Text and live photography: Anne-Marie Forker
Photography: Kevin Nixon
Your new album title “Here Be Dragons” immediately sounds like a storytelling album. What inspired the title?
The quest for adventure, or the spirit of adventure, and to use my most precious tool which is my imagination and come up with stories, disappearing into the world of Avantasia and my own little world to discover things and try out things and be playful and not worry about what’s going on in the rest of the world. It’s just my world, I’m the mayor of this empire called Avantasia, the Kingdom of Avantasia, so to speak, and “Here Be Dragons” just sums up the whole attitude of the album and the whole approach. I mean, “here be dragons” was used on ancient maps to indicate uncharted territory where there may lurk possible danger or probable dangers maybe, and I thought – don’t come here, there may be danger – that sounds like an invitation to me! You never know what’s going to happen, you never know what’s coming next and this was such a great metaphor for this journey that I have been setting off on myself, that I thought it was a great way to sum up this book with ten individual stories. So I think it emphasizes and embraces the escapist approach of the album.
The first story is “Creepshow”. Why did you choose that as the first single?
Because it was very obviously the most accessible track. I think they’re all amazingly accessible because, of course, I wrote them and to me they were quite accessible, but it’s the shortest track and the record company said it may be the most contentious track and it’s one of the few tracks on the album that has a chance to get some airplay on rock and hard rock radio. It’s a mid-tempo song, it’s accessible, it’s understandable, it’s got a sing-along catchy melody, it’s not extremely heavy, it’s not extremely complicated. Still it has the quintessence of my writing and my DNA, it has some Edguy attitude also I have to say, or some Edguy resemblance in a way, but that is just the nature of things, I mean, I’m the song writer for both, so of course whatever I do with Avantasia has also some link to Edguy and vice versa. So, three minutes long, I think it’s quite easy to digest and that’s why it was the obvious choice. Of course I knew that the gatekeepers of the community would be very angry with me, but I didn’t expect them to be so angry, but it’s just 2% probably, they are a very loud minority. And controversy is not too bad to promote something, so I’m very happy that not 100% love it, but only 95% or 97%, and the other 2 or 3% hate it from the bottom of their heart and are very vocal about it. That’s the spice and the soup of promotion, so it’s not too bad. I’m really happy with the track, I know it’s not a power metal track, it’s not a fast track, and I knew that, I don’t want to say narrow-minded, but some people who are exclusively into extreme power metal would be a bit shocked, but then heavy metal is about shocking people, so it’s absolutely metal.
It’s much better to have 97% happy and 3% really unhappy. That’s still a reaction. What you don’t want is indifference.
Yeah – it could be worse, it could be the other way around then I would be quite unfortunate. To be honest, I left out part of the truth – I would say 99% of the world’s population don’t even care about whatever I do. They don’t even know what I’m doing. But out of those people who expected something from me I think the vast majority are quite happy with it.
I think you’re going to attract a lot of new fans with that track.
Yeah, you never know. That’s what you hope for, because when I write a song, no matter if it’s a fast track, or more traditional track, or an epic, or a song like “Creepshow”, a lot of people ask me – what did you think when you did that? And what was the intention? And most of the time, I’ve got to be disappointing to people. There’s no intention. I was just thinking – that’s a great melody. I’m sitting at the piano, and let things happen. I just enjoy my time. And you don’t necessarily think about what the impact of a song is going to be or what it’s not going to be. You just do it and you let it happen. And I think that’s the most honest approach. That’s the only way I can approach things in order to maintain peace of mind and happiness. And make sure that the time I spend at my piano, that those moments are not wasted moments. And they are wasted moments if I don’t enjoy it, worrying about what people may want to hear. I just sit there and I have quality time. I’m just creative. And those are priceless moments. And that’s why I hope that some new people will like it. But it’s not really been the intention of it. In the beginning, when you start writing a song, often you have no idea what it’s going to be like in the end, and what it’s going to sound like, and which road the song is going to take you. Most of the time – or all the time – I let the song take me its way. And that’s exciting for me. And wherever it takes me, there may be dragons, you know? Some of those dragons are nasty bastards on social media. But I don’t care, you know? I challenge every dragon to face me and to stand in front of me and let’s see who’s going to prevail.
That’s a good challenge! Speaking of enjoying it, which one of these songs when writing and recording did you enjoy the most?
Well, that’s difficult to say because when I don’t enjoy something, I can be a very grumpy person and when I don’t enjoy what I’m doing it, I stop doing it. So that’s why all the songs you hear finished on the album, I genuinely enjoyed working on them. Of course, there’s a different story to every song. What I can say, for example, what comes to my mind as a very, very vivid and strong memory, is one of the last songs I wrote for the record. That was “Bring On The Night” with Bob Catley. It was written during the World Championship in football. And it was written during the game, Netherlands against Turkey. I’m a huge Magnum fan. And I never had it before, a song coming together like that. I was watching football and I just had the feeling – I have to play piano. Piano was across the room. It was just like the piano said “Come and play me” and I started to play. I have a little sketch painted by Rodney Matthews hanging on the piano, a picture by Rodney Matthews, some dragons, funnily. And I started to play the piano and all of a sudden it was just like a song was coming together in five minutes, something like that. And I captured the moment, I captured the idea. And finished the football game, went to my studio that night and finished the whole song, the demo of the song within minutes or hours, I would say. And that was “Bring On The Night” as a tribute to Magnum. I was so fuelled by the idea of, innocently, paying homage and tribute to Magnum, and putting it into an Avantasia context, it was almost a holy or sacred experience. I can’t describe it. It came together so fast. It was scary. And within the next morning, the song was written and demoed. On the limited edition of the album, you can hear the original demo. Of course, some refinements were made afterwards, but you can hear the demo I recorded where I recorded all the tracks, the drums and the bass and the guitars played on keyboards. Tons of keyboard sounds. And that was a very, very exciting and encouraging experience. But I enjoyed writing all the songs. You know, I don’t just do it for a living. I really do it because I don’t have anything else to do. Well, I’m so boring, I have to write songs! No, I really enjoy it. That’s quality time for me.
The love of it is the only reason. What was Bob’s reaction when you showed him the song?
I played it to him I think during the afternoon before our show in Austria this summer on my mobile phone. And he said, “It’s lovely. I get it. I get exactly what you want. It’s lovely. Let me do it.” And we recorded in Hamburg the weekend of Wacken open air afterwards, we went to the studio, we recorded it. And he was very emotional, I have to say. And he was emotional – we didn’t speak too much about the lyrics of the track, but he felt what this was all about. And that it was my way of saying – Your band means the world to me, and you are a lifetime member of Avantasia, and we’re all glad to have you, Bob. And without Magnum, there would not be Avantasia or even the songwriter that I am today. So that was what I was saying with the track in a way between the lines. The lyrics are slightly different, but there are some hints. I mean, there’s “Keep the Nightlight Burning” in it. So that was my way of saying thank you to Tony Clarkin and Bob Catley and the whole Magnum Camp.
That must have been such a comfort to him as well after the loss of Tony. It’s still fairly recent.
I think so. I spoke to Bob in the beginning. We didn’t speak much because I didn’t know what Bob was going to do. I mean, what was his choice in music? Would he carry on playing music? He was falling into a hole, in a way, or that’s what I thought. But we had a chat at the bar at Sweden Rock Festival in the hotel, where Bob opened up about it a little bit. I said, Bob, don’t thank me, we thank you. You are for Avantasia as wonderful as maybe Avantasia is for you, as he was saying. So it goes both ways. And there’s no need for Bob to thank us because I thank Bob. He’s been around for 25 years now in my life. I think the first time we met was in April or May or March, I don’t know, 2000. So, yeah, we have quite some history together.
Speaking of history, close to 2000 is 1999 and that’s when you first conceived of Avantasia I believe. Did you ever think back then that it would last 25 years?
No, because it wasn’t planned. It was it was just designed to be a two-off album, a one-off, a double album, which we sliced in two pieces to sell it twice. That sounds honest, right? [laughs] No, seriously, I mean, it was so much music and was so expensive to produce and we just finished the first part of it and released it, but it was just meant to be two albums. I didn’t want to do it as constant thing. And I buried it after the second album to fully focus on my other band, Edguy, and I wrote those songs for Edguy and fulfilled myself with Edguy. But after a while, I realized that I was missing something. I was missing the fact that I would work with my heroes again and with idols of mine, with people like, later on, it would be Alice Cooper and Klaus Meiner and Biff Byford and Jørn Lande, and I would work with those people and I missed that. And I also missed having not to discuss everything with five people because in a band, in a real proper band that has grown since you were 14 years old, I would say that you put in 100% energy, but 90% of the energy goes into resolving arguments and finding compromises and making everybody happy. And then there’s 10% left to be creative at the night time. And then in the next morning, you go to the studio again and to the rehearsing room and you’re trying to explain everything again. And you’re trying to convince people, having to turn down ideas from somebody because you don’t think they’re good and they turned down your ideas. And I didn’t want to do that. I missed not having to do that. So I just did it again. Everything is so much more immediate in Avantasia. I make a decision, and I sit there and somebody asked me something like – which is going to be the opening track of the album? And you say – I feel like this one is going to be the opening track. Next question. Everything is so immediate. That doesn’t mean every decision is the best decision in the long term that you could have made, but everything you are able to, all the power you invest directly goes into the result. You don’t waste energy. There’s no frictional loss. And I missed that. And that’s why I revived Avantasia and it proved me right. Because from then on after the rebirth of Avantasia in 2007, it skyrocketed. All of a sudden we became a touring band. We became a band that nobody had seen before because all of a sudden there was a band with five or six lead singers on stage. And sometimes you see that, but it’s usually called The Allstar Project. And usually the encore is everybody doing “Smoke On The Water” together and the audience falling asleep. It was a different approach. It was a real spectacle. I think it’s even more now with a new show and we refurbished everything and it’s really an experience. So, [laughs] to answer your question, no, I didn’t guess at all that it would last this long!
It’s an experience. I saw the Tons of Rock performance in Norway last year and it was spectacular. The whole stage setup as well is beautiful, visually.
It was a great show. Thank you first of all for appreciating it. But the thing is, it was a daylight show and of course in Norway it’s really difficult to play it without day/night in summer. I mean, the sunset is broken in Norway! But of course when it’s getting dark, then it’s a way more intense experience. I once saw a King Diamond show in the daylight at Sweden Rock a long time ago, 20 years ago something like that or 25 years maybe even. And it was a bit like the Muppet Show, and I love King Diamond, don’t get me wrong, but it was just King Diamond has to be a horror movie, it needs darkness, and a theatrical show, a haunted house, where it’s not even murky, when the sun is shining on a haunted house and all of a sudden you see those ghosts in daylight, you think, oh, something’s wrong here. It’s like it’s a behind-the-scenes experience almost, you know? You see what the great Wizard of Oz is wearing behind the scenes and that he’s just a man in his leisure suit. So that was something that I didn’t like about the Tons of Rock experience. And the burning piano didn’t go off. I mean, it didn’t burn. So technically, it was no burning piano. But yeah, I liked it, it was great. And the funny thing is, like not too long ago, people said in Norway, it’s not the right music for Norway, it should be more extreme. And then it’s always an inner triumph, when you prove these business experts wrong, when you go there and you say- see, there’s a lot of people here that love that type of music. Those are the moments that I really enjoy because it’s just like, see, there is this kind of audience everywhere. And it was great. We were received with open arms.
You’re coming back in April, I believe, and that will be at night indoors, in your own venue. How did you find the Norwegian audience?
I have played in Norway before at an indoor place in Oslo in 2022, I believe it was, and it was insane. It was, i don’t know, 1300 people or something, it was not a huge crowd it was a small or a mid-sized theatre, Sentrum Scene, that one. And the crowd was so wild, and so loud, and so lovely, that I thought – why haven’t we done this before? Why did we listen to people who say, no, it is a black metal country. No, it is black metal, of course, you invented that type of music, but there’s so much more.
Yes, absolutely.
TNT are from Norway, and Jørn is from Norway, and there are so many great musicians from Norway – and Morten Harket! That’s not exactly heavy metal, but…
He is one of the best.
He’s great. I love a-ha.
So do I. My experience living here is, yes, there are a lot of black metal fans and there are black metal festivals, but the bigger venues like Sentrum Scene, like Oslo Spektrum and Tons of Rock, it’s more than that.
Yeah, you know, I think it’s like everywhere. There is a market for this type of music everywhere and I didn’t see a reason why it should be any different in Norway. But I have to say, when we did that, especially that first indoor show we did, it was crazy loud. The reaction was so good and that’s what I’m looking forward to. It’s gonna be good and we’re gonna bring our own show. Last time we played there, it was a daylight show, the time before, the first show we played in Oslo was, it was our own show but we didn’t bring the show. This time we’re gonna come with a full set, with a full stage set, and we’re gonna play the long show and it’s gonna be dark. This is gonna be the way it’s supposed to be.
I do hope “Creepshow” will be in the setlist.
Absolutely, it has to be. It’s a single and I love that song and it will be the set list. Definitely.
Fantastic. Thank you so much again for your time today, Toby. I really appreciate it.
Thank you! Thank you for your support and have a merry Christmas!
Originally published in Norway Rock Magazine #1/2025