If there was some strange avenue to go down, more often it was explored than not. The only thing we did now that we haven’t done is to be consciously aware of not compromising, because we had so much time. When the first one was released, we were still working on the second one and we’ll put that out as soon as it’s finished, which should be at the end of this year.ĭid the band do anything new this time recording wise? I think, in my mind, it’s more like a double-album it’s just released over the span of a year. I don’t know why it’s going to be called Elements 2 (laughs). That of course becomes a problem with Elements 2because that album has nothing to do with Elements whatsoever. I think we have some sort of tradition that we name the album after one of the longer tracks - it doesn’t really mean it’s a concept album. It’s not really a concept record, though. 2?Īctually, it’s pretty close to being finished right now. (laughs)Ĭan you tell me a bit about the concept behind Elements and when we can expect a pt. You just have to throw shit against the wall and see what sticks.
You can’t really get inside people’s heads…fortunately, I guess (laughs). A lot of people like it, but then they had this vote on the web page on which song people liked best and a lot of people voted for the first, very poppy song, so you can never really second-guess what people will think, it’s impossible. A lot of those orchestral songs are very slow and I would say that is the fastest of the orchestral songs, the epic songs. When you record something, you really don’t know what’s going to turn out good or bad, but I like it, too. What are your thoughts on that track? It seems to have a little of everything. “Soul of a Vagabond” is quite possibly my favorite Stratovarius song ever. I think it’s just a combination of everyone being happy to go back to work and having more than enough time. Of course, if you have very high tempos, you can’t fill in with too many things because it becomes too cluttered. The average tempo is maybe lower than the previous one, but beyond that I think maybe just because we had more time to work on the stuff.
It could maybe stem from the fact that the tempos are a little lower. This is possibly the most diverse collection of songs you guys have done yet. I guess everybody just sort of relaxed and then this September 11th crap happened in the middle of everything, too. I think in the case of Timo the guitar player, it took maybe a couple of months at the most. Timo the guitarist and Timo the singer made solo records, but that didn’t take so much time. What did everyone do during the break? Did you work on other music or just totally get away from it? I wouldn’t say it was a highly experimental record compared to the other ones, it’s still well within the style. More in the sense of production or trying out different ideas. So you got to experiment a little more this time then?Ī little bit.
It gave us more time to do anything we wanted to do, explore every little avenue or waste time on stupid stuff in case it turns out better. Perhaps it shows in the record because everyone was confident that we had enough time. It got very hectic and that’s when we decided to take this break. The problem was we did five records and five tours in five years, basically. When we finally got back in the studio, everybody was really excited about the prospect. Maybe the listener wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, but for us it was much nicer recording it this way. Of course, it’s difficult to say how the album would have turned out if we had just forced it without the break. Do you think it helped to get away from it for a while? Prior to recording Elements, the band took an extended break. Keyboard maestro Jens Johansson recently gave me the background on this phenomenal release… The thing that amazes me the most about the band is they somehow manage to make each new album even better than the previous ones and Elements Pt. Their slick combination of melody, speed, orchestration and, yes dammit, metal has made them one of the biggest bands in the genre the world over. One of the bands leading that revolution was Finland’s masters of bigger-than-life metal, Stratovarius. At the start of the 90s, it would have been folly to predict that power metal would be the big thing in the metal world by the end of the decade, yet that’s just what happened.