 as Toby likes to call it, the metal voices today. Yeah, the metal voices talking to the metal voice today. Ladies and gentlemen, that was your sport. You're going to introduce me. Tobias Samet. Yeah, ecstatic to have the one and only Tobias Samet with us here today, being a huge Aventasia fan. This is, for me personally, a great honor to have you here with us. It's seen you lots of times live, but man, it's great to be able to speak to you today about the new album. Thank you very much. Thank you. It's great to be here. The ninth studio album, a paranormal evening with the Moonflower Society. It couldn't be any longer the title album. No, I tried, I tried, but especially in streaming, day and age of streaming, it's pretty difficult to get the title on those thumbnail stamp sized covers online. So no, it was, in fact, it was really funny because the record company, when I first told them what the album is going to be called, they went like, are you sure it's a bit long, isn't it? I said, well, do you think so? I'm not sure. But the funny thing is they said, OK, it's going to be a challenge marketing and promotion wise. But we love the title so much that we would be up for the challenge. And when you hear something like that from a record company that is programmed to make money and stick to rules and not be creative, but be with formulas and try to sell stuff the way they have always sold stuff, when those people say it's worth a challenge, then it either means that they have given up hope completely or it means that you have a pretty good title, despite it being a bit too long. Speaking of the album, here, I just got it in from New Zealand Bass yesterday. Oh, cool. Is that the album? Open it up and you can walk us through the special edition. Toby, this is an unboxing. This is an unboxing live. Live with you. Well, not live, but. My daughter was in the quarter and came in just in time for this interview. So walk us through what we're seeing here. Look at this. How beautiful. That's amazing. I couldn't have done this better myself. Yeah, that's two discs for the price of two. What? The instrumental of all the songs, right? Absolutely. Yeah. All the songs and the book. It's like a book. It is like a storybook. Look at that. Wow. Look at it. Oh my God. And there's pictures. Pictures. Live pictures. Oh, look at the music. Is that the actual music? Yes. Toby, what are you doing? In case there's a power shortage, we wanted to put the scores in there so you can sing the songs. That's right. That's right. Gorgeous. Because we thought of everything. We're living in strange times. You always have to expect a blackout to happen. So we thought, OK, let's put some musical scores in there so at least people when they're sitting at home freezing their asses off, they can sing the songs. No, that's like humor. I shouldn't be saying this. Hey, we're in Montreal and the weather's going to start turning here anytime. So you're just great, great thinking. Thank you in advance that we can sing along in those cold winter nights. Where are you based, by the way? Montreal. Montreal. That's pretty, that's that's pretty. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we remember that. Right before COVID. Yeah, yeah, we, yeah, yeah. It was, we were on a wave, absolutely. And everything was going so well. And at some point, you know, grapes growing into my mouth. And I felt like a king. And all of a sudden somebody pulled the plug. We were all sitting here, not knowing if there was going to be a music business in the future. It was a challenging time. And I think this new album helped me a lot to get through this because there was nothing else to do with all this time on my hands. You were presented with the time you were being locked in. And I was sitting there in my basement. I had just built my own studio, which was a blessing. It turned out to be a blessing. I was sitting there not knowing what to do, except from retreating to music. And, you know, what else can you do except from writing a new album, producing it on a lousy plumber, bad bricklayer, really, I couldn't do anything. You know, you were pumping out, Jimmy and I had this discussion on many a show. You were pumping out so much music between Avantasia and Ed Guy in just a short amount of time. And it looks like, well, whatever happened to him, where's he gone? Because you were, you were releasing almost an album a year at one point. Yeah, it was, but it was really, it was, I have to admit that it was taken its toll. And when you, the real mean thing about it is when you enjoy what you're doing, you don't realize that you're overdoing it while you're at it. You just realize that certain things get a little more difficult. I think it was in 2008, February 2008, when I had my first hearing loss due to stress and stuff like that, but you don't, and that was, you know, I thought like, yeah, but you know, I'm young. I've lost my hearing. It was back after 10 days. No problem. I lost my hearing doing something I love. It would have been way worse if I lost my hearing due to stress doing something I don't love or based on doing something I don't love. So I even made fun of it and called the next Edgar album, Tinnitus Sanctus. It was a Tinnitus because it happened because of stress doing something that I love. I didn't really take, I didn't read the signs and I didn't take it seriously. And at some point I wasn't a treadmill without even realizing it. And I just tried to live up to expectations. And whenever I was done with an Edgar record, I wanted to do a new Aventasia record. I had new song ideas. I wanted to do this. I wanted to cherish the project. And I had those ideas. Whenever I was done with an Aventasia tour, I came home and I was two weeks home and the others were like, okay, where's the new Edgar album? Have you written it already? No, just give me six weeks maybe. I need seven more songs. It became, it was funny in the beginning, but at some point I realized I was burning out. And that's, I think some of those things, now this is a real sad, now this is a real sad interview. I don't want this to be so. Don't be sad. We should talk about funny things, but some of those experiences and the trouble of dealing with expectations and being caught in that trap mode, I put into songs like Arabesque on this new record and Scars, it's some of that I had to get off my chest. Still within the fantastic, fairy-tale-ish concept of the album, but I managed to put a lot of myself in there and process some thoughts and get things off my chest. So yeah, I was very prolific and I'm happy, I was able to do it, but I think I won't release an album every year in the future. I don't think so. And I won't do 80 shows a year in the future as well. I don't want to do that anymore. I'm getting an old fart. Toby, is Ed Guy done? Is it over now or? No, no, I don't think so. I mean, certainly we're inactive right now and we're on high ages and we don't have any plans to go out anytime soon. I mean, that's not just because it is the situation in the world. That's not just the only reason. I mean, it makes things difficult, but it's also, we had run out of steam. And that was normal. We like each other and we're still those childhood friends. I mean, we don't have much to do with each other or that much anymore, but we're still in touch. The thing is we have developed very different views. Everybody of us, it's not just me and four other people. It was just five opinions on everything. And especially when you're working, when you're facing your limits stress-wise, of course, it's not so easy. If you are in charge of everything, you're writing the songs, you're producing everything, you're putting everything together, you're managing the bands and to make everybody happy is not always easy. And it's very exhausting and there's a lot of frictional loss, I would call, when you have to please everybody in a bad situation. And so it was just time to say, okay, why don't we all do our individual stuff for now and see what happens. But I'm taking Felix with me. I'm taking Felix with me. Yeah, but this little cocksucker, I'm gonna take with me. You're gonna follow me down the cliff. Everything's on your shoulders, right? I think what's happened, at least in my eyes and my perception is Avantasia, that brand is outpaced EdGuy brand in a sense, right? I mean, it's obvious, like this name is much bigger than EdGuy. I don't think that's the reason. I mean, of course I have to feed a family and EdGuy certainly couldn't feed a family. Avantasia absolutely can feed a family, but it's been like that from the beginning. I mean, ever since I started the Avantasia, Avantasia was the band that made me become a professional musician in a sense that for the first time in my life, I got money for my music. That was the first Avantasia. And before that, I wasn't paying for it. And when I started out with Avantasia and it went through the roof and it went, the first album was an instant success. It also dragged EdGuy along. I mean, EdGuy made a huge step upon the release of the first Avantasia record. So, Avantasia was bigger right from the start, way big. But still, it doesn't prevent me from doing what I enjoy and going back and doing Hellfire Club and Mandrag and all these records, Rocket Ride, Tinnitus, Sanctus Age of the Joker, Space Police, all these records came together while Avantasia was way bigger. So that's not, I try not to focus. Of course, when you have a family to feed, you have to also make business decisions, but that's not the integral. That's not the main part of it, not at all. And you know what? I saw the Tinnitus Sanctus tour here in Montreal and you promised you'd be back with EdGuy. So I'm gonna hold you to it. I'll just be very patient. That's all. Yeah, yeah. And you know, I don't necessarily believe in reincarnation. So I think there's good hope. There's good hope it's gonna happen in this life, in this lifetime. I really, you know, I don't believe EdGuy is over. It's just right now, it's hibernating and hibernation. I don't know how long hibernation usually takes for human beings, but... For bears is usually about, what, three, four months? Three years apparently. But fortunately we are no bears because if we were bears, you wouldn't come pay taking to see a show. That's exactly. Bears don't have money. Hey, so let's get to the new album. I mean, A, you've got your stable, the avant-tage of stable that we've grown accustomed to, Yorn Landy, of course Bob Catley, Michael. But you also got new guys like Ralph Sheepers and Florid Janssen. That's a great pickup. I mean, that's a great, great song is with her on it. Absolutely, and it was really funny because I think it all started when I was talking to Sasha about how great I think she is for Nightwish and how diverse she sings and how verticile she is vocally. And Sasha said, yeah, of course. And in studio, she's amazing when she's singing in the studio recording and he knew because he had worked with her for those first After Forever records that she had been singing on. It was her band or she was in that band. So I said, oh, we should ask her. And I had known her briefly, but I had known her for quite a long time because After Forever had been moving in the same circles, recording the same studio with the same production team as avant-tage and Ed Guy. So she was moving in the same circles and I got in touch with her and asked if she was ready to be or if she was willing to be part of the new avant-age record. And she said, yes, to my surprise, that was also because of the pandemic probably because everybody was forced to be at home. She said, okay, I'm gonna do it in my studio. Why not? Great idea. So she was, I sent her the song which was placed among the angels and she got back to me and said, oh, it's a good song, but I'm not sure it's exactly the right thing for my voice. It's the range is not, my voice is higher range wise. And I said, oh, that's a bummer. Now she's gonna bail out. And I said, okay, give me a few days. I'm gonna write you something else. And I wrote, kill the pain away. And usually I can't write upon pressure. Usually I don't, I'm not a service provider. I can't do that when a record company comes and I thought you were though. I mean, you were cranking up the albums. Yeah, but actually I am not like that. Actually I'm a very, very lazy guy and very, very, I need to be relaxed to write and be creative. But I thought, okay, I have to seize that chance. And it was inspiring to write with her in the back of my head. And I wrote, kill the pain away. She listened to it and she said, okay, perfect. Great pop song, 80s epic pop. I'm gonna put my spandex on and I'm gonna sing it. That's what she actually said. I'm gonna put my 80s spandex on and I'm gonna sing it. And a few weeks later she got back to me and she had recorded in her studio and she said, by the way, Toby, I'm gonna send you misplaced among the angels too with my vocals on because I checked again and I became acquainted with the song and I really liked it and it worked to my surprise. So she sent both songs and they're both fabulous. She's an amazing singer, very verticile, very, yeah, amazing vocalist, technically, emotionally, pitch, power, everything is there. She's very, very good. I think misplaced among the angels was actually your vocal performance is outstanding on that one. Maybe you're doing the high parts so that you were talking about. No, she's singing the even higher harmony. I'm thankful. Thank you. I have to say I'm very happy with the vocal performance as well on this record. It's weird, I don't know, my voice felt so much more. I've sung a lot in the past two years in my studio because there was not so much else to do. I was sometimes just going in and singing journey songs and Queen's Rite songs and just for the sake of it, just because I like singing again, which it should be normal for a singer, but in the past I couldn't even think about whether I like to sing or not. I was singing whenever it was required for an album or a show, and but this time with a lockdown and no shows and I was sometimes just sneaking into my studio trying out new equipment, valve equipment, tube microphones and stuff like that. And it was, I became a bit nerdy, but it was great fun and my voice sounds so rested because I haven't done any of those grinding tours under weird circumstances in the past, so or in the recent past. So yeah, it was, I'm happy with my voice, absolutely. You kind of answered my next question. It's, do you write songs for specific people in mind or do you just send them the songs and hope that they fit? Like, I mean, I'm listening to Scars and that's right in Jeff Tate's wheelhouse. I mean, he's done such a great job on that and yourself as well. I just wanted to know what's the writing process? Do you have people in mind? There's never a rule without an exception or there are no rules at all. Most of what I do is based on intuition and sometimes I write a song like I Tamed the Storm and it turns out to be this modern Iron Maiden rip-off. And I think who's gonna be the right singer to cover the fact that it sounds like a Maiden rip-off? Oh, let's take your London. He makes every song great and no seriously, his song works so well, his voice was so well on that song, but it was very Maiden-esque before he sang it and it was not planned. And he took that song into completely different direction with Scars and Jeff's songs in particular. And I would say Michael Kiske is the same case. I usually have their voices in mind when I write something because are you still with me? Yeah. Okay, yeah, because I just got a battery information that I'm running low, but it's all fine. I'm gonna plug it in. If you hang up, we know why. It's all good. He's gonna get plugged in. Yeah, the math's nice. The wrong questions. No, when I write a song like Scars, I have Jeff in mind and what is weird is that I really, I write that song and while I write it and I have his melody, his voice in my head, I can't imagine his voice, I can hear it. I can hear how it sounds when he's singing it or what it sounds like when he's singing it. Even though he doesn't even know yet that he's gonna sing on that song, even though we had not been in touch about it, it's just a matter of imagination. That's why I think that's why, well, that's because Jeff's voice is in my DNA. It's grown up with those Queen's Reich albums, Rage for Order and it's in my DNA and I love his voice so much. It's been so influential to me that I know exactly what it sounds like and I can envision the song with his voice on. So, and it's really, I think the only case when I wrote a song for Jeff that was actually not written for Jeff was the first time we worked together, seduction of decay because after I'd written that song, I thought at first, so when I was writing that song, to me it sounded like a version of black, like a rendition, a heavy metal rendition of black dog of sapling and I envisioned it to be sung by a Robert Plant kind of raspy voice. But then I thought, ah, that's too obvious. What would it sound like if Jeff would do it? And I immediately switched and I started to sing that song. Hey, the far cry that it's singing in just a wink, we'd come for you. And immediately it was in my DNA and I thought that's a perfect Jeff song I really love his voice. And I love the guy. He's a absolutely fantastic guy, great person. So we got my favorite, the scarecrow trilogy then you got the mystery of time trilogy. Where does this fit in? Is this the start of a new trilogy? Is this the end of another segment of the Aventasia story? A mystery of time wasn't a trilogy. Mystery of time was just a, what is the trilogy called if it just consists of two parts? A two-logy. A two-logy. It's a two-logy. It was a two-logy. And this one is pretty much a two-logy but it could also be a one-logy. A one-logy? Well, a one-logy, yeah. I think the new album is in a way a continuation of the previous album Moonglow. But both albums don't really need a plot and this album doesn't even have a plot. I approached the album like a visit to a magic theater where its protagonists would, the Moongflower Society is quirky protagonist would drag the listener into a completely different dimension or different world. So it deals with escapism. It deals with getting away from expectations and it deals with fantasy. And this concept gave me the option to include, to write, to paint a nocturne cycle, if you like, to paint 11 individual scenes and pictures that all belong together and speak in the same language. But at the same time, it gave me better opportunities to put my own thoughts and feelings in there and put things in between the lines that it's really difficult to do that when you're writing, when you're following a plot because following a plot is, you're a service provider. Again, if you follow, if you want people to understand the plot, it's 80% of your lyrics are explanations of why those damn elves are running through that stupid forest. And it's that there's not so much room for creative freedom and for poetry. And that's why I rather adjusted the art form a bit. Who's on your wish list that you would like to have in the future? Like Bruce Dickinson and who else? Yeah, Bruce Dickinson is an open secret, but Rod Smallwood, who's a very, very nice chap and always in a very respectfully, always lets me know that it's not gonna happen. Because Bruce Dickinson. Yeah. Who would you like to have? Who would you like to have? Okay, Bruce Dickinson, that's one. Who else would you like to have in the future? Paul Stanley, great singer. One of my heroes. I have to say, of course, Lou Graham and Steve Perry, but I have to say, Adentencia has not to be mistaken for one of those bucket list bands. I think the guest list, the bells and whistles of the guest list, I think that should be subordinate to the songs and to the performances themselves. And I think the people I work with on this record, six old family members, two new family members, I think they helped me to realize my idea and my feelings and I think they give the songs what they need and that's why I think that's, that should be more important. I don't want this project to become one of those bands where people say, oh, songs don't really matter, but the new records got Steven Tyler, the Pope and Robbie Williams. You know, it's a boxed- Gotta get the Pope. Donny Buster. What? Gotta get the Pope on, gotta get the Pope on. I would, actually, I would get, I would like to get the Pope on it. I would do it. That would be one exception I would do just for the bells and whistles. All right. Hey, I'll be shot if I don't let you know this. My daughter, I've been listening to you since she was nine years old for over 10 years now. She just wants to let you know that you're one of her idols and you're the reason why she studies music and she writes your music creativity and genius writing inspires her and she loves you very much. And I had to get that in or else I should never speak to me again. Shout out to Kayla. She's probably the biggest adventager fan in all of Montreal here. Thank you very much. And you know what? I really, it really means something to me because when you inspire other people that's the biggest compliment you can get from somebody. And it's really, no, thank you really a lot. That's really flattering. Give her my best and let her know that I really, really appreciate it. And I hope she becomes a musician and inspires other people. And that's, thank you. Thank you. She's actually one that can follow the tablatures and the sheet music in here. I'm not getting like any of it. In case of a blackout, we're all good. All right, Tobias Amit's Avantasia, the 9th studio album, album show it as I speak. A paranormal evening with the Moonflower Society on Nuclear Blast. We should mention that it was released on October 21st. Get it now while it's on. Another masterpiece. And a pleasure speaking with you. Hope to speak to you in the future. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And we definitely speak in the future. Thank you. We're tired now. We finally got you on the show. That's it. We're stopping now. Thank you. Thank you, family.