Interview by Ali Blackdiamond

Composer and vocalist with both EDGUY and AVANTASIA, Tobias Sammet is one of Germany’s biggest artists in recent music history. Just prior to leaving for the next leg of the tour to South America with his all-star rock opera, AVANTASIA, Metal Shock Finland‘s Senior Manager Ali Blackdiamond caught up with Tobias for an interesting and amusing chat about his latest offering “The Mystery Of Time,” Bloodstock Festival and more.

Listen to the full interview on the audio player below and also here are a few excerpts from the conversation:

Discussing the whole AVANTASIA project and touring arrangements, Tobias stated (and joked!):

“It’s not as complicated as it looks. I probably shouldn’t say that because I would probably encourage people to do the same thing and that would make me furious! (laughs) If someone said ‘yeah only the best can do that’ it’s gonna wreck your nerves and don’t try this at home. If there’s any musicians out there listening to this show, considering or thinking about doing it themselves, don’t do it! You will have a heart attack in no time!”

Tobias talked of his reasons for having British fantasy artist Rodney Matthews design “The Mystery Of Time” album artwork:

” It’s been a dream of mine to work with him, I’m a huge fan. I have books of him, I have pictures framed on the walls of our house that were painted by him. In fact, I’m so crazy about his art I just received a book that I ordered, it just came today and when I opened the package, I found I already had it. it’s called ‘In Search Of Forever,’ I bought it twice now!

I’ve always been a huge fan of Magnum and Magnum’s artwork and this album “The Mystery Of Time” is so rich in detail and I wanted to create a true piece of art, musically. I also wanted to stress that by choosing the right artwork I wanted to have something handcrafted, I wanted to have something timeless, something that is not up to date, something that is not trendy, something that you would not expect on an Avantasia album that is being released in 2013. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to say Rodney’s art is old fashioned, I just want to say it’s timeless, a piece of art. That’s what I really love about it, I had to have Rodney’s artwork on my album.”

We talked of the upcoming Bloodstock Festival and Tobias had an unforgettable memory from his last appearance there with EDGUY:

“You don’t remind people of a defeat in football and you don’t mention the war in England if you are German. I went onstage and thought people were a bit reserved and thought I should tickle them. So I said ‘we may have lost the war, but we made it to the quarter finals!’ and luckily everyone started to laugh! In England you have to work hard to make people laugh about your jokes, but when you do, people reward it. That’s when Bloodstock and I became real friends!

I’m looking forward to playing Bloodstock because it’s in the mother country of heavy metal and it’s the country where this was all invented and that’s where we’ll bring Avantasia. It’s the first time for Avantasia on a stage in England.

There’s going to be everybody – Eric Martin, Ronnie Atkins, Bob Catley, Amanda (Somerville), Michael Kiske. The only thing is that we’re not gonna do the full show, because that would be 3 hours, and there’s other bands who want to go on after us! It will be a smooth ‘best of’ set.”

Discussing what’s happening with EDGUY at the moment, Tobias said:

” We won’t disband, we will go on. We are about to start working on a new album this fall. We will take all the time we need until we come up with something that makes sense. I don’t expect a new album to come out until spring or summer 2014.”