Tobias Sammet's Avantasia.

Track by Track: "Phantasmagoria"! Another song I would consider an uptempo track, even though it has a pace that gave us still room for groove and power. When I listen to it now with a little time having passed since its creation, I think I can hear my love for Iron Maiden's faster songs bleed through here. Yet, it is as Avantasia as it can be. I like the unusual change of key in the thunderous chorus, because while it is very melodic and accessible, every line in the chorus has a different main key. I wouldn't call it progressive, but it's definitely quite unusual, while it doesn't disturb you when you sing the melody. Quite smart, HA! One of my best friends in music is my vocal partner here, the true king of Denmark (INCLUDING Greenland &#128540, Mr Ronnie Atkins Official of the mighty Pretty Maids. I remember when I played the track to Ronnie on tour, and asked him if it was in his range, he checked it on the spot, in the public area of our hotel, and as all other guests could testify - HELL, IT IS IN HIS RANGE, as long as he sings it loud and heavy! 😂 We'll show you all on tour!!!

Track by Track: "The Witch" is an eerie mid tempo track with a great hookline and a very memorable chorus, but some quite quirky twists and turns. The atmosphere in this song is really gloomy and intense, it drags the listener to a different and mysterious place, with some almost cineastic elements in there. And yet it’s another song with all our trademarks. I love how this new album has lots of new things to offer while being unmistakeably Avantasia. Tommy Karevik of Kamelot delivers a spine-tingling performance here, that is nothing but beautiful. Beautiful and dark! Tommy loved the track right away and he said, that it’s typical Avantasia at its best. That felt really good, and when everybody involved loves what we’re doing and believes in it, there couldn't be a better foundation for a great result. I can’t wait for Tommy and I doing this song live together on the forthcoming arena tour, in a stage setting that will do the haunted atmosphere of the song justice.

Track by Track: "Avalon" is another track of which the lyrical concept was born when I was standing at the magical shoreline of England, watching over the rampant waves under a layer of mist that gave birth to ghostly silhouettes crawling up the cliffs to take hold of my body, and my imagination. Musically the song is a heavy mid paced anthem with some Celtic flavour, some orchestral parts and even a touch of folk music. Our very own charismatic and super versatile mystical vocal wonder Adrienne Cowan is singing this with me and proves that she's got it all: power, range, feeling. I know that Avalon will be a future staple in our set, and even though I don't believe in rating music as if we were in the Olympics - this is a 10 out of 10!

17 years ago today "The Scarecrow" came out and laid the foundation of what Avantasia is today. To me this album marks the birth of Avantasia after our first tentative steps a few years before. "The Scarecrow" was a giant leap, all of a sudden we had a top 10 hit song, we began to tour as a real band, the album featured guests such as Alice Cooper and Rudolf Schenker of the Scorpions, and our then drummer Eric Singer of KISS encouraged me to follow my vision and allow all my influences and not just play European "Dungeons & Dragons"-Metal.

Ironically, here I am 17 years later, ready to release our first album to feature "DRAGONS" in its title. Yet, "Here Be Dragons" is absolutely based on the roots you can hear on The Scarecrow, enriched with experience gathered over the course of almost two decades.

Weird because none of your stuff has ever been "dungeons & dragons metal" even the Metal Operas. Why do you always look upon your early works with such disdain, when so many of your fans still tell you they love them so much?

There is no disdain. I love em for what they are, but I don't connect to them that much. Later records I like better, better songs, better lyrics, better metaphors, my voice and skills got better, that's NORMAL! And looking at sales I am not the only one who likes later stuff better I guess. BUT I am happy I did those first records, they were the first steps. And that's good. But I am way more proud of anything I've done afterwards, cause it's just three leagues better. Yet, I respect everyone who likes the first albums better. It's nostalgia, and that's ABSOLUTELY OK!

The big RETURN TO THE OPERA

Many press people say that "Here Be Dragons" is my finest output of all, as it displays all of my trademarks and ploughs its way with sheer force and rampant carefreeness. Yet, they haven’t even heard the bonus material of our limited editions, and that is some of the best bonus stuff I have come up with:

"Return To The Opera" is one of the songs, I did only after the main album was written and mostly recorded and we had to set up everything again. It was a bonus track, and I wrote Sascha a text message: "I’m gonna have a bottle of wine now and write a song that some people demand, and I want to finish it before the morning, including lyrics. “ And I did it. It was painting-by-numbers, yet after a short while I took it quite seriously and put my heart in it. The layout of the song was done in the morning and then we recorded everything within the next few days. When I played the bass I asked myself "What would Markus Großkopf of Helloween play?“. What would he have done on Keeper? What would he have done on Metal Opera? And in the end the song sounds like a pretty good mix of old Avantasia, old Edguy and old Helloween, with me doing all lead vocals and a nice backing choir myself, almost a bit operatic and Queenish. Not dead-serious, but a great experiment. The wine gets half of the credit, so if you want me to go "back to the roots“ (which is nonsense as it doesn't work) and I had to do a whole album like that I’d end up in a Betty Ford rehab center… The lyrics explain… Ha! Great song to be found on the limited edition Artbook, along with some other pretty decent bonus material. Conceptually it’s not exactly a part of the real album, but it’s quite a fun song - and really good I think...