Sonata Arctica - A chat with the keyboard player Henrik!!!

Sonata Arctica are undoubtedly in power metal royalty; they’ve been slowly building their fan-base over the years, touring with the likes of Symphonic Metal leviathans Nightwish.  Now they’re making a return to the UK with a headlining tour, bringing with them their new live-orientated, more Rock ‘n' Roll styled, masterpiece ‘Stones grow her Name’.Ashley Naismith of Music Trespass had a brief conversation with Keyboard / Keytar player Henrik Klingenberg, and this is what he had to say.

Music Trespass: You are currently on a world tour.  How have the fan reactions been, especially to the new material?

Henrik: It's been really good! We wanted to make this album a bit more straightforward and live-friendly, and I think we accomplished that.

Music Trespass: You have been writing a tour blog.  What do you want fans to get out of it?  A sense of what touring is really like, or do you just write it for fun?

Henrik: It's mainly to have something to do on tour to try and keep my sanity! I think that together with Tony's tour documentaries, you can get a pretty accurate picture of what goes on during our tours. Most of the time we're traveling, so there is bound to be a lot of airports, hotels and van-rides, which of course isn't always that interesting....

Music Trespass: What is your opinion of the bands accompanying you?  Why did you choose them, and what has it been like to share a bus with them?

Henrik: At the moment (of writing) we're in Latin-America, so we don't have any bands with us and we travel by aircraft. When we do the bus tours, we don't share our bus with other bands so... anyway, most of the bands we tour with are suggested by our management and so far 99% of them have been really cool and easy-going!

Music Trespass: In 2009, you did a self-titled Festival in your hometown, Kemi.  Given that this is the biggest Sonata Arctica tour to date, can you see another one of these on the horizon?

Henrik: Yeah, we actually have done two Sonata Arctica open air festivals, the first one being back in 2006 when the 'Reckoning Night' World Tour ended. I think that eventually we'll have to make the 3rd installment, but it won't be this summer even though we are playing in Kemi in August.

Music Trespass: In songs like ‘Flag in the Ground’, you appear to almost duel with Elias [guitarist].  Are the solos competitive?

Henrik: I think to some extent we do compete a bit with the solos and bounce off of each other. Since our styles are quite different, it's really fun to exchange ideas and teach each other new licks and whatnot.

Music Trespass: The title of the new album, ‘Stones Grow Her Name’, is fairly cryptic; is there a meaning behind it?  Does the artwork have anything to do with it?

Henrik: Yeah, it's a variation on the line “Stones grow dead names” in the song ‘Alone in Heaven’. We didn't want to use the word dead in the album title since the overall feeling is quite positive on the album. I've been trying to figure out the meaning of the artwork for some time now, but haven't yet come to a conclusion about what I think that it means. So I leave that up to you....

Music Trespass: ‘Shitload of Money’ is the first song that Sonata Arctica have sworn in.  What prompted this choice?

Henrik: If I'm not completely mistaken, there was a song called ‘Dream Thieves’ with some swearing in it but... Honestly I don't consider “shitload” a swear word, but anyway… this song started out as a joke more or less and somehow we just couldn't let go of it. It's probably the most non-Sonata like song on the album.

Music Trespass: ‘Wildfire’ part 2 and part 3 seem like sweet indulgence: they play like some of the Queen epics, changing in style constantly, staying fresh and exciting.  Was ‘Wildfire’ always meant to be a trilogy?  Is there a concept behind them overall?

Henrik: Back in 2004 when we recorded the original ‘Wildfire’ it seemed like a one-off track, but eventually some of the melodies crept in on the latter parts, so instead of writing a new story, Tony continued the storyline with these two songs. There might be some other tracks that evolve into trilogies or whatnot, but you never know it before it happens.

Music Trespass: ‘Losing My Insanity’ feels like a throwback to some of the earlier albums like ‘Ecliptica’ and ‘Silence’. Are you trying to recapture those days or is it just that, a throwback?

Henrik: Finnish Idol winner Ari Koivunen originally recorded this song some years ago and since it a solid rock-track, we decided to give it a go ourselves as well... and the time was right with this album and with the more live-orientated approach.

Music Trespass: You just played several dates in the UK, your first since the ‘Days of Grays’ tour in 2011.  Are you excited about the return?  What did people get at the Sonata Arctica show?

Henrik: Yeah we were really excited to be back in Britain. I was a bit disappointed when there were no UK dates on the European tour last fall, but finally we got the chance to come back and play the new stuff for you like and we also got to throw in a lot of older material, so you're gonna get a pretty good picture about where Sonata Arctica is at right now. Cheers!

Interview and Questions by Ashley Naismith

Henrik had one last message for Ashley!!!

Check Out! the Video for 'I have a Right' Below...