APOCALYPTICA

APOCALYPTICA - "Working In A Completely New Way"

APOCALYPTICA has posted the following interview with Eicca Toppinen, conducted by Terrë, on their official MySpace page:

1. Do you have any shows lined up for this year or are you concentrating solely on the album and making no other plans until it is finished?

"Actually it looks like there will be no shows before the album release, which will be somewhere around September-October. The only exception will be a showcase in Japan in May. But after the album release, our plan is to tour basically the whole world in two years. So there will be some shows at the end of this year."

2. Please explain something about the recording process. What do you work on first? What stage of recording are you at when you decide to work on drums? A lot of bands work with drums first, so does your experience as classical
musicians enable you to do it a different way? When you record do you all work together and record together or put separate tracks down one by one?

"This time we are working in a completely new way. The album will be produced by Jacob Hellner (Rammstein, Clawfinger). We've been working in the rehearsal room
much more than ever before. We still have two more weeks left for writing, after that we'll change into rehearsal mode full time and start drum recordings in March. So the plan has been that the record is done in the rehearsal room as far as possible, including drums. Of course final studio sessions will still bring a lot more but when you work the best out at every stage, hopefully the result will be super. To make sure that drums are a solid part of the music, it's important to record them first as final drums gives a lot for cello recordings. On Reflections, drums were played last which maybe made sometimes a feeling that they didn't fit 100% together with the cellos. We consider drums at least as important as all cellos, sometimes they are even more important. We record almost all stuff track-by-track."

3. What is it like to have Mikko (Sirén) involved in the writing process? Has the band dynamic changed because of it? Does he make contributions to anything except the drums?

"It's great to have Mikko on board and I think he is putting in one of the biggest efforts in the whole process. He takes equal part on thinking about cello arrangements in the rehearsal room as others. I personally arrange songs
already quite far but there is always things to talk about. Mikko has also wrote a few great songs and he is taking big
responsibility on songs by others as well. So he is pure gold... And I must say that band dynamic has changed a lot in positive way."

4. Can you give us any clues to who you want to guest on the album? If you can't say names, can you mention gender and nationality?

"One American metal/rock singer has been recorded already.(male, and it sounds great...) there might be some more American singers, pretty famous from rock or metal genre. We are focused on getting one female voice as well. We have had 7-10 singers we've been in touch with, our target is to get 3-4 vocal tracks to the album. Don't know yet who in the final end. Hopefully we'll know soon..."

5. Do you have any idea how the new album will sound, compared to your last album? Is it harder? Darker? Softer? About the same?

"We have more than 30 songs with wide range, it will take still 2-3 weeks to decide the final style and structure for the album. At least then the feeling everybody has is that the new songs are much better than last time. I hope the album
will be more dynamic, not to include any songs to fill the space without serious meaning. I have the feeling that the
mood is stronger and deeper on the new songs. Also soundwise we want to create a more variating soundpicture, using more effects etc... These are just feelings at this stage and it's impossible to say anything final."

6. How many songs has Perttu (Kivilaakso) written this time around?

"He has got 2-3 really good songs so far but seems to be in writing mood still, so let see... Paavo and Mikko has brought both 2-3 good ones. I've wrote 7-9 potential songs and everybody is still working hard for the last weeks of writing. So it is a very interesting working process this time, nobody knows yet where we are gonna end up..."

7. Do you write several songs and choose the best to go on the album or do you always have in mind how many tracks you have to put down and write to order?

"I think that out of 35 songs we'll record 13-15 . The album will have then something between 10 and 15 songs. There will be some great songs out from the album, maybe released later on single b-sides. And we have no clue about
order. Normally we decide the order when all songs are mixed."

8. Will Paavo (Lötjönen) be writing anything for this album?

"As said he has wrote stuff but as with every other song, nobody knows yet whose songs are going to be on the album. For us it is not important who wrote a song, we just pick songs which are best for the album structure."

9. Do you have any working album titles yet or is that something that you decide after it is recorded?

"There's been no working title. We have to decide later when artwork will be done. To be honest, we are quite bad on finding good titles even for songs... thats why on this album there will be no song title ending in ion."