Article from metal magazine "Suomi Finland Perkele" issue #1

STRATOVARIUS

I interviewed Timo Kotipelto by phone because Stratovarius is leaving for a lengthy tour in the end of August and I probed the general feelings in the band before the tour...

SFP: So, how's it going right now?

TK: I'm cool, anxiously waiting for the tour to start and trying to rehearse my singing and physics. We're having a band practice August 27th in Hamburg at Running Wild's rehearsal room. J|rg is recording Running Wild's next album and Jens is in New York, cooking up something with his brother and Tolkki is mixing Edguy's album at Finnvox studios. We feel this tour is so extensive that we will probably record some shows for our forthcoming live album, which will be released sometime around January or February. We'll include some stuff from our gig at Tavastia Club later in the autumn. At this stage it seems that our next studio album will be released at autumn of 1998.

 

SFP: Have you heard that you're the scoring tune of the Greek national basketball team?

TK: Yes, we've heard it. The song is "Wings of Tomorrow" from the album "Dreamspace", the only song Timo has ever written in major, and it's not one of my favourite Stratovarius tunes. We've also heard that we're the most popular band in Greece, but it depends on what you compare us to...

 

SFP: Have you noticed that melodic heavy metal is on the rise and why do you think it is?

TK: I'm under the same impression myself. I don't know what this thing with Greece is, everytime Tolkki visits there for interviews the local bands hand a bagful of demos to him. There's a bit too much of trying on some of the demos, but they're pretty cool. Melodic metal is skyrocketing, especially in South-America, Spain and Finland. We're very surprised that the album is selling so well. "Episode" sold something between 3000 and 4000 copies and we figured "Visions" would sell 5000-600 units and maybe we'd get to show our noses in Finnish top 15, but we never ever expected it to sell 10000 copies! It has now sold 14000, which is totally cool!

 

SFP: What, do you think, is the status of metal in Finland?

TK: I think it's very positive thing that there's so many fine metal bands in Finland and it seems that the Scandinavian bands that sell well internationally, are Finnish. Finland is so little a country that we have to keep ourselves humble.

 

SFP: Let's talk a while about the music you like, what do you expect from Dream Theater's next album, which will soon be released?

TK: That's a tricky question. It's hard to say because some opinions I've heard tell me Dream Theater is moving to heavier direction, the others tell me the album's going to be more poppyish. I wouldn't know, I've just got to wait.

 

SFP: Tell us about a fumble or a total screw-up that's happened to you!

TK: Actually, our gig at NummiRock was kind of funny because we were already been introduced and Johansson was still somewhere, changing his pants. Tolkki had already started to play the first song, I was already singing and Jens shows up in the middle of the song. It was funny, especially when we watched it from a video afterwards. Nothing
especially disastrous has ever happened to us. Of course there's some stuff that's happened when we've been drunk but that's just a part of the band...

 

SFP: If Stratovarius were a movie, which one would it be?

TK: Blade Runner, of course! Nah, I don't know if we were Blade Runner, but it is directed so well and the effects are so awesome... I guess it's pretty close.

 

SFP: How did you get involved with Stratovarius?

TK: When I moved to Helsinki I did some demos and one guitarist I know was acquainted with Jari and Timo Tolkki, to whom he told about me. Tolkki came to visit me and listened to me strut my stuff and welcomed me to the band. I auditioned and rehearsed four songs, it was actually quite simple and the pieces fell in their places pretty effortlessly.

 

SFP: What did you do before joining Stratovarius?

TK: I sang in a band called "Filthy Asses". We released one self-financed single.

 

SFP: ...and that single became a collector's item for the Stratovarius fans?

TK: I guess so. We printed 500 copies of it and there may be some of those lying somewhere in our guitarist's corners. Klaus Flaming seems to like it because he played it in Metalliliitto (a Finnish metal radio show) last time I heard it. We did some decent songs back then but our musicianship wasn't all that great and we had no money to invest to the band. We still play together occasionally, mainly we do some metal covers.

 

SFP: When will we see Stratovarius touring in Finland again?

TK: This October. Everyone, welcome to our shows!

 

SFP: What would you want to say to the fans of Finnish metal?

TK: If it's Finnish - buy it! There's so many great Finnish bands around, and I'm not talking about our band in particular. We have some many good bands internationally, there's no need to think that a band isn't good because it's Finnish anymore. I think it's the other way around, Finns make some honest heavy metal. For the ones who've bought our albums, thank you for supporting us, it's just another piece to the pile of evidence that we have a great fan base in Finland and they're the reason we will play these additional shows in the autumn. It feels especially good, because things haven't been this way before...

 

SFP: Thanks for the interview, Timo. All the best for you and good luck for your shows!

TK: Thank you very much and good luck to your magazine and the record company. Perkele!

 

Interview by Toni Kalermo