MR : Sonata Arctica has been elected album of the month (95/100) in January and we wanted to congratulate you on this first album, it's really impressive.
Tony : Thanks !
MR : What is the meaning of Ecliptica ?
Sonata : Oh fuck (huge laughs !!!!) ... I can somehow explain that in Finish but in English.... Well, this whole universe thing, the galaxies, (getting into a huge space explanation, with rotational angles and degrees) ... this is called Ecliptica. (MR : What we've got out of it is the elliptical trajectories of some planets or galaxies maybe... but we honestly still don't know what it means :) ). But I should learn how to explain this thing in English, for next time. (Laughs)
MR : Did you expect such success for your first album ?
Tony : No, no, no... this has been great.
MR : You've been often compared to Stratovarius ...
Tony : So we've heard
MR : However, your sound is different. Can you tell us a bit more about your sound ?
Tony : We have a few songs that are like a Stratovarius style, faster and stuff (imitating furious drummer). I also want to have these mid tempo based songs, more Rock'N'Roll on the album and in the future also. We don't want to be the new "Stratovarius". We'd of course like to be as famous as Stratovarius (laughs) but not with the same music.
MR : What are your influences ?
Tony : A lot of Queen, Midnight Oil, also Stratovarius and Nightwish. But generally I don't listen a lot of metal music.
MR : Are you happy with the promotion of your album so far by Century Media ?
Tony : Yeah, they do a great job.
MR : Touring with Rhapsody and Stratovarius must be great, how is it going so far ?
Tony : Great ! Everyone's been so nice to us. We thought everyone would be like shit to us but they like us, a lot. (Turning around and asking a Alessandro from Rhapsody : "You like us don't you ?" ...)
Alessandro : Huh ? sorry... (everyone laughing a lot :) )
MR : Stratovarius, Nightwish, Children Of Bodom and now you... What's the secret of Finland's metal bands ?
Tony : I have no idea (laughs) ... I dunno.
MR : Finland bands seems to be writing very melodic songs, however in Finland there's a lot of suicides, how do you explain that ?
Tony : The thing is maybe in northern Finland, where there's like 3 months without sunlight. Where we live we don't have that problem. We're not really in the middle of Finland but still in Lapland, which is half of Finland. We also have some dark times but not that much.
MR : What are your favorite metal bands or albums ?
Tony : Stratovarius, Visions, although Infinite is also good. Nightwish, especially the new one : Wishmaster.
MR : What are your plans for this year ?
Tony : Survive this tour first, have 2 weeks off to relax and then we start touring in Finland but there's some plan for us to go in Japan with or without Stratovarius, I don't know. And we'd like to take some time, maybe few months, half a year to make a decent second album.
MR : A last message for our readers and your fans ?
Tony : (After a long wait and rather funny facial expressions) Stay Heavy ! (laughs)
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