. I think the master was in the middle of December on the tape...now let me think! Was it the end of October or was it the end of November? Thereīs one month in between that I forgot about (laughs). I think the mastering wasnīt finished until the end of November. It was at the beginning of December it was on the table at Nuclear Blast. So they had it on the desk then. You need to do promotion and you need some time ahead. You need things to get pressed, the artwork printed and thatīs why it comes out in March. It was originally scheduled for the end February, but Primal Fear release their album at the end of February. So we said weīd do it later. But you as a band, do you have anything to say about the release date or is that just up to the record company? Basically we donīt work against eachother and Nuclear Blast paid so much money for the album that I give them total responsibility to sell it. They paid so much (laughs), but of course they were looking for the best. Are you the main songwriter in the band or do you all bring stuff to work on? I wouldnīt say every single member of the band, but I write most of the stuff. But still itīs band work. I donīt send tapes around and demos, I go into the studio with the ideas and then I do the rehearsals with the ideas in my mind. Then I show to the others what I have in my mind. We talk a lot when we do that. General talking is something that I really like, which everybody knows (laughs). We talk a lot about the songs and then we start to build them up and then everybody suggest things and include their ideas. It really is a band work. It wouldnīt sound the way it sounds if it was different members. Why are you releasing this mini album "King of fools"? I read that it wasnīt considered as left overs. Why not put them on the album? Well, the thing is that we have been away for two and a half years now and obviously record companies at a certain level insist on a single release before the album. What do you do? The diehard fans will run into the stores anyway and buy whatever it is because they really want to listen to the first material. Now we had fifteen or sixteen first class songs and I donīt see any sense in putting ninety minutes of material on the album. So we were really thinking of what we could do. This way we could release all the songs and make them accesible to the fans and itīs value for the money. If you release a single and it has five songs on it itīs and ep for the price of a single. Thatīs good! We get rid of the material and people have something special to buy. They get the first song from the album and four songs in addition, plus a video. Thatīs nothing but fair! Itīs a good thing because it has the chart relevance in Germany. Maybe it could even enter the single chart. I think it doesnīt have any disadvantages. The only one was that Jens was almost crying when the majority of the band decided to put "Holy water" on the ep. As I said it wasnīt b-sides. It was just tracks that were there. Til the end it was not clear which one should be on the album or on the ep. For a short time "Navigator" was on the ep and then we put "Navigator" and "Down to the devil", a song from the album as well. Those songs were originally on the ep as well for a short time. And then we exchanged them again and again and it was a last minute decision that "New age messiah" and "Holy water" made it on the ep. Jens was crying because "Holy water" was his personal favorite. Thatīs another thing Iīve been thinking about, since the cd came along the albums keep getting longer and longer. Some are plus sixty minutes and some seventy minutes. Back in the vinyl days most albums were like fortyfive minutes. Do you se that as a good thing or a bad thing? The risk of bad songs that really donīt cut it make the album because you can put more stuff on a cd. Exactly! When you do forty minutes at least some of the bands that release half crappy albums will have a theoretical chance to release only ok or good songs. Itīs really funny to listen to old Rainbow or KISS albums. Yeah, the KISS albums were like thirty minutes long! Yeah, the first three ones at least. Until "Alive". One was so fucking short that...was it "Dressed to kill"? I think "Dressed to kill" is like twenty nine minutes. I remember when I was a kid I bought a tape and put it on the tape. It was a sixty minute tape and I could put all of that album on one side. I had it on a sixty minute tape as well and on the other side I had "Alive II", side c and side d. I donīt know if they fit in there totally or just almost. So it was a double album on sixty minutes. They even released it as a double cd, which is stupid because they can almost put "Alive" and "Alive II" on one cd. Itīs really funny! I donīt think it makes sense to have so long albums. I prefer an album thay is thirty minutes and only classics than an album that is sixty minutes and sixty percent crap. I see advertisement everywhere where it says "seven bonus tracks etc", but what is the point. Letīs say you have potatoe chips and it says "twenty percent more" and you put twenty percent more crap in it. It doesnīt make sense at all! You know, many of those bands should focus on writing forty minutes of great material instead of recording two albums at the same time. From that to...I read that you grew up in Fulda, Hessen. Is that a small town? Sounds like a small town. Well that depends...sixty thousand people! Ok, thatīs bigger than my home town. What was that like? Where exactly is Hessen in Germany? In the middle! I believe itīs the centre of the universe. Itīs north of Bavaria. It was one of the eastern parts of West Germany. The border was near. If we go to Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart or Munchen it takes more or less the same time with train. Every train that goes from north to south or east to west go through Fulda. It was the Fulda gap. A military knot during the cold war. You would only see a valley if you looked on a topographical map. It was the place where they (the Americans) expected the enemy to come first. A lot of military was around Fulda. They were afraid of those bad Russians. They never came though. Actually we played in Russia and theyīre quite normal people. Thatīs a funny thing when you go travelling...the media in ceertain countries, like the US, they are creating enemy profiles of people. Weīve played in so many countries. We played in Israel, Russia, Australia and believe it or not, but theyīre all great people. Itīs so unbelievable that people try to evoke the enemy profile, like they will come with long swords and eat out your eyes. I have friends all over the world and Iīve met some of the craziest and coolest people in Russia. But whatever! Do you still live in Fulda? Oh yes! Still no Russians! Another thing! Do you have any idea why Germany has so many metal bands coming out. Germany is a really big scene for metal and power metal. And itīs been like that for the last ten years or so. I donīt know why actually. I just think we have a healthy scene and obviously there are more people living in Germany than in Sweden. I always think that the greatest metal bands come from Europe and many bands that I like actually come from Sweden. Europe, Treat...I think itīs one of the best hardrock bands of all time. Yeah, Treat was good! I remember when the first album came out and I loved it. Was that "The pleasure principle"? No, I think the first on was called either just "Treat" or "Scratch and bite". Something like that. Really good album! I just know the album with (sings) "Strike without a warning". Great band and "Organized crime" is one of my all time favorite albums. Itīs really unbelievable! Yeah, I guess we have a pretty good scene in Sweden as well. Especially the heavier stuff. Do you know of the Swedish bands that will be opening up for you? Nocturnal Rites and Tad Morose of course. Did you pick them or the record company? It was a mix of both. They were suggested and we decided to take them. They were interested and they had new albums out, so cool! Will there ever be any other solo projects from you? Will their be an "Avantasia III" or anything like that? There will never be something like that again, because I canīt say. But thereīs no plans or anything. I donīt think that something like that will be ahppening in the next year or so. I donīt know what Iīm gonna do in ten or fifteen years. That would be asking too much. I donīt plan anything because I really want to concentrate on whatīs really important. Iīve got one band that is very successful now and I donīt want to waste my energy and spread it on too many things. But the "Avantasia" albums did really well. Great reviews! I know! The temptation is big to give in to. But the thing is that Iīm the only one to know what I can and canīt handle. The most important thing in my career is that I always made the right decision at the right time, no matter what people said. In the beginning people were giving me the advice not to do "Avantasia" at all. They said that nobody needs a product like this! Then I did it and everybody was surprised. Now people say that Iīve got to do one more. I think know that I should not do it at this time, because I could not guarantee the quality and when I come up with an idea some day, then I will decide and Iīll do it. Did you take singing lessons? Are you a trained vocalist? I took a few lessons, but Iīm more learning by doing. You have a great voice! Thank you! Itīs just singing and singing and singing! Thatīs it! Do you have any rituals before you hit the stage? Yeah, to make sure my shoes are tied (laughs). Itīs not a ritual, but more of self protection. Do you do any vocal stuff before you hit the stage? Yeah, I do some scales and the most of the time Iīm more busy warming up my body than my voice. Iīm always doing some bending and stretching. I over stretch the muscles all the time. It doesnīt really help. Iīm twenty six and everything hurts. Iīm broken! My back, my knees, my hip...Iīm gonna be like a robot in twenty years. About the tour. Youīre gonna play in Scandinavia and Europe and I guess thereīs plans for the rest of the world as well. Any fun tour memories? Well, itīs really hard to recall on comand because the whole tour is a fun memory. Nothing on my mind right now. When was the last time you played here? I think it was in Piteå in the summer of 2002 and weīre coming back in May. Weīre gonna come with a big stage production and Iīm looking forward to it. Weīre gonna have the biggest stage that weīve had so far and a big staging company i Germany is building it right now. Itīs gonna be sculptures and statues and stuff. The whole stage is gonna look like a huge temple. Well, Iīm looking forward to it and great talking to you. Good luck with everything! Thank you very much and I wish you all the best! See you in Stockholm! Edguy - Official website

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