This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Finnish cello metal band Apocalyptica will be playing Salt Lake City's In The Venue on Saturday. Band co-founder Eicca Toppinen did an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, discussing — among other things — the group's history, its standing in the metal community and its decision to record the vocals on its new album, "Shadowmaker," exclusively with industry veteran Franky Perez.
Apocalyptica's origins
We were studying classical, but we were big fans of heavy metal as well. We started to do some metal for fun. We started with some Metallica songs. We did that for a few years, playing for friends, playing at parties. … We got an invitation to play in a metal club in Helsinki. And from that gig, we got an offer to make an album, which was our first album as Apocalyptica, "Plays Metallica by Four Cellos." That was 20 years ago in May. We didn't have any plans to form a band — we did that album for the experience. But it got heard around the world, and we got more requests to play shows, and the whole thing started to roll from there. … And now we've got our eighth studio album, "Shadowmaker," out already. So, it's been a long journey.
His family's reaction to him going from classical music to metal
I think in the beginning it didn't look like it was going to be full-time. For a couple of years, it was just a project along our practical work and studies. My father was actually helping us get the contracts together for the record deal and everything. They were very supportive, and they always like what we do and how we do it. They've never been negative, they've never been like I'm wasting my talent because I'm doing this. To be honest, this has opened a lot of doors as a songwriter as well. We've done classical work on the side. We've composed an opera, which premiered at the national opera this January. So I think we've just created ourselves a very nice crossover job where we can do music in many territories and many categories.
Band's treatment by the metal community
I think in the beginning, it was really surprising how well the metal crowd took us. … The metal community, in a way, it's very traditional and conservative, but at the same time it's always open for new kinds of stuff and new kinds of projects and new kinds of way of presenting metal. Also, we found that classical people were amazed by how good [metal] music is. People who were not fans of the metal sound were impressed by how many good compositions Metallica has made. … We didn't face so much negativity. Except, when we played the first albums, we got a lot of comments that, "OK, this is kind of a limited thing, and it can't go on." And we've proven them wrong, because we are still going strong and touring and making new music. The whole concept has developed from the early days — we were [just] four cellos, then we added drums, we've had some collaborations with different singers, and now, on the last album, we had one singer, Franky Perez, who joined us to make the record and do the touring around the record. … There seems to be something about the band that people appreciate.
Favorite covers he's done, covers he wants to do, covers he wanted to do that didn't work
I remember in the early days, back in the '90s, we tried to play some Pantera songs for an album, but there were technical things that we didn't really get to work out. … But in general, we've basically found that we can play whatever we like and we can make it work somehow. Some things work better than others. It's hard to tell what's my favorite. We've recorded some more covers to be released later this year, but it's a secret what it is! It's a little bit like an anniversary kind of a thing. At the moment, there's so much focus on writing our own music. For the last 10 years, we've been mainly writing our own songs, and we've found that's the best way to stay together as a band, and [for] the general sound of the band, and the way we play the instrument. Writing our own music has given us more freedom, in a way. But in the live shows, we play Metallica tunes and stuff like that, and it's great fun.
Overcoming being treated as a gimmick
There was a lot of that "gimmick" thing going on with the first album — especially among the people who didn't see us live. But I think whenever people see us live they realize, OK, we have a set of skills that nobody else has! … Most skeptical people leave the show like, "Wow!" And they're convinced that this really works. I think in order to really understand Apocalyptica, it's necessary to be at the live shows to see how it really actually happens, and the level of energy. And also to hear that it really happens by cellos. There's a lot of skeptics who say, "You have guitars on the album." No, no, no — it's all cellos. Come to the show and you will see!
Show production on this tour
We have this great light show — on this tour we can't carry all our production, because there are so many types of venues. But there's a great light show, it's a very full-on rocking metal show, with great energy. And also the combination of beautiful cellos playing varied up with a lot of ballads. We are not taking ourselves serious, but we take the music very serious. I think it's a very entertaining show. In our audience, we have all types of people — young kids, we have really old people — anyone who's interested in really cool music. And there's no limits to whom the show is targeted. There can be three or four generations enjoying themselves at the show, which is pretty cool.
Decision to work exclusively with Franky Perez on "Shadowmaker"
We've done a couple of albums already with guest singers, and working with guest singers is big fun, but also chaos. You have four different singers, and they all have their complications with record companies or management or whatever. So you can imagine how hassled it gets. Then we decided, we've done this for so long the same way — now we want to make an album … where all the songs will get picked up, and we wanted to make a real band record.
We felt the only way to do that is to have one singer, who is always available — on pre-production, on song-writing — to work together, and to have a good time with. The decision was, "OK, let's try to find one guy who can sing on the album and who can tour on the back of the album." It was always so confusing because we had so many different singers on the records, and on tour we had a different singer who'd never recorded anything with us. So we wanted to make the whole thing more clear and more controllable. We don't need to get complications from so many people to get things finished.
Many times we would get singers, we'd decide, "Yeah, let's do this, let's do this," and then comes the facts of the business: the scheduling of the featuring artists, what they are doing in their own career, and they have different record labels — it was all sort of very tiring. This time we got someone who's very cool to work with in Franky. He's an outstanding singer, an outstanding musician — an absolutely fantastic guy. It went really well. I think he's really cool, and it's really cool to be on tour with him now.
Twitter: @esotericwalden —
Apocalyptica
With 10 Years and Failure Anthem
When • Saturday, 7 p.m.
Where • In The Venue: 219 S. 600 West, Salt Lake City
Tickets • $25 advance, $28 day of; 24tix.com