{"id":5903,"date":"2012-05-23T00:00:11","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T00:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=5903"},"modified":"2012-06-23T19:34:30","modified_gmt":"2012-06-23T19:34:30","slug":"feature-sonata-arctica-05-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-sonata-arctica-05-12\/","title":{"rendered":"SONATA ARCTICA – Songs Grow Their Name (May 2012) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

SONATA ARCTICA – Songs Grow Their Name<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnthony Morgan<\/span>
\nMay 2012<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sonata Arctica (l-r): Henrik Klingenberg, Elias Viljanen, Tony Kakko, Tommy
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Finnish metal outfit Sonata Arctica issued sixth studio full-length The Days Of Grays<\/em> in September 2009, and began touring in support of the release that same month. Vocalist Tony Kakko had already devised formative track ideas for a seventh studio outing, but didn\u2019t really know where these compositions would lead. Some of these nascent ideas were originally authored in preparation for a future solo album. Roughly 180 appearances occurred in support of The Days Of Grays<\/em> across a span of over two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe schedule was quite loose,\u201d remembers Tony Kakko. \u201cAt some points we spent months at home, so I had plenty of time to write songs. On our 2011 European tour I was able to play some demos to the guys on the bus, and let them know what the next album would be like. I was pretty confident that this would be a really decent album. The whole creative process was relatively painless. There was more simple expression; I tried to keep the songs more basic if you will by having more simple structures, and go in the direction that the band started from. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you compare Reckoning Night<\/em> (September 2004) and then the following album Unia<\/em> (May 2007), the difference was quite considerable. We did some more progressive and complex songwriting, and playing and everything. In a certain way you also have that on the follow-up album The Days Of Grays<\/em>, which was also fairly progressive. While we were actually recording that album, I started to feel that we had gone far enough with progressive music. It was time to take another turn, and step away from that a little bit. The step we took with Stones Grow Her Name<\/em><\/a> (May 2012) is as big as the one we took with Unia<\/em>. We used to be a rock band which then turned into this power metal band, and now in many ways we\u2019ve come full circle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Stones Grow Her Name<\/em> favours more straightforward song structures, the frontman is still nonetheless pleased with Sonata Arctica\u2019s more progressive material as displayed on the likes of Unia<\/em>. \u201cUnia<\/em> I still think is a very good album,\u201d he stresses. \u201cIt was just an artistic catharsis. I wrote that album for myself spiritually. I didn\u2019t think anything about what the fans would think; it was just all about me and the band, and the way we could continue with the band. Our first album was Ecliptica<\/em> (November 1999) and we\u2019ve been morphing and changing our style slowly, taking larger steps with Unia<\/em> and now with Stones Grow Her Name<\/em>. It\u2019s a big step. I\u2019m proud of all the things we have done, because our musical catalogue has started to become quite wide. We can appeal to so many different types of people and tastes with our music. I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s an adventure. I\u2019ve always liked Queen a lot, and they did different things in their time. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey were just the first band to interest me in a big way. It must\u2019ve been about 85\u2019, \u201986 when I saw their live show on Finnish television. I had not even heard of them before that. I was 10 or 11 years old at the time, and I just fell in love with that band. They wrote fantastic music. At that point they had already released so many albums, so there was so much new for me to learn. It was my first love, so it never fades away. They still are my favourite band. They have done some great art, and then not so great art. If you take a step back and look back at your whole career and all the albums you\u2019ve released, they\u2019re tiny steps and make the whole band more powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stones Grow Dead Names<\/em> was floated around as a potential record title, a lyric lifted from the number \u2018Alone In Heaven\u2019. This initial idea was adapted, however. \u201cThat of course refers to a graveyard,\u201d Tony notes. \u201cI used a bit of artistic freedom, a bit of a poetic freedom. You can visualise headstones and so on, but that kind of name was too dark. I thought about the whole thing a little bit. A friend of mine sent me an artwork that was done in the early 90s, a picture that had this globe. I thought \u2018Wow, that would be great for an album cover. If I changed the title a little bit, they would go so well together.\u2019 I changed the title to Stones Grow Her Name<\/em>. You have planet earth there, and this rotten apple-headed human figure sitting on top of it. The whole thing is telling how we \u2013 the human people \u2013 are destroying this planet slowly. The whole planet will be nothing but a tombstone at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2018Alone In Heaven\u2019 refers to a good friend the singer lost not too long ago, a young gentleman. \u201cIt was uncalled for, and I didn\u2019t really expect him to die,\u201d he laments. \u201cThere are a lot of older people who are higher on the list in that category. The song isn\u2019t really about death per se. It\u2019s about the thought of heaven, and how different it can be for other people. My heaven would be winter; I\u2019d have eternal winter and spring time, like we have here in Finland. It\u2019s beautiful and clean. My best friends are summer people, and they consider my heaven to be a hell because they have summer in their form of heaven. I\u2019m not a religious person but these kinds of things come to mind whenever things happen like that, whenever you lose someone. I started thinking \u2018Well, I would actually rather be in hell if heaven was summer.\u2019 Eternal winter would be in my heaven, and I would be alone because my friends wouldn\u2019t like to go there with me. Then I would be without my best friends though, so I would rather be in hell with them. That\u2019s the story of the song.\u201d<\/p>\n

In discussing Stones Grow Her Name<\/em>, Tony stated that Sonata Arctica had introduced new elements and styles \u2018to keep the music alive.\u2019 \u201cThere are some songs that have this kind of 80s vibe to them, and you can hear maybe Aerosmith and ZZ Top even (laughs), and that kind of stuff,\u201d he clarifies. \u201c80s rock; that\u2019s the era of my musical upbringing. I\u2019ve always listened to Queen, but then there are the real new elements of course. I\u2019ve always been a big fan of bluegrass. By chance, I started fooling around with my keyboard and I came across this banjo sound. All of a sudden I had a whole song, \u2018Cinderblox\u2019. \u2018Cinderblox\u2019 is a story about a dude who\u2019s calling his girlfriend from jail, and telling her that if one day he gets out of jail he\u2019s probably gonna end up back in jail because of the girlfriend. Originally she got him inside. All these dudes are in jail for the same thing, because they\u2019ve all been influenced by her in some way. It reminds me of country music in some way, where you have some weird human relationship stories going on (laughs), and that kind of thing.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Cinderblox\u2019 is something totally new that we\u2019ve never done before, using banjos and violins to play this hillbilly thing. It\u2019s the most fun song on the whole album I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mainman\u2019s favourite Queen full-length differs from moment to moment. \u201cIt used to be The Works<\/em> (February 1984), but at the moment I\u2019m listening to Queen\u2019s first album (self-titled, July 1973),\u201d he divulges. \u201cIt\u2019s my favourite at the moment. In the beginning when I was getting to know Queen, I didn\u2019t like their first albums at all. It was somehow too weird, because I liked all these songs like \u2018Radio Ga Ga\u2019 and \u2018I Want To Break Free\u2019 and that kind of stuff from The Works<\/em> and then A Kind Of Magic<\/em> (June 1986). I actually didn\u2019t listen to Queen for almost ten years, and I didn\u2019t hear their music anywhere too much. Then I started going through their albums though like Queen<\/em>, Queen II<\/em> (March 1974), and Sheer Heart Attack<\/em> (November 1974), and I realised these fantastic new things that I never knew how to appreciate. My musical tastes had changed and it was fantastic to find new things in the band I had always loved and still do, from their old albums. They\u2019ve still done some works that I\u2019m not totally into, but maybe one day I will see the greatness in those works as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cHot Space<\/em> (May 1982), that kind of stuff (laughs). Some of the band even didn\u2019t appreciate that side step, but even those kinds of albums have pure Queen tracks \u2013 normal Queen. For us I know that Unia<\/em> was that kind of weird side step, and it might be that Stones Grow Her Name<\/em> will be another side step. You never know, but definitely it\u2019s an easier one. I would say that I suddenly realised not too long back that the circle has closed, and we are so much closer to our starting point and the idea that we had back in 1996 when the band was started. This album was so close to that idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two ballads were penned for inclusion on Stones Grow Her Name<\/em>, namely \u2018Don\u2019t Be Mean\u2019 and \u2018Tonight I Dance Alone\u2019. \u201cBoth of those songs are pretty simple, because we aren\u2019t filling these ballads with too many layers of keyboards or any such things,\u201d Tony critiques. \u201cThey are simple. With the whole album, we tried to refrain from the song structures of Unia<\/em> and The Days Of Grays<\/em>. Both of these ballads are simple and plain, and they function quite well if you just played them on acoustic guitar. I think that\u2019s a really important thing, but with both of these ballads it was actually hard to choose which one would end up on the album and which would be the bonus track. We\u2019ve got a violin and everything on \u2018Don\u2019t Be Mean\u2019, so we thought that that one had to be on the actual album.<\/p>\n

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Sonata Arctica (l-r): Elias Viljanen, Tommy Portimo, Tony Kakko, Marko
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\u201cI wanted to have both of them on the main album, but the other one proved to be more of a bonus track. I think \u2018Don\u2019t Be Mean\u2019 was in good shape in early 2010 already though. It was a song that I had played around with for a year; every now and then I\u2019d work on it. It\u2019s a beautiful song, I think. It\u2019s about break ups and such things. People don\u2019t have to be mean, and sometimes it can be easier if people aren\u2019t together anymore. It\u2019s about that side of human relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Wildfire, Part: II \u2013 One With The Mountain\u2019 and \u2018Wildfire, Part: III \u2013 Wildfire Town, Population: 0\u2019 conclude Stones Grow Her Name<\/em>, their predecessor in \u2019Wildfire\u2019 being featured on Reckoning Night<\/em>. \u201cThe original \u2018Wildfire\u2019 had a theme that I liked very much, and still do,\u201d the vocalist enthuses. \u201cI wanted to use it again, and get more out of it somehow. The only way I could actually re-enter and take this idea back was to name the follow-up song \u2018Wildfire, Part: II\u2019, or something in the same vein. You can hear it in the beginning of \u2018Wildfire, Part: II\u2019, where you have this band playing the melody and the theme. It was just fun. I loved playing with that idea; I can come up with a lot of ideas around that idea, and the story has somehow got into me. It\u2019s about this guy who\u2019s part of a family who\u2019s somehow at one with nature and getting abused by the townspeople, and how the whole thing develops from there. Suddenly I had an eight-minute song almost ready, and also I had another song that was starting to shape up pretty long. It was at that point I realised there was more than five minutes of playing and nowhere near completion, so I knew that it would be a long one. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t have two songs eight minutes in length on the album, so we kind of combined these songs into one long song which ends the album. \u2018Wildfire, Part: III\u2019 came to be as well. I think it\u2019s a fantastic entity, the whole thing \u2013 \u2018Wildfire\u2019, \u2018Wildfire, Part: II\u2019, and \u2018Wildfire, Part: III\u2019. People hate this one guy because of the family name, because their name is known to be somehow bad and evil. People are fearing the family name for the wrong reasons, and this guy gets frustrated from all that abuse and goes to jail. In \u2018Wildfire, Part: II\u2019, the guy starts evolving from a bad thing to something between a human and an animal. The idea that I\u2019m expressing with those two songs is the fact that we\u2019re only destroying this planet to leave one day, and that\u2019s a fact. We\u2019re developing better technology, skills, and our ways enough to be able to jump on the next planet, and destroy that planet as well. It\u2019s a part of human nature, I suppose.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Wildfire, Part: IV\u2019 is unlikely to be on the cards, however. \u201cI think it\u2019s enough,\u201d Tony reckons. \u201cOf course with that kind of idea, you can expand it and write a whole album about it. I\u2019m not sure. I\u2019m pleased with the way the story concludes. I don\u2019t see any reason why I should continue the story, but then again, I\u2019ve been known to continue stories on many, many albums.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018One-Two-Three-Fall\u2019 acts as Stones Grow Her Name<\/em>\u2019s Japanese bonus track. \u201cIt\u2019s a track with lots of guitar and keyboard soloing and stuff,\u201d the lyricist tells. \u201cIt\u2019s a song suitable for Japan, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

The record was mixed at Sonic Pump Studios by Mikko Karmila. \u201cIt was mixed in a different studio, and that was his choice,\u201d Tony reveals. \u201cWe wanted to make the whole album sound organic, and somehow still sound good after 20 or 30 years. Of course it\u2019s difficult in this genre of music when you are forced to use synthesisers and such things. You have to be careful when you choose the sounds, so that they still sound good after a long, long time. At certain points in our career even there have been some so-called \u2018hip\u2019 keyboard sounds where for me as a professional musician, it bugs to me to know that a certain song has been tainted by that and that keyboard from that and that period. It doesn\u2019t sound all that good anymore. <\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s better to try to find an ageless sound that will also function well in the future. I think in some ways we\u2019ve found that with this album. Also by our choice of stripping the arrangements down quite a bit, we didn\u2019t use much orchestration, tried to keep the number of keyboards as minimal as possible, and lifted the guitar in the mix. That\u2019s the right thing to do if you\u2019re talking about rock music; the guitars should be up there really high in the mix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three music videos will be issued to promote Stones Grow Her Name<\/em>. \u201c\u2018I Have A Right\u2019 is one of them, and is the first single,\u201d the frontman begins. \u201c\u2018I Have A Right\u2019 is about bringing up your children to be decent people, and how you shouldn\u2019t teach your children certain bad values. They have hated something so much that they have taught their children to hate it. We shouldn\u2019t forward all this emotional baggage, and the burdens that we have from past generations shouldn\u2019t be forwarded to our children just because that\u2019s always how it\u2019s been. We should teach them to think individually, and encourage them to be good people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other two music videos we need to shoot more material for, one of which will be for \u2018Alone In Heaven\u2019. We are releasing them later this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several compositions exist that could surface as part of a Tony Kakko solo full-length. \u201cI have quite a few songs that I like at the moment \u2013 ten or so songs \u2013 that could easily form a solo album,\u201d he discloses. \u201cMy musical tastes are quite wide. I listen to anything from jazz to classical music to black metal, and anything and everything in between. I enjoy writing songs in all kinds of different styles; I actually enjoy exploring other styles, because it\u2019s really a different type of songwriting style. If you start making jazz for example, comparing it to power metal or rock you need to have a different kind of approach to the whole thing. It\u2019s really interesting. I have to say though that the next Sonata Arctica album or my own solo album will not be jazz, so no worries (laughs).<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I wanted to though, I could somehow rework these songs into Sonata Arctica material \u2013 that kind of thing has happened before. These solo songs will be more organic, and not really that metal. The songs have really basic structures, and have beautiful melodies and such. The material could be moulded into anything, pretty much. I could even make a black metal album out of those songs if I chose to, but I don\u2019t think so (laughs). It will maybe be a little bit more mellow, but at the moment it\u2019s way too early to say. It depends on which direction my musical tastes and writing goes in the following year. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment I don\u2019t have time to work on those songs, because all my time is consumed by band rehearsals and interviews. It\u2019s a positive thing of course that people are interested in hearing what I have to say, and in what the band has been doing lately. I hope that I will find some time to get the songs ready in 2012, and hopefully start work on the recording part of it in early 2013 at some point. Otherwise it will be too late again because the Sonata Arctica circle will start again, and I will have to start writing songs for Sonata Arctica. I\u2019ve been dreaming about releasing some kind of solo album for a good ten years already, so it would be about time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony\u2019s solo lyrics will likely occupy the same territory which Sonata Arctica lyrics tread. \u201cI haven\u2019t written down one word for my solo album,\u201d the singer jokes. \u201cI was lying. I actually have lyrics for one song, but as they\u2019re all written by me I think they might be in the same vein. I try to have a different approach, and try to keep the whole thing maybe more sunny and more bright and happy on my solo lyrics. Sonata Arctica is often telling stories that have no happy endings and are somehow more gloomy, though we have always been called happy metal (laughs). Even on our first album though, the lyrics were somehow always really dark.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sonata Arctica (l-r): Tommy Portimo, Henrik Klingenberg, Tony Kakko, Marko
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Sonata Arctica aside, other musical endeavours are likely in the pipeline. \u201cSonata Arctica will take up all our time, because going forward there will be a lot of interviews and touring,\u201d Tony cautions. \u201cThe festival season is around the corner. I think we will be busy touring for a year and a half. I hope I get some time to write my solo songs and get the album on track somehow, but I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if my solo ambitions get trampled by the wheels of Sonata Arctica (laughs). It would not be the first time. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have a few things coming up mind. None of them have been released yet though, so I\u2019d rather keep quiet about those things. Northern Kings might get together at some point. We actually haven\u2019t done anything, but it would be really nice to do something with them. At the moment though there\u2019s so much work to be done on this Heavy Christmas project. I hope we do great things with it, and it includes the same people who are involved with making things happen for Northern Kings. Hopefully we will have time to concentrate on Northern Kings. Nightwish is touring constantly right now and we are doing the same thing, so it\u2019s always about making schedules fit. Of course one thing we should do with Northern Kings is find something new to do. There are so many of these 80s and 90s pop songs which we could turn into something totally different, and it might actually be refreshing to write some original songs for Northern songs or do something out of the box. Something totally different. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it would be kind of fun to combine both, and have a few original songs on the album and a few cover songs. I do like covering; there are a lot of songs that I would like to cover. It would be a bold move to do something by Queen actually, and Northern Kings is such a project that I would dare to do it with them. With Sonata Arctica though, no (laughs). It\u2019s too much of a \u2018Holy cow\u2019 for me to do it with them, but with Northern Kings \u2013 with all these professional musicians \u2013 and a totally different kind of approach to the whole thing, it might be possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stones Grow Her Name<\/em> was released on May 18th, 2012 in Europe and subsequently on the 22nd in North America, all via Nuclear Blast Records. In Japan, the album was issued on the 23rd through Avalon \/ Marquee.<\/p>\n

Interview published in May 2012. All promotional photographs by Terhi Ylimainen.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SONATA ARCTICA – Songs Grow Their Name Anthony Morgan May 2012 Sonata Arctica (l-r): Henrik Klingenberg, Elias Viljanen, Tony Kakko, Tommy Portimo and Marko Paasikoski Finnish metal outfit Sonata Arctica issued sixth studio full-length The Days Of Grays in September 2009, and began touring in support of the release that same month. Vocalist Tony Kakko […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,289],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-sonata-arctica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5903","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=5903"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5970,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5903\/revisions\/5970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}