{"id":50412,"date":"2016-10-31T00:00:59","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T00:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=50412"},"modified":"2016-12-04T14:44:18","modified_gmt":"2016-12-04T14:44:18","slug":"feature-sonata-arctica-10-16-pt1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-sonata-arctica-10-16-pt1\/","title":{"rendered":"SONATA ARCTICA – Shooting Among The Stars, Part One (October 2016) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

SONATA ARCTICA – Shooting Among The Stars<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnthony Morgan<\/span>
\nNovember 2016<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sonata Arctica (l-r): Henrik Klingenberg, Elias Viljanen, Tony Kakko, Tommy Portimo and Pasi Kauppinen<\/b><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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\nKemi, Finland-based melodic metal group Sonata Arctica began writing sessions proper for October 2016 full-length studio album The Ninth Hour<\/em> \u2013 their ninth, overall, naturally \u2013 during early 2016. At the time, vocalist Tony Kakko was \u201cdrawing on blank paper\u201d, so to speak. Predecessor Pariah\u2019s Child<\/em> had arrived two years earlier, in March 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cI managed to write maybe one or two songs at the time, and was more or less maybe preparing myself for the seven-week North American tour we had with Nightwish,\u201d Tony remembers. \u201cWe were opening for them there starting late February 2016, and that kind of slowed me down in terms of the creative process. So, I was in a lot of hurry when I got back home from the tour. I had to basically write, record, and get the album mixed and mastered in three months, and that was kind of an insane pace. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take a look at our touring schedule for last year, you might think that we had a lot of time on our hands. The last show for the Pariah\u2019s Child<\/em> album was late August I think it was, so there was four months of nothing in our schedule. That was my planned time off from Sonata Arctica though, which is actually the first time ever in the history of the band. I just cut all of the ties for that period of time; I didn\u2019t even wanna think about this band for a short amount of time, and just did other things. I went to Rock In Rio with Nightwish, which was great. I also had a bunch of Christmas shows with this Raskata Joulua project that we have here in Finland around Christmas, and that was a great tour. And of course, I got to spend a lot of time with the family, which is always the best thing ever of course. As a result though, in early January this year, when I planned to start writing the songs I was drawing a blank. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was not able to write any Sonata Arctica songs or that kind of music in general, so it was kind of a nightmarish situation, but I don\u2019t know. As they say, diamonds under pressure. We managed to get it done, but anyway. The album, stylistically it was something totally different than what I had in mind. While we were still touring with the previous album, I was telling everybody that the follow-up album would be heavier and more metal in every way, but that didn\u2019t happen obviously. Still though, I think it\u2019s drawing just about a straight line from the previous album. It\u2019s not such a great, big change, a drastic change from the style of the previous album. That\u2019s a good thing in my opinion \u2013 that we finally have two albums that are stylistically consistent and in line somehow \u2013 because we\u2019ve been jumping around a lot since the Unia<\/em> album (May 2007).\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ninth Hour<\/em> began to take shape during April. \u201cThat was once we got back from the tour,\u201d the singer notes. \u201cEverybody else went into the studio, and started recording like two songs that I had come up with before the tour. The guys went into the studio, and started taking the sounds and getting in the mood of recording the album (laughs). I stayed home writing new songs for like two months. I think I saw the guys once during the whole creative process of this album, which is rare. That\u2019s not really the way I would like to work, but that was the only way I could actually get anything done. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I stayed home and kept writing, and somehow managed to get everything done. So, I\u2019m really happy, but not happy with the way everything went (laughs). It was a lot of stress and kind of ruined my summer, because it was in July when I was still kind of stuck and working on the album. We had a little bit of a delay with the delivery and everything, but shit happens and we survived it. As a result, I hope the next album will be something totally different creatively.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cnightmarish situation\u201d of not being able to initially author Sonata Arctica-type compositions cannot be attributed to burn-out, as some might assume. \u201cI had a lot of time off from Sonata Arctica, so there was no burn-out or anything like that,\u201d Tony reiterates. \u201cI was writing songs, but they were totally different \u2013 something that I would put on my solo album one day. Usually when I talk about my solo album, I have to combine that sentence with the fact that Sonata Arctica usually steals my solo album material (laughs). This album actually has one song that could have been and would have been on my solo album, and that\u2019s \u2018Fly, Navigate, Communicate\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote that song for myself, basically, and not for Sonata Arctica. That\u2019s maybe the reason why it stands out as an odd song on the album in some ways, but it still fits in. I didn\u2019t feel burnt out (laughs). Only after the album was done and ready, I felt like \u2018Oh god, that was one hard three-and-a-half months.\u2019 It was really nightmarish in that sense, but still, I enjoyed doing what I did. It was intense and good, but really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

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By comparison to The Ninth Hour<\/em>\u2019s fellow tracks, \u2018Fly, Navigate, Communicate\u2019 is a \u201cmuch heavier\u201d proposition. \u201cIt\u2019s like taking a pop \/ rock band, and then hitting it with one song from any Devin Townsend Project album, basically,\u201d the mainman laughs. \u201cIt\u2019s a different kind of song, stylistically. It\u2019s one of the heaviest songs on the album; it\u2019s got a lot of double-kicks and in a different style than we usually have, and long and winding melodies. When I was writing it, I was heavily influenced by Devin Townsend Project. So, in my opinion, that\u2019s my Devin Townsend Project song. I\u2019m not sure if anyone else can hear that kind of thing, but for me that\u2019s the case. Now that I mention it, of course everybody will point it out immediately (laughs). It\u2019s just different, though. When you listen to the album, it\u2019s odd in a way. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s another song that really doesn\u2019t fit the bill either, and that\u2019s \u2018Rise A Night\u2019. Then again though, it\u2019s more traditional Sonata Arctica material. It would have fit on one of the first three or four albums much better than this one, but still, they\u2019re all kind of building bridges across Sonata Arctica albums. Then again though, \u2018Fly, Navigate, Communicate\u2019 might be building a bridge to some other place \u2013 I don\u2019t know where.\u201d<\/p>\n

As referenced, \u2018Fly, Navigate, Communicate\u2019 was originally selected to feature on Tony\u2019s as-yet-unreleased debut solo affair. Tony\u2019s aforementioned solo full-length platter has been in the works for quite some time. \u201cI\u2019ve been more or less talking about it for a good 15 years, I think,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cThat is ridiculous, because we actually released our first album 17 or 18 years ago (Ecliptica<\/em>, November 1999). Still, early on in our career though, I started dreaming of a solo album. I always had some material, but Sonata Arctica always stole those songs. Now though, with all of the material that I have kind of piled up over the last few years… I think like the last two years, the thing has been made much more concrete. I have a concept idea for it, and then stylistically, it\u2019s gonna be something totally different from Sonata Arctica. I don\u2019t know how much I should talk about it though, because everything is still kind of subject to change. <\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely mind, the songs are not something that I would ever, ever dream of putting on a Sonata Arctica album. That would be a kind of suicide for Sonata Arctica, because that would make yet another weird jump in a totally odd direction. One point of creating a solo project and solo album in the first place is basically to do something totally different from what you normally do. That wouldn\u2019t make any sense, to create a Sonata Arctica-style album under my own name. It would be just odd, weird, but it\u2019s safe to say that maybe in the next ten years, this album will see the light of day (laughs).\u201d<\/p>\n

The gestation period for the frontman\u2019s solo jaunt seems to be longer than that of November 2008 Guns N\u2019 Roses opus Chinese Democracy<\/em>, it is said in jest. \u201cYeah, I know,\u201d he giggles. \u201cThis is my personal Chinese Democracy<\/em> (laughs). It\u2019s happening, it\u2019s happening (laughs).\u201d<\/p>\n

Queen is one specific band Tony is an ardent admirer of. Using Queen as a point of reference, one is reminded of the time vocalist Freddie Mercury issued April 1985 solo venture Mr. Bad Guy<\/em>. \u201cThis is not going to be like that, stylistically,\u201d he laughs. \u201cIt\u2019s gonna be heavier with more twists and turns and weird stuff, but something different, anyway. It needs to be something that allows me to breathe, and just stretch my legs and do something wild. Something that allows me to leave all of the too weird material off of the following Sonata Arctica albums, maybe (laughs). <\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t make to destroy a band that is your main thing with all of the weird stuff that I might and will come up with eventually. There are some albums that might have been better off as my solo works in our career already, so I don\u2019t want to go there any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such albums include May 2007 offering Unia<\/em>. \u201cThe Unia<\/em> album, our fifth album, was stylistically such a huge step in some weird direction,\u201d the composer pinpoints. \u201cIt was more progressive, and just too busy an album to be a Sonata Arctica album. There are a few songs that are fairly Sonata Arctica, but I think a lot of people would agree \u2013 like old school Sonata Arctica fans \u2013 that that was an album that threw them totally off. There was also the Stones Grow Her Name<\/em> album (May 2012), which was a similar kind of jump as Unia<\/em> but in a totally different direction. It was really simple, and more like a hard rock album or pop album than anything else (laughs). It had its metal moments, but it wasn\u2019t like your normal Sonata Arctica album. <\/p>\n

\u201cStill, both Unia<\/em> and Stones Grow Her Name<\/em>, some people call those albums their favourite Sonata Arctica albums. So, they have their place in the Sonata Arctica universe as well, even after we release like ten more albums and end our career when we\u2019re like 85 (laughs). All the albums will somehow blend in, and it will all be good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two Sonata Arctica efforts which arguably blend in happen to be The Ninth Hour<\/em> and Pariah\u2019s Child<\/em>. \u201cThe songs are structurally the same, and you can recognise that these albums belong in the same era of Sonata Arctica in a way,\u201d Tony judges. \u201cThat\u2019s the same way you can imagine that the first three albums are like early Sonata Arctica, and then Reckoning Night<\/em> (September 2004) was already a little tiny change into a different direction. Unia<\/em> was the main jump into an odd direction, which was a jumping around era for Sonata Arctica. Now, after the Stones Grow Her Name<\/em> album, Pariah\u2019s Child<\/em> was our return to what Sonata Arctica is basically about, which is simple metal played in this style of music. Not the way we did with the first two or three albums necessarily, but if you take like the Reckoning Night<\/em> album, I would imagine… <\/p>\n

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\u201cI always like to think that Pariah\u2019s Child<\/em> would have fit perfectly after Reckoning Night<\/em>, where we had like those three albums in-between that are just one-off, weird sidetrack albums (laughs). Unia<\/em>, The Days Of Grays<\/em> (September 2009) and Stones Grow Her Name<\/em>, those were just different. And now we\u2019re back on track, some people might call this new album \u2013 The Ninth Hour<\/em> \u2013 the sixth normal Sonata Arctica album. Also, there\u2019s the fact that our logo is pretty much the same on these six albums, and those three adventure albums if you like are just under this different logo. It draws a more direct line. It reflects the normal development span of a band, instead of adding those three albums that I call our adventure albums. They would make all kinds of weird waves, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sandwiched between the respective releases of both Pariah\u2019s Child<\/em> and The Ninth Hour<\/em> was the 15th anniversary re-recording of November 1999 debut LP Ecliptica<\/em>, which arrived in October 2014. Nevertheless, said re-recording ultimately failed to musically influence The Ninth Hour<\/em>. \u201cI don\u2019t think so,\u201d the lyricist observes. \u201cNot really. At the time when I was telling everybody that the next album should be heavier (laughs), The Ninth Hour<\/em> was still going to be the more metal and more heavy Sonata Arctica album. That was at the time when the new version of Ecliptica<\/em> was still influencing me. I thought \u2018Yeah. This is really, really cool,\u2019 but I don\u2019t know. I had that four months off, and something happened (laughs). I wasn\u2019t able to put my money where my mouth is (laughs), but yeah. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything influences everything, and can somehow add to what you do. You learn from everything, and so maybe remaking Ecliptica<\/em> was a healthy process. It allowed me to see that we\u2019ve been doing things in a certain way for a long, long time, and now after this period of doing things in a totally different way, we are able to still go back to that early, more simple way of expressing ourselves musically. It was a really nice process, I think, but I don\u2019t know if it really had that big of an impact on the final product, The Ninth Hour<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Re-recording past works is arguably questionable, although exceptions to the rule do exist. \u201cOur label in Japan requested us to do the thing,\u201d Tony informs. \u201cOur first reaction was like \u2018No fucking way we\u2019re gonna do that,\u2019 (laughs) but then again, it was our label in Japan. We have gone through thick and thin ever since the beginning and they are still there, so you couldn\u2019t just go and say \u2018No. Fuck you.\u2019 (laughs). We had to basically be diplomatic about it. After long consideration, we kind of found a way to think about the whole process in such a way that it made some tiny sense for us. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided to say \u2018Yeah,\u2019 with the noble thought that it would only be released in Japan, which of course didn\u2019t happen. Nuclear Blast obviously wanted to release it as well (laughs), so it became a worldwide release, and now we\u2019re explaining to everybody why we went there and why we did that. It was just to respect and celebrate our debut album again. I would say that the original version is much better; if I had to take one of those on a desert island, I would definitely take the original one. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt has a lot of things that you can\u2019t remake, like the excitement, the youth, the innocence, and all of those things that you lose when you become a professional at anything, basically. You make such tiny, funny mistakes. There are a lot of faults in the original one, but all of those things, they have that feeling of danger. They have things that make Ecliptica<\/em>, the original one, what it is really. It just sounds fun; like young kids having fun and going forward full-blast, and it feels like a derailing train all the time (laughs). It\u2019s done, so we can\u2019t take it back any more (laughs). I\u2019m really happy. It also allowed me and gave me a chance to make myself versions of a few songs that I can actually live with, because the original has some moments there that I would just like to erase (laughs). Life is life, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of tracks featured within the Sonata Arctica catalogue at large, Tony would like to have re-attempted the vast majority. \u201cYes, absolutely \u2013 even on the latest one,\u201d he jokes. \u201cWhen you listen to them, it\u2019s like \u2018Oh God. Now I have a much better idea for that.\u2019 Every time you go on tour and play those songs live, they really find the right form, but only after you get to play them live a little bit. Unfortunately, you can\u2019t do that any more these days because of YouTube and the internet, and people having TV studios in their pocket. That kind of makes it impossible to give those songs a test run before we go into the studio, and it sucks. I hate that; it\u2019s not fun. <\/p>\n

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\u201cI hope so much that people would respect bands and what they do, like their work and everything. And also, it would allow them to have these special moments of hearing a song that\u2019s not been released yet, but that\u2019s all gone, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s ever, ever coming back. On every album though, there are a lot of moments that I would do differently (laughs). They\u2019re not necessarily bad, but I know that I could do them better in some way. Or, I would like to change some melody line or whatever to make it a little bit better somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to why fans record live footage seems unclear, given said footage is generally mediocre at best. \u201cExactly, yeah, but you can hear what the song is about,\u201d the performer contends. \u201cIf that\u2019s the first version you hear of the song that might become your favourite song of all time, who knows? It\u2019s wrong. You should just be able to get your first glimpse. It should be something that you hear live, which sounds much better of course than something that someone has recorded on a cell phone (laughs), or then than the actual album. It\u2019s ruining a lot of good things, I think. It\u2019s sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Resultantly, The Ninth Hour<\/em>\u2019s respective tracks weren\u2019t trialled on the road prior to its release. Moniker-wise, some would naturally suspect The Ninth Hour<\/em> takes its name from being album number nine, although deeper connotations exist. \u201cI started the whole naming and the cover art part from the cover artwork itself,\u201d Tony shares. \u201cI was thinking of what to have there, and then finally I came up with this concept. You have like this utopian landscape where everything is perfect and beautiful; human technology and us humans and nature, we are all in harmony and balance, and everything is nice. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something we should aim at, and it would be perfect, but then I put this hour glass-type construction in the middle there. On the other cup on the left side, you have this dystopia where we are headed if we do not stop polluting and destroying this only home of ours, planet earth. Then on the cup on the right side, we have this other option. We are not here any more; nature has had its chance to heal itself and everything is beautiful, but we are not there any more. <\/p>\n

\u201cThen underneath those cups, you have this wheel, and that represents everything we are doing currently to destroy this planet. If we keep messing around with that wheel too much, it\u2019ll tilt eventually in one or another direction, hence choosing one of those two alternatives for the utopia, and that would be our fate basically. Both are pretty miserable in comparison to this utopia. Anyway, once I had this concept together, of course I needed to come up with a name \u2013 a name for the baby \u2013 and my first thought was obviously that \u2018Okay, this is our ninth album, and this is the ninth hour… Ah, okay.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cThat sounds really cool, cheesy and corny at the same time, and it\u2019s biblical, but I\u2019m not really a religious person at all. I had to actually google what all the meanings of the ninth hour are, so I\u2019m not kind of digging myself too big a hole to bury myself in with naming it (laughs). In the end, I found this meaning there that just fit everything perfectly, and it was that God only wants us to repent and to sacrifice on the ninth hour. That was something I took, and that\u2019s the reason the album is called The Ninth Hour<\/em>. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are currently living in times where we need to make sacrifices to allow this planet to survive us \u2013 tiny, and big sacrifices. Some tiny ones are just recycling and not consuming so much, and then there are some bigger ones obviously. In many cases, we will and already do repent for the things that we have done. We have destroyed so much of this planet that can\u2019t be fixed any more. Someone said that in like 20 years, we will lose two-thirds of all of the wildlife that we have on this planet, and those are the reasons that we must and we will feel sorry. It\u2019s pretty awful what we have done here in the short period of time that we have actually existed as human beings here. That\u2019s basically why the name is The Ninth Hour<\/em>, and what you have on the cover.\u201d<\/p>\n

This interviewer isn\u2019t hopeful. \u201cI still have my hopes,\u201d the musician reckons. \u201cWe need laws to take care of things. It has to be the same law for everybody \u2013 for individuals, and companies, and nations \u2013 and it has to be harsh, and it has to be drastic, or we are fucked, basically. I still have a hope and dream, though. I have children myself, so it would be a nightmare. Of course, that\u2019s my biggest fear; that we are gonna leave them in some weird dystopia here. So, let\u2019s hope. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the only thing that I can do, and of course teach them to live in a nature-respecting way, and try my best to not destroy this planet. We should all do the same thing, because you wouldn\u2019t toss your own tiny baby into a pool of poison, basically. When they are like 70 or 80-years-old though, they are still going to be your children, your babies. They might be forced to do that, to swim in poison, but would you feel any better about that? That\u2019s something that we are headed towards, definitely.\u201d<\/p>\n

1 | 2<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SONATA ARCTICA – Shooting Among The Stars Anthony Morgan November 2016 Sonata Arctica (l-r): Henrik Klingenberg, Elias Viljanen, Tony Kakko, Tommy Portimo and Pasi Kauppinen Kemi, Finland-based melodic metal group Sonata Arctica began writing sessions proper for October 2016 full-length studio album The Ninth Hour \u2013 their ninth, overall, naturally \u2013 during early 2016. At […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[289],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sonata-arctica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50412"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50432,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50412\/revisions\/50432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}