Sonata Arctica interview with Tony Kakko: "If the band that you like changes at the same time that your personal musical taste changes, it's the perfect thing"

15/05/2012 @ 17:28
The new Sonata Arctica was an unexpected, pleasant surprise. The last two albums had been a letdown for me, but “Stones Grow Her Name” is one of the most complete and inspired melodic metal albums I’ve heard the last few years. It was also the perfect chance to have a little conversation with the mastermind of the band Tony Kakko, who proved to be one of the friendliest and nicest musicians I’ve talked with. Thumbs up for both the music and the spirit...

Hi Tony. Since this is the first time we are talking I have a handful of questions for you. Is that ok?
Of course…

Firstly, I want to congratulate you for your new album. I consider it to be not only the best Sonata Arctica album in years, but also one of the best albums of the scene for the past 3-4 years.
Wow! That’s great. Thank you very much!

So, will you give us an inner view to the creation of the new album?
When the last toured started back in 2009 I already had some songs ready, for example “The Day” was in a good shape and so was “Somewhere Close To You”, which was supposed to be on my solo album, but as it usually happens all my solo project stuff is stolen by Sonata Arctica (laughs). As the tour went on I kept writing songs whenever I had free time and we had a lot of free time in fact. The tour lasted two years and included 180 shows, but at some point we had about three months off and there was a good song-writing vibe. All this time that I was writing these songs I had a paper on my desk saying “keep it simple”. I had a feeling that we got far enough with this complex, difficult approach in our music, because at some point it’s not funny anymore when you realize that these songs don’t function live as good as they should. They are not fun playing live. So, I was trying to keep holding more the basic things, what we always like about music, a melody, a nice structure and a song that you can imagine playing live.
The truth is that the last albums have been pretty full composed, there are a lot of parts and difficult moments they are difficult composed in many ways. Now, when these songs started coming together I felt like an “under achiever” (laughs). I was wondering “can it be this easy?”, because the songs were coming out really quickly. We didn’t pay much time for writing and stuff. Well, the arrangement took such time, but the songs themselves, the melodies and everything made me wonder “can we do that?”, but the guys in the band were really happy about it. Then, about a year ago, on our last European tour, for the previous album I just played them - I think it was - ten demos at that point. They said it was going to become a great album and it was like a comeback moment for me to be brave enough to play the songs to the guys and being so happy with them.

Sonata ArcticaI agree with some things you already mentioned and although I was never judgmental about your musical direction, I was a bit confused. But with the last album it seems that you got the wisdom from the previous album and made music that’s at the same time simple and adventurous.
That’s correct!

So, has something changed on the way you compose and you arrange your songs?
Yeah, actually as I said I had in mind to keep it simple approach. It was different. This also meant that we are not putting too many instruments. We had to choose the instrument and keyboard sounds we would use and maybe change it on the next part of that particular song, so that all the sounds on the album have a place there. On “Unia” we had so much keyboard layers on each song, that unless you are actually composing, recording or mixing it’s really hard to hear all the little details that are in there. It’s too much stuff. When you have a band that has a bass player, a guitar player, a drummer and a singer (well one of them can be the singer) then the music can sound cool, beautiful and clear. Leaving all the extra things out is what I wanted to do here. Make the right song that you can imagine playing 20 or 30 years from now, that will sound good a long-long time from now. It was also considered that we would not use any synthesizers and stuff. If there is a violin part, then we should use a real violin and banjos and so on…

Well, it seems to me that Sonata Arctica is a band with power metal aesthetics and progressive metal approach. Firstly, do you agree? Then would you consider Sonata Arctica more of a power or a progressive metal band?
Hehe, I consider us a rock band (laughs). Melodic heavy rock I think would be a description if I could create one or choose what we are… It’s so weird when I hear from people who come to see our shows and they tell me that they don’t like power metal at all, but for some reasons they like Sonata Arctica. And then again there are people that love power metal and they never liked Sonata Arctica. So, that makes me think of what we are really. People who know this genre by heart and know what is should sound like don’t like us, but then people who don’t like stuff like power metal at all, find us really interesting and like what we do. I don’t know. I think we are really in between of many different styles, combining things in a way that we don’t really have one song that categorizes us.

Sonata ArcticaI agree and I mention on my review that power metal and progressive metal elements are just parts of your music…
Yeah. Let’s see the first track on the album. It doesn’t really sound like power metal per say, but it also doesn’t sound like progressive metal either. It sounds like “welcome” to this category of songs, hehe. Of course we have all those elements, we do have some power metal moments on this album and older albums had power metal, but we always had these progressive elements. I think everybody is right and everybody is wrong at the same time (laughs)…

(laughs) Well, I’m not sure you made it any better, hehe! So, let’s get to some songs of the album, since you mentioned the opening track. There are quite a few new elements here. For example, “Shitload O’ Money” seems to have this kind of sleaze metal, hair metal feeling in it…
Yeah, it’s definitely 80’s rock and that’s what I wanted to do and I achieved it as well. It’s kind of fun to have a song like “Shitload O’ Money”. It’s on the lighters side musically and it is really happy, carefree, 80’s style rock and roll song. It reminds me somehow of Aerosmith, Motley Crue and Van Halen, it is way deep in there somewhere…

Yeah! And I can recall anything like this in the past from you…
No (laughs)!

Sonata ArcticaThen, “I Have A Right” is the obvious leading single from the album and you already have a video out for it. Can you tell a couple of things about the music and the lyrics of it?
Well the song is about human rights, basically. Maybe, it’s more about children’s rights. How we should not teach our children to hate something our friends and parents have told us to hate. Just because that’s the way things have always been. Whatever, anything that can go to that category, like also teaching your children to steal if that’s what how it’s always has been in your family. That’s wrong. It’s about letting all bad things out and leave the kids decide about their future, to be open to any direction. It’s really a United Nation friendly kind of thing and I think hopefully some organization is going to find out about this song… (laughs)

(laughs) Well, I wish for it, as these organizations may give some money for a song…
(laughs) Anyway, it’s a beautiful song and it’s actually the last song that I wrote for this album. Tommy had already recorded all his parts – drum parts – for the album and he was like “I’m done, I’m going for a beer and going for some sauna”. I told him to check his email, because I had sent him a last minute song and he was like “Fuck You” (laughs). But, it was a good “fuck you” because he really liked the song and he played it right away. And the video, well what I told about the story was how we should not give our children the example of doing things just because that’s the way they have always been or they’ve been told of. And that’s what the video brings to you as well. I didn’t actually have a lot to with the art of the video, the band we’re just playing our parts pretty much, because of the tight schedule that we had. But, I told the director what the idea behind the song really is and he and the artists did their thing. It’s a different approach than the one I had in mind, but I think it’s catchy…

…I like it! The next song on the album can easily be the second single as well. “Alone In Heaven” is another very good song and I really liked the quote “what the hell would I do in a place without you..”.
Well, this song is basically about… heaven! Two friends of mine died in the last couple of years, and of course when such things happen you start to think. Of course I am not a religious person, but it would be good to know that there is something after this life, that you would not just vanish. I think it’s a comforting idea. But, heaven is another subject, because it’s different for all of us. For example, I personally love winter. Heaven would have eternal winter, with sunshine, snow and a little bit of cold. I would love that, it would be perfect. But I know that my best friends would consider it as hell, as they love summer more than winter and they’d think a kind of a tropical, paradise island. So, would I rather live alone in my own heaven, or be in hell (the tropical island) with my best friends? I would rather live in hell with my best friends, than alone in heaven and that’s what the song is about…

Sonata ArcticaWell, it can be worse. You can live in the summertime in Greece now, and you can have both heat and financial problems…
(laughs)

Ok, let’s go on with “Cinderlblox”. It’s one of the most diverse songs you’ve ever written combining metal with bluegrass. And banjo is ok, but where is the cowbell?
Cowbell? More cowbell! (laughs). This song was actually the second last song that I wrote for this album. We were rehearsing and I started playing with the keyboards and I came up with this riff. And in one night it became a whole song, so I played it to the guys and they were like “what the hell is this?”. At first, they didn’t like it at all, but later after 2 or 3 times at the rehearsals they were like “dude, this is actually pretty good”. Then, we decided that it was not going to be on the album, but we would probably use it as a bonus track or something. But still we needed a real banjo and a slap bass and a violin as well. And then the song came out so good that it needed to be on the actual album version and not as a bonus track.

Although you kept all songs at about 4 minutes long, you close the album with two tracks that clock about 8 minutes each. Not only that, but you revisit the story of “Wildfire” from the “Reckoning Night” album. I thought the guy had already burned down the town…
(laughs) Well, it’s about tragedy, more than anything. The original “Wildfire” was about a family that was one with the nature. But other people, believed that they are witches and that they were doing bad things, killing and stealing things. Then the oldest person gets into trouble, because of his name, although he’s a nice person. So, as he gets in trouble, he gets pissed off and burns the town down and he goes to jail. Now, for “Wildfire 2” he comes back and the whole story continues from there. It has to do with the human – nature relationship. We are destroying this planet slowly and we think we will always be able to leave this planet someday. One day we’ll be able to get into a spaceship and go somewhere out in space when this planet has been destroyed and then find another planet and destroy it as well… That’s what human beings are, we are pretty shitty animals…

Sonata ArcticaThere is a spoken part at the end of the album about population and environment as well…
(“Using his burgeoning intelligence, this most successful of all mammals has exploited the environment to produce food for an ever-increasing population…Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it's time we control the population to allow the survival of the environment.”)
Yes, the last words on the album are by David Attenborough and I think they are incredibly smart words. It’s concentrating on insuring the future of our race and our animals. It rather concentrates on the survival of our environment and it’s very touching, it almost brought me to tears when I read it for the first time. I really wanted to bring forward the ideas and the message of Attenborough…

Ok. Here’s something I always wanted to ask you. I really like the fact that you “talk too much” in your lyrics, but don’t you ever have any problem remembering all of them?
Not always, sometimes! I think I remember most of them. But the problem with remembering comes with the old songs that we’ve done 500 times live (laughs). And that happens always at the end of the tour when you have played 150 shows and there are about 10 to go and you are there, but you ‘re already thinking of other things, you have new songs on your mind and you’re like “oh, how does this song start?”. But it’s ok, I try to remember the lyrics. Basically, it’s the story. The longer the story, the better I remember it. You get so many words, but the story goes forward. It’s important to remember the order of parts as they come. There is sometimes this unlikely situation when you are singing together with some fan and you look the person in the eyes and he starts singing the wrong lyrics! (laughs) That’s probably the most confusing of moments. Then I start laughing and I come up with new words for the lyrics…

Well, another thing is that I can imagine your music played live with orchestra and choir, so I believe you must have thought of it too. Would you consider doing something like this or do you think it wouldn’t be viable? If, such a show took place, which songs would you surely play?
Wow! Firstly, yes, I would love to do something like that and of course it would be fantastic to do a lot of songs from the “Days Of Grays” album, because that album is full of orchestrations and doing it with a real orchestra would be awesome. Of course, songs from the newest album. It could make the whole thing so different. We were considering at some point when we were rehearsing to use an orchestra, but we decided to keep it more rock. Well, think some songs from the older albums, mostly from the “Days Of Grays” and the whole new album is what I’d say.

So, you haven’t been equally successful everywhere. For example you haven’t made that much of success here, but you’re quite big in Japan. Really, is it that good to be “Big In Japan”?
Big in Japan… Well, it depends on how you’re saying it. Metal music is still a small thing compared to things that are really big in Japan. If you are not Iron Maiden or Metallica you are not that huge. Like, we didn’t sell out arenas with 10.000 people. Hopefully in the future it will get bigger. Of course, it’s good to be big anywhere…

Sonata ArcticaAs we mentioned before you‘re not considered as a power metal band, but you started out clearly as part of this genre. In my opinion Sonata Arctica is one of the few bands that managed to escape, as this genre was going down the drain. Do you think this downfall occurred mostly because the bands play the same things over and over or because the fans want to hear the same things over and over?
Repeating what you do over and over again, I think works well for the bands that have been here…forever. But for younger bands, like when we came along, power metal was the trend, it happened to be the big thing at the moment and we liked it as well, because it was huge and a little fun. But it was not where we were from. We knew we wouldn’t be able to go on with that musical style for a very long time. From the point we released “Ecliptica” I knew how it goes with musical evolution and the same goes with the fans. It would be perfect when I’m 65 years old if someone 50 years old comes to tell me that I’ve been listening to Sonata Arctica for 40 years now (laughs). I think it’s necessary to evolve somehow and if the band that you like changes at the same time that your personal musical taste changes it’s the perfect thing. There are some bands that I really loved at some point, but then, when I grew up they continued playing the same thing and I hoped that they ‘d do something different, because I was losing my interest in them, but they didn’t…

So, what music do you hear nowadays? You don’t seem to have the typical old school, same things taste…
At the moment, the latest thing that I’m into is Devin Townsend. Of course, I like all the Strapping Young Lad stuff, he’s a fantastic singer, but still my favorite album is “Addicted!”, which is more on the softer side. That’s the latest thing, but not the only one. I like jazz Django Reinhardt and Ray Charles, classical music, black metal, normal rock… It’s music in general. I like all kinds of music, there’s a lot o great things everywhere. There’s great reggae out there and a lot of hip hop (laughs). You need to listen to all the kinds of music and find stuff that you like. Explore the world! There are more than one kind and it makes the world so much wider and nicer than you know. Different styles of music. They‘re educational, you learn…

So, let’s end this conversation typically. Do we stand any chance of seeing you playing here in Greece?
We’ve been hoping for 8 years… When did you have the Olympic Games there?

In 2004…
We came in Athens and gave some interviews and I hoped that we’d get the chance to play there finally, but it didn’t help. I hope the new album will open some doors and we’ll get there. In fact, I get a lot of mail from people in Greece. It would be really great to play there…

Well Tony, thank you very much. Hope to see you soon.
Thank you too. Please, tell everybody to check the album. It would be great if they did...
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