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Post by Admin on Oct 22, 2014 0:02:53 GMT
Tobias Sammet became known amongst Rock fans all over the world as the singer and songwriter of EDGUY, one of Germany's biggest internationally acclaimed Rock bands in recent music history, having played numerous headline tours in Europe, Australia, Asia and North, Central, and South America. In 1999 Tobias started his side project AVANTASIA. What was originally planned as a one-off studio affair, was revived in 2007. The album "The Scarecrow" (info | shop) was released in 2008 and was officially amongst the 20 best selling albums all over Europe upon its release, it entered the charts in 15 countries (Germany #8), featured the Top 10 hit single "Lost In Space". On the album Tobias had been working with fellow musicians like Jorn Lande, Eric Singer (KISS), Rudolf Schenker (SCORPIONS), Bob Catley (MAGNUM), Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske both ex-HELLOWEEN), Alice Cooper and many more. The unexpected success of the album resulted in a Festival-tour, climaxing with a headlining show at the prestigious Wacken Open Air in front of more than 85.000 people. When the tour was over AVANTASIA had played in Europe, Asia and South America in front of more than half a million people. Despite his busy lifestyle and another two world tours TOBIAS SAMMET spent the few free weeks in 2008 and 2009 in the studio to work together with producer Sascha Paeth on new AVANTASIA-material which is now in the form of the albums ”The Wicked Symphony” and ”Angel Of Babylon” just before its release (April 3rd). Like the former masterpieces there will be breathtaking performances of numerous guest stars for the fans. So the majority of the drums was recorded with KISS-drummer ERIC SINGER, ex-KISS-guitarist BRUCE KULICK did many lead guitars and JUDAS PRIEST-fans are able to look forward to the cooperation with RIPPER OWENS. In addition to it there is the duet of TOBIAS and SCORPIONS-front man KLAUS MEINE on the hymnal earwig ”Dying For An Angel”. For this song there also has been a video shooting. Since March 2011, the 2DVD "The Flying Opera" is released. What is documented on this double-DVD now is the highly memorable first AVANTASIA world tour that followed after the album’s big success. It included not only a headliner show at the” Wacken Open Air” in 2008 and at the “Masters Of Rock” festival in Czech Republic, but also shows in Asia, South America and all over Europe in front of more than 500.000 people! In the end, “The Flying Opera“ illustrates the sheer magnitude of this historic event perfectly and sure is huge fun to watch for AVANTASIA fans from all over the globe!
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Post by Admin on Jun 3, 2019 18:12:40 GMT
When Eric Martin and Geoff Tate – the respective voices behind the iconic power ballads “To Be With You” and “Silent Lucidity” – perform in Anaheim on May 19, it won’t be with Mr. Big or Queensrÿche, the rock acts with whom they topped the charts a quarter-century ago. Instead, they’ll be part of a touring party for an ambitious group that is currently making major waves internationally, and finally starting to make inroads in America – Avantasia, a symphonic power metal band founded two decades ago by German vocalist Tobias Sammet (Edguy). The group’s new album, Moonglow, which showcases Tate and Martin on multiple tracks, debuted at #1 in Germany upon its February release and also cracked the Top 10 in Sweden, Austria, Spain and Switzerland. (Here in the States, the record debuted at #46 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart.) Avantasia is currently in the midst of a five-month, 21-country world tour that features four American concerts, only the second time the band has scheduled domestic live performances. (The group made their U.S. debut in 2016 at the old Downtown Disney House of Blues.) Sammet hopes it won’t be the last. “We were always told that there was no fan base [in the U.S.] for such a type of music,” Sammet says during a interview on a day off in Spain during the group’s recent European tour. “But I have a firm belief that if what you do is special and you do it with all of your heart and you deliver something that people can’t get anywhere else, there is a potential audience. The first tour in the U.S. was just putting our toe into the water to test the waters. Now, we dare to walk in a couple of feet and see how it feels when the water is around your ankle. If it goes down well, then I hope we can slowly build this up.” For the uninitiated, Avantasia features multiple vocalists – many times on the same song – and performs lush, heavily orchestrated hard rock that’s commonly described as “metal opera.” The easiest frame of reference is probably a heavier Meat Loaf, although Sammet doesn’t object to the descriptions “Queen on steroids” or “Trans-Siberian Orchestra without the Christmas.” Much of the group’s Anaheim performance will showcase material from Moonglow, a concept album with a fish-out-of-water theme that Sammet describes as “a very heartfelt, honest, old-fashioned, out-of-vogue record.” The closing track is a cover of Michael Sembello’s “Maniac” – the 1983 #1 hit that was immortalized by the movie “Flashdance” – on which Sammet and Martin share vocal duties. Sammet promises to perform the song in Anaheim. “’Maniac’ is a very, very brave song,” he says. “I think it’s a very well-crafted song. It’s got such an energy with Eric that I said, ‘We have to do that song live. It will add a new flavor to the show.’”
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Post by Admin on Jun 4, 2019 17:55:20 GMT
On AVANTASIA's new album "Moonglow": Tobias: "It's not trendy. It's not flavor of the week, but it's put together with a lot of love for detail. If you like MEAT LOAF and you like IRON MAIDEN and you don't have any disdain for QUEEN, check this out. There's a bit of Wagner in there, and Hans Zimmer, you can hear that we're coming from the same region in Germany. [Laughs]" On how the album's cover of Michael Sembello's "Maniac", which was featured in the 1983 film "Flashdance", has been received by AVANTASIA fans: Tobias: "Mostly good. Some of it's terrible, and that's good — we get a reaction. Nothing's worse than getting no reaction at all. Some people really hated it. Most people really love it, and sometimes, if you're convinced about something, you have to shove it down people's throats [laughs], because as an artist, you would be a very, very poor artist if you would just do what people want to hear. You have to be convincing — you have to give people something that is of value, and that is honest, and not just give them just what they want to hear. The radio is full of stuff that people want to hear, tailored to a target audience. I always liked the song. I know it was overplayed in the '80s, and it was overdone, and it was on the radio, and people have those pop connotations when they hear the song. It was covered for no other reason than pure hedonism. I just had the idea — 'Let's do a cover version. If we don't use it, we can afford producing the song and just listening to it ourselves and not releasing it.' That's the luxury of artistic freedom, but we produced it and it turned out to be so great, so we said, 'Okay, let's put it on the record.'" On why he plays bass on AVANTASIA albums himself instead of recruiting famous musicians to do so: Tobias: "I sometimes enjoy doing it myself, but I have to say, I'm losing more and more interest in doing it myself. I do [almost] all the bass on the records. Some of it has been done by Sascha [Paeth, producer and guitarist]. Whenever it gets complicated... I'm a lousy bass player. I think I have the feeling for it, and I used to be the bass player in EDGUY as well, and I used to take that instrument very seriously. You have to if you want to be a good bass player, but down the line, the bass is a very, very... it has to fill a certain purpose, but still, it's not a very important instrument. It has to play a certain role in AVANTASIA, and that role is not a very dominant role. That's why I don't want to get one of those bass stunt men into the game that would say, 'Oh, we should turn the bass louder and I should play all these crazy licks here.' If we have those crazy licks, Sascha can play them. He did a slap solo in 'Requiem For A Dream'. I talked him into doing it, because he's not a show-off at all. I said, 'If I was a bass player, I would love to do it.' I mean, I am a bass player, but I can't do these kinds of things. I don't have the patience, to be honest, to rehearse when it comes to an instrument that nobody really takes note of. [Laughs] Lead singer's disease!" On whether he has a "bucket list" of singers that he'd like to have participate in AVANTASIA: Tobias: "I try to get Bruce Dickinson every single time. [IRON MAIDEN manager] Rod Smallwood, he's always very, very protective. He always turns down my request in a very polite way, I have to admit. It's always a very, very nice 'no.' I try not to have a bucket list, because a bucket list always seems very, very nerdy — like somebody's just making check marks behind something that he wants to do to impress other people, or that he's left to do before he passes away. I try not to have a bucket list — I try to enjoy myself and do things that make sense in a musical way. I want to be happy, and having a bucket list of artists would be disrespectful to all the people that I work with, that I have around me at this very moment. Those great singers, if there was a bucket list, they are on that bucket list. I have made my check marks, and yet, I want to continue working with them, because they are amazing. Of course, if Paul Stanley, if that would happen one day, or Gene Simmons, I'd love it — I'm a huge KISS fan, and they've been very influential to me. Meat Loaf would have been great. It didn't work out, but it 's not that I have this huge bucket list or something like that. I try not to think in those terms." On SAVATAGE's Jon Oliva, who sang on AVANTASIA's 2010 song "Death Is Just A Feeling": Tobias: "Jon is such a great musician, and a nice guy. I remember we got to know each other — it was in Spain, actually, when a flight got canceled. There was a festival, and we were stuck at the airport. It was EDGUY, HELLOWEEN and Jon Oliva. We were stuck at the airport for hours — 12 hours, then eventually, the flight got canceled. We hung out together and we spoke all day. We were in a taxi together going to another city. It was all paid by the airline. We got to know each other, and that's when we became acquainted, and later on, we worked together. He's a great guy, and he's a great, great musician, and a very intense personality. You can hear that by the way he sings, by the way he puts his soul into the music. We're brothers in mind, so to speak, because he's one of the founders of the TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA. He's up there with the very, very, very best, I think."
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Post by Admin on Jun 7, 2019 17:51:39 GMT
Sascha says: "Finally, I am putting my energy into a metal project of my own. It is the sum of my experiences over the years and a bit of a revival of what I was doing in the past."
"Signs of Wings" is much more than a solo album. Sascha put together a great group of musicians including Felix Bohnke (AVANTASIA) on drums, André Neygenfind (AVANTASIA) on bass, Corvin Bahn on keyboards, and American singer Adrienne Cowan (SEVEN SPIRES). Offering a wide range of styles within the metal spectrum, from aggressive and straight foward metal songs, to more melodic and symphonic tracks, this record has a bit of everything and is certainly going to strike fans of Sascha's as one of the most inventive, complete, and exciting releases in the metal genre in 2019.
As a 15-year-old teenager, you might have found Paeth playing a more bluesy style, or VAN HALEN-meets-ACCEPT style hard rock, but it wasn't long before Paeth joined HEAVEN'S GATE, where the music was harder and heavier. This experience was where he learned to enjoy inspiration from new styles and from new collaborations. It was the start of a long journey through the music business, a journey that is far from over....
To label Sascha Paeth a multi-talented producer, engineer, musician, and songwriter might not quite cover his full set of skills and achievements. The Wolfsburg-born German multi-musician has produced countless bands, including AVANTASIA, KAMELOT, RHAPSODY, EPICA, and more. Having worked on, produced, and engineered over 200 albums since 1988, it's fair to say he has a reputation for being at the forefront of shaping the European melodic power metal sound.
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Post by Admin on Jun 19, 2019 0:07:06 GMT
André Matos, former lead singer of the Brazilian metal bands ANGRA and VIPER, has died at the age of 47. His death was confirmed by ex-ANGRA drummer Ricardo Confessori, who also played with Matos in SHAMAN (a.k.a. SHAAMAN). Ricardo wrote on his Facebook page: "It is with deep pain in our hearts that we say goodbye to André once again, this time definitively." André performed last Sunday (June 2) at the Espaço das Américas in São Paulo with SHAMAN and also made a guest appearance with the show's headliners, AVANTASIA. AVANTASIA leader Tobias Sammet wrote on his Facebook page: "I am devastated by the tragic news about the passing of my friend André Matos whom I shared the stage with only five days ago. I am in shock. My thoughts and prayers are with his family. Rest in peace, André Matos." Veteran German producer Sascha Paeth, who plays guitar in AVANTASIA, said: "I just heard the incredible, devastating news that my longtime friend and companion André Matos passed away today. We had such good and intense times together that I will never forget. We happily met again after a lot of years last Sunday and now he's gone. I am so sad. Thanks for everything, André, and my deepest condolences to his family."
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