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SONATA ARCTICA
Ruisrock / Turku 2005

(Photo by Toni Härkönen)

“A mystic feeling”

Suiciderock: Did you enjoy your time on stage today?
Toni: Yeah, we did. It was fine, it was too hot in the beginning and in the middle. But we had some shit there.
Suiciderock: So it was fun?
Toni: Yeah it was.
Henrik: Sometimes it’s fun and than sometimes it`s more fun.

Suiciderock: There are many bands playing at Ruisrock this weekend. Is there any band you want to see especially if yes, why?
Toni: Sentenced.
Hernik: We wanted to see Children of Bodom. But we had too much to do yesterday.

Suiciderock: Toni, you mentoined that you want to make a Soloproject one day. Is that right?
Toni: Yes, one glorious day.

Suiciderock: But you want to?
Toni: Yeah, who doesn’t? But it is not current at all.

Suiciderock: So there is no fix date for it?
Toni: No, no, I haven’t done anything for it but I’ve got some ideas ready.

Suiciderock: Let’s talk a bit about touring. You will go on tour in September. What can people expect of your shows?
Henrik: We want to do a solid show. We won’t bring up any clowns, there won’t be any lazer weappons, no fog or something like that. It’s gonna be a solid rock show. We try to bring in the best songs, the songs that we like. We try to change the setlist a little bit all the time. It is really fucking borring if you go on playing all the time with the same setlist. And we can do stupid things in between. We not gonna play any Black Sabbath. Maybe...

Suiciderock: You get around a lot. Is there any city or country that impressed you the most so far?
Toni: I think when you come to a new place that’s always impressing. The last thing that impressed me was the USA and Canada as well. The first time I went to Japan it was fucking awesome. We have been so many times there so it’s not such a huge experience anymore. The first European Tour with Stratovarius was fucking amazing. I’ve never been outside of Skandinavia before.
Henrik: On the other hand it is great to come back again and to see it is still working and solid all the time. But I think as well that places you haven`t been to are more exiting but that has nothing to do with the show. It is mostly about other things than music.
Toni: The cities are quite the same everywhere. There are always special attractions like for example in Paris the Eifel Tower. This a small / huge things who are there. For example when we were in Rome, I wanted to see the Collosseum.
Henrik: It doesn’t matter were we go there is always this mystic feeling of a hangover. That follows me everywhere.

Suiciderock: Bad Charma follows you around?
Henrik: Yeah it does.

Suiciderock: You mentoined Japan. You are very succesfull over there.What’s the difference between the Japanese audience and the audience in Europe?
Toni: The people in Japan are a bit more reserved until the first beat starts. In my opinion they listen a little bit too much of the lyrics. They are not that spontanous as the European audience is.
Henrik: They want to hear him speak between the songs. But there he is changing his guitar or getting me a drink and he can’t introduce the next song or whatever.
Toni: For me it’s easier to play in Europe and I like it more. But in Japan everything works perfectly .That’s it what makes it great.
Henrik: The worsd thing that could happen is to tour in just one area. It is great, you can go to Japan, you can go to Europe. You are able to change. That’s alright. If you would have to play in just one of those areas that would be terrible.

Suiciderock: So it is more fun to play in Europe?
Toni: Yeah it is.

Suiciderock: You released your last record last year. Are there any plans for new material?
Toni: We might release it next year or maybe early 2007.
Henrik: If you gonna say something than it won’t work out. If we’d say it will come out next summer, it won’t come out than. Within the next 10 years there will be definatly a new album.

Suiciderock: You like Stratovarius very much. Do you have any idols or any bands, inspiring you?
Toni: It changes all the time. Sometimes you find some band and you can’t resist.

Suiciderock: Could you describe your bandmates in short?
Toni: He (= Henrik) is boring. He’s a dude.
Henrik: That’s the best compliment I’ve got for ages. You can say you play very nice but when you say something like that that touches my heart.
Toni: and he (pointing on Marko) plays the bass. He is the businessman.
Jani: Yeah, a businessman who plays solitaire.
Henrik: What about Jani? He is usually away with me and the bassplayer. He’s a daddy. He is the most imotionally stable guy. One thing that people don’t know about Toni is that he is a really good impersonator.
He is a bit shy.
Toni: He would be a great frontman for a band. He looks good on stage. He is too shy.

Suiciderock: He should drink more than?
Henrik: We three are like constantly wasted.

Suiciderock: What about your future plans in general?
Toni: There are a lot of things to do.
Henrik: A shower... We gonna tour until the beginning of next year than we start making the next album
Toni: Maybe we have a DVD release in Japan but that`s still open. I’m not sure if it is ready. We still have noone who does the footage .
Henrik: Somebody would have to cut it but...It’s always different if you work with pictures and sound. A record is done very easily. You have your set and you simply play the songs. But when you do a video everything is different.