We are very honored to present you the interview that Eicca Toppinen from Apocalyptica gave to Rock Overdose and to Konstantinos Sotirelis. Eicca talked about many issues, including the past, the present and the future of the band. Enjoy!
Rock Overdose: How are you, Eicca?
Eicca Toppinen: I’m fine! Thank you!
Rock Overdose: Well, first of all, I would like to know what reception “Shadowmaker” had the last two years since its release.
Eicca Toppinen: It’s been very busy. I’m very good! Yes… Now, it’s been great to start the new tour. Actually, we just finished the Shadowmaker Tour in December, in Mexico, and we already have a new contract on the run. So, it’s been good times!
Rock Overdose: Great! So, the band has found a permanent vocalist in the face of Franky Perez in the last three years. We’d like to know which incident led to his participation and how he came to the band.
Eicca Toppinen: Um… While we were planning, working on the “Shadowmaker” music, we realized that, OK, there’s gonna be so many vocal tracks that we need to find a solution for this vocal issue. And, um… It’s been always great to do all these collaborations with different people, but this time we felt that, OK… Because, you know, doing co-operations it’s also, uh, quite complicated. With all the schedules, you know. We had so many different record companies and different people involved. So, it’s kind of complicated to make an album with featuring artists. So, this time we felt that we wanted to be independent, which meant that we needed to get one guy to sing the full album. We also wanted to get touring and, uh, the album connected better, and the same guy would be also on tour. But now, this year, we’re gonna do this anniversary tour. We’re not gonna have Franky with us. It’s a full instrumental show this time.
Rock Overdose: Is it safer for you to write material, knowing that you have a specific voice to guide your songs?
Eicca Toppinen: Yeah, it wasn’t, actually, a lot. We did a lot of re-arrangements with Franky before going to the studio with “Shadowmaker”. We tried to make… We actually had to change the structure of the songs very much. Even some of the instrumental tracks turned out to be vocal tracks with Franky. So, it was very different.
Rock Overdose: OK! The first two albums were full of covers and some themes of your first tracks. How did the transition from covers to your own songs come to be and how certain were you when you first released those songs?
Eicca Toppinen: Um… For us, it was after two albums with covers. OK, there were three kind of tests, runs of the original songs on the second album already. But, we felt that, like, playing all those songs and covers… We found out that, OK, if we want to get something more out of the band and find a musical identity for Apocalyptica, we have to write our music ourselves. Um… The transition for us was easy; probably because that was the only way we could go. We thought that, OK, after these couple of years of playing covers, it’s not interesting enough for the future, to do only covers of songs. It was very clear that we wanted to go into original songwriting. But, for the record company, it wasn’t so clear. They tried to force us to make a third cover album and we had a big fight for it. And it was really worth it. It was, I think… We wouldn’t have done that transition from covers to our own original songs. We would only exist… It’s been ten years. I think it was the right move. But now, being on this anniversary tour of playing “Metallica By Four Cellos”, it’s actually, really, a lot of fun to go back in time – 20 years ago – and play old-school, four-cello versions of the Metallica songs.
Rock Overdose: To remember the first days.
Eicca Toppinen: Yeah! But now we’ve the knowledge and the experience we have got in twenty years. It’s actually the concept that’s really cool now.
Rock Overdose: I see. Many people have been Apocalyptica guests in the past. I’m sure that there were warm feelings between you and them. So, is there any specific funny or special event that you would like to share with us?
Eicca Toppinen: With Metallica, you mean?
Rock Overdose: Some guest that you had…
Eicca Toppinen: A guest? Yeah! It’s, like… Every collaboration has a special background. Of course, from all the guests we’ve had, we’ve been working most together with Rammstein, because we were touring with them in Europe for five weeks and we’ve played a lot of shows together with them – played on various stages many times… So, of course, Rammstein is pretty close to us and our drummer, Mikko [Sirén], was playing on the last Richard Kruspe’s Emigrate album – all the drums there… But it’s cool when we tour and meet people… And we suddenly get people like Christina Scabbia to join us on stage. It’s really nice! We have a good relation with everybody we’ve been collaborating with.
Rock Overdose: I know that there have been a lot of people that try to learn cello because of you. Even myself… I’m thinking to start learning the cello.
Eicca Toppinen: Really?
Rock Overdose: Yeah!
Eicca Toppinen: Ah, that’s cool!
Rock Overdose: It’s interesting to know if there’s a special – or no special – way to adapt to this organ and what is your advice to these people who would like to learn cello?
Eicca Toppinen: My advice is that… Don’t give up, even if it’s not very easy to get started [Laughs] It’s a lot of work, but I think that what is very important is – beside the basic studies – to play the music you like. The more time you spend with the instrument, the faster you learn.
Rock Overdose: I see… It’s been over twenty years since the first special album dedicated to Metallica. How did you feel when you learned about their appreciation and support to you?
Eicca Toppinen: That was great! I was surprised we got the permission to do the album very easily. And it was kind of crazy that… When we released the album, it was in May 2016. The same year already, in November, we were opening for Metallica, [in] Helsinki, for two nights. That was… It kind of felt, absurd [Laughs] You know? Everything happened so fast; I mean, they asked to open for them on certain dates… Of course, it felt really good that [we showed something they did and then they asked us about] our album. And they always said very positive things. And, finally, later, we found out that, actually, our albums influenced Metallica. Even when they did the the orchestra thing. And it was pretty cool that – you know – when they had their thirtieth anniversary and they wanted us to open for them. And I also joined them on stage… It was really cool! So, we have a really good relation with the Metallica guys.
Rock Overdose: What’s your opinion on their last album, “Hardwired… To Self-Destruct”?
Eicca Toppinen: I like the album a lot! I think it’s a great record! I may miss some kind of songs like, you know, old classic, big epic ones, like “Call Of Ktulu” or “One”, or that kind of stuff… But, in general, I really like the album. I just watched them play in the Grammys with Lady Gaga and it was pretty cool sh*t.
Rock Overdose: Well, Apocalyptica have always been a special case that was welcomed very warmly, even if your music isn’t typical metal music. So, are there any bands with a special sound to you that you would like to suggest to metalheads?
Eicca Toppinen: That’s a difficult question! I haven’t found new upcoming metal bands, to many, that would be really interesting. It’s very hard to say. I listen to all types of music, so there’s nothing specific that I would recommend to metal fans. Basically, there is this band called Stamina. They are singing in Finnish language, but their music is really… It’s modern metal. They released a new album last year and it’s my favorite album from last year, so Stamina! That’s a cool band.
Rock Overdose: Great!
Eicca Toppinen: That’s a great suggestion for metal fans. It’s good metal music! Modern!
Rock Overdose: Do you have any plans for a new album?
Eicca Toppinen: Not at the moment, because we are touring with this Metallica concept all this year and the next year [in] spring so… It’s a lot of tour, guys, coming up. But, yeah, we have plans! We have not written much music yet and there’s not going to be a new release before next year. But next year, definitely, we are going to release something new. But we have not decided exactly – you know – what it’s going to be, because there are so many options: we can stay into metal, we can do vocal stuff, we can do acoustic stuff, we can do symphonic stuff… We have a lot of options, so it’s still a little bit ‘open’ before we get a little more music written.
Rock Overdose: I see… So, here is my last question. How would you like to be remembered when, one day, you may stop recording and making all these tours? When you stop from music.
Eicca Toppinen: Oh, when I stop from music? I think musicians never stop [Laughs] I think musicians make music until they die so… I think the original idea of playing metal with strings. I think that’s something the people will remember, that Apocalyptica basically created that trend and that genre. That’s what we did! [Laughs]
Rock Overdose: Thank you very much for this interview! It was a great honor for me!
Eicca Toppinen: Thank you very much!
Rock Overdose: You can close it with a message to the Greek fans, who wait to see you again after so many years.
Eicca Toppinen: We are very much looking forward to coming to Greece! During all these years, we haven’t been there and we’ve been wondering “What the f**k is going on?”, “Why don’t we get back to Greece?”, because we want to get there. Rationally, it was for obvious reasons. Now, we are super happy to get back, because it’s been way too long since the last visit in Greece. Hope people still remember us! [Laughs]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxDcWvZCSRg
For the Rock Overdose Webzine,
Interview: Konstantinos Sotirelis
Questions: Dimitris Aloras
Tapescript: Stergios Gkoutsidis
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