Bottle Message 20.10.2015

Hola everyone !!

Allrighty then, at the moment these things are happening:

Silent Voices & E.Vil:

Just getting ready for the tour which will start on Friday. It’s gonna be interesting

that’s for sure. We’ll be traveling by van and driving ourselves so let’s hope we 

don’t get lost (at least not too many times). There will be some SV and E.Vil shirts

available at the shows but since we don’t have a merch-person just come and harrass 

us about it ok, ? We’ll also have a special Tour Edition cd with tracks from SV as well as E.Vil. The E.Vil tracks will be the first demo from Elias so it’s definitely a rare item. All of this stuff is only available on this tour for now, so get yours while they last and help us put some gas in the tank of our van ;-)

Here are the confirmed shows so far, we might add some

more if/when we get the details sorted out in time:

23.10.2015 Parkhaus-Meiderich, Duisburg, Germany

25.10.2015 RudeBoy Club, Bielsko Biala, Poland

28.10.2015 Borderline Club, Pisa, Italy

30.10.2015 Titty Twister, Parma, Italy

04.11.2015 Viper Room, Vienna, Austria

05.11.2015 Legends Lounge, Oching, Germany

06.11.2015 Hall of Fame, Wetzikon, Switzerland

08.11.2015 De Bosuil, Weert, Netherlands

13.11.2015 Calle, Kokkola, Finland

14.11.2015 Bar Backstage, Helsinki, Finland

15.11.2015 TBC, Tallinn, Estonia

Klingenberg Syndrome 2:

Since we’re goin out on tour for  a moment here, the work will resume by the end of

November, still planning to get it done before the end of the year and it’ll be out sometime next year, come hell or hight water dammit !!! Anyways at the moment

most of the stuff is already mixed, missing some tracks here and there but the bulk of

the album is done…we just have to put the finishing touches on it ;-)

Winterborn:

Played some more keys for the upcoming winterborn album, no idea about the schedule here…it’s been in the works for quite some time now ;-)

Vivaldi Metal Project:

I did my solo bit, it was a duel….no idea about with whom I dueled though ;-) It was a fun little thing to do I think and personally I look forward to how the whole thing is gonna turn out when it’s done.

See you on the road,

cheers,

Henkka

PS….and of course with SA we’re still more or less in the zzzz mode ;-)

SA:On the Road: Pictures from the Festival Summer of 2015

Hi there,

Here are a bunch of pics from this summer, in random order of course , since I'm lazy,

anyways, hopefully at lest some of these were worth the wait ;-)

Finnish summer from the Trainwindow.

Finnish middle aged male in Train.

More Finnish summer from the Trainwindow.

This is our new truck that we'll be using to howl our gear around

Finland & Europe ;-) Cool, right ?

Special festival in Kiiminki....of course it rained.

...more rain, still at the same place....

...and a beautiful creek...still in Kiiminki...

...more of the same ;-)

Backstage, still the same place, The Beauty and the Beast ;-)

#SaraChafak

And yet some more Finnish summer pics.

A typical view from inside the Train.

As we Tommy was recording some stuff for the new Alavala album one of

our friends Cat decided to participate as well.

Discovering new energy drinks part 1 !!

I think this was somewhere in Europe....maybe...

Eating Lunch in Austria, it was actually quite good.

Masi discovering Bucharest....

Some dudes palace...in Bucharest.

Of course I had to put one #flyingintheair picture here as well.

Riding with Ari , on the way to Savonlinna.

Olavinlinna, Savonlinna one of the very special evenings this summer.

I have no idea where this was, appeareantly I'm having a burger.

The Ratina Stadion in Tampere just before doors open.

...and this time just after the show, supporting Nightwish.

One of many cool SA tattoos we saw this summer.

Helsinki-Vantaa airport, a very familiar sight for us, not

only during the summer.

Helsinki by night as I spent a few days off there with my friends

going crazy and behaving badly.

Some airport somewhere...maybe it's Helsinki I don't even know.

On the bus, probably driving to Falun, Sweden or back.

EMP sent us some stuff to cheer us up ;-)

Helsinki-Vantaa once again.

Discovering new energy drinks part 2 !

Discovering new energy drinks part 3 ! 

(although I never tasted this one ;-( )

Some proof of the flat tire on our way to Slovakia from

Budapest.

More of the same.

...and here is where the summer ended @Pakkahuone in Tampere. This was taken just 

as we got in. This also ended the Pariah's Child World Tour (including The Ecliptica

over Europe Tour and the 15th Anniversary Tour. It was a long one but felt like the best tour

we've done so far. It's amazing how every time the touring seems to be more fun than the 

tour before. I guess this is what we live for in the end. Can't wait for February and getting 

back out there to play for all of you....in the meantime I'll just noodle around in my home

studio and try to come up with some new music ;-)

Stay tuned for more update as things progress...for now I'll retreat into my kitchen 

to make some dinner for the kids. Stay Classy !!!

cheers,

Henkka

Bottle Message 11.09.2015

Hola peeps,

Here’s some short news about what’s going on right now:

Sonata Arctica:

Once again the fall is upon us and as a change of pace we have no tours or studio

booked with SA. Feels a bit weird but whattahell, I think a break every now and then is 

in order (the last proper break was back in 2003 btw). Be that as it may, we’re already

planning next years tours as you probably noticed we already confirmed a couple of 

festivals…with more to come of course. Our first tour next year will be with Nightwish and Delain in the US/Canada with some headlining gigs added at the end. This will be during our recording sessions so it will be interesting to do it this way for a change, as  opposed to doing the next album just straight through without any touring in between.

Next fall we’ll be back on the road and continue to the end of the year and of course 

also 2017 will be spent on the road for the most part….at least for now that’s how it

looks. More on these things later. We of course have some surprises in stock, both for

this year and next year as well so…stay tuned.

Silent Voices & E.Vil:

Since we’re having a break with SA, we now have a chance to hit the road with Silent

Voices. We managed to lure Elias with us as well so it’ll be an evening with SV and

E.Vil. For this tour Pasi & Me will help Elias and his drummer Tomi out for the E.Vil set

so I’m sure it’ll be interesting. Here are the first two confirmed shows with more to follow asap. The latest updates will be on silentvoices.net or the SV facebook page.

October 23, 2015 - Parkhaus, Duisburg Germany

November 04, 2015 - Viper Room, Vienna, Austria

See you out there !!! This is naturally a once in a lifetime type of thing since we rarely have enough time off from SA to actually go out and play with SV…..and of course the same goes for E.Vil. We’ll be on the road for 2-3 weeks so there are a lot more shows still to come….and of course in Finland as well. Btw, eventually we’ll get around to do another album with SV, I’m not too convinced it will be this year though….

Klingenberg Syndrome 2:

Still in the works…haha. Well, I did plan to get this done last spring but somehow I didn’t….appeareantly there are only 24 hours in a day, which of course is far to little

if you ask me. Anyways, at the moment I’m looking to finish my parts of the album next week and then it’s up to Pasi to play the rest of the bass and mix the damn thing. We’ll see how difficult it’ll be to release this one, I’m sure it will take some time to set that up as well….and for those few who are wondering: Yeah, I’m doing the vocals on this album myself. We’ll see if it’ll be the last time ever but for now I decided to give it a shot. The rest of the band is intact so we got Elias on guitar, Pasi on bass and Jari on drums…real ones this time and not the electric crap that we were forced to use

last time. 

That’s about it. I’ve been writing some new music as well but as to where or when or

how it will surface, I have no idea. Appeareantly I still do things I like just for fun sometimes….and don’t forget to follow the keytar adventures:

https://instagram.com/the_keytar_adventures/

…I know I am , since I have no idea what that motherfucker will do next. Little did I know that my spur of the moment attack on this poor bastard would throw the keytar

into these kind of trouble.

Now I’m done…and yeah I try to upload the pics from the summer as well.

cheers,

Henkka

SA:On the Road: More Than Fest, Slovakia & Tampere, Finland

Friday 21.8. Travel & More Than Fest

Our last weekend together this year and the end of the tour as well so this was

bound to be an interesting one. Well, no sleep until the holidays, right ? Got up at

0500 back home for the 0520 cab ride to the airport. Met up with Tony & Tommy and

got to Helsinki alright. We had a tight 1,5 hour change but since the rest of the guys already started with the check-in of the luggage before we arrived, we had plenty of

time to have some breakfast…and beer. A couple of hours later we landed in Budapest.

Our 200km vanride was taking quite long since we had a flat tire but luckily the driver had all the right gear and a spare one so we got to the festival without any other problems…so far ;-) It was somekinda amphitheatre, outside as is the custom during

the summer. Other bigger bands on the bill where Helloween and Kreator….Since our 

show ends at 2130 we have to get to our hotel in Budapest straight away in order to try to catch at least a couple of hours of sleep. Our lobby call tomorrow is at 0400 so you can imagine how that’s like ;-)

Anyways, the show went really well and we watched a couple of songs from Halloween before we left. Upon arrival in Budapest the driver of course got lost and we spent over an hour driving around the block…thank you very much ;-) At 0225 I got into my room after making sure everyone got their keys and our shuttle was ordered for 0400.

Saturday 22.8. Travel & Tourending show @Pakkahuone, Tampere, Finland

0400 after one hour of sleep (mind you the other boys did maybe sleep 10min more at the most so we were all at the same situation. Of course the shuttle was too small even though we specifically asked told them that we have 9 people and around 20 bags. No problem we took an extra cab on the side and headed for the aiport. The usual hassle, nothing too bad and we were on our way. Slept a bit on the first flight from Budapest to Munich…and then some more on the flight to Helsinki. Well in Helsinki we were picked up by our bus so we had the opportunity to sleep. Of course there was a bunch of things to take care of for the Tampere show….I did that and then tried to rest for a bit.

The Show in Tampere was a really special one, just as planned. We played for about 2,5 hours. The whole of Ecliptica for the last time, some acoustic stuff and most of the Pariah’s Child material that we’ve been playing during this tour. In addition to that we had the Preacher doing live speeches which was funny as hell…at least to us ;-) Eventually the show was over and we spent the next 2 hours having drinks and saying goodbye to everyone. This was also the last show for Punky, he’s moving on to other things. At 0115 we went to the night-train for the last time this tour. Since the restaurant car was closed we went to bed, tired but happy. In the morning we woke up in Kemi and this World Tour was over and done with.

So, thank you all who came to the shows and made this the best World Tour for us so far. We did a lot of interesting shows, some really special ones and went around the globe….almost 160 shows in 1,5 years…I think the total count of countries was close to 30. We’ll be off the road until February when we head out to the US & Canada with Nightwish and Delain. The Next SA update will probably be when we start working on our next album in January….until then there will be some Silent Voices stuff going on as well as Klingenberg Syndrome 2…which will be finished by the end of this year at the latest….more about that later…

For now and on behalf of the Sonata Arctica band and crew, Thank you all 

very much !!! See you soon again !!

cheers,

Henkka

ps.yes, I’ll post some pics from the summer shortly ;-)

SA:On the Road: Runnirock, Finland & Sabaton Open Air, Falun, Sweden.

Friday 14.8. Travel & Runnirock

The busweekend for a lifetime, coming right up ;-)  Tony & Tommy & I took the morning train to Iisalmi, in Ylivieska we were joined by Pasi. When we arrived we got a cabride to the Genelec-headquarters where we met up with the other guys. We got a 2 hour tour of the facilities as well as some gifts and then we also got to check out some of the speakers in action. A really interesting way to start off our working day. When we were done with the tour we headed for Runni and the Runnirock festival. Spent the evening hanging out and eating (great food btw) and at 2330 it was time to hit the stage. This time of the year it’s quite cold outside so it was a bit of a pain in the ass to get the show going but once we warmed up it went really well. After the show we took some quick showers and boarded the bus with a vengeance since we had some 1300km+ to drive

to Falun.

Saturday 15.8. Travel & Sabaton Open Air

Spent the day in the bus, still driving. After 16 hours total we arrived at the festival just 10 minutes before our signing session was about to start. We had to delay the beginning a little bit so we could freshed up. After the signing we were supposed to have an interview but there were some mixup so that fell through. No worries though, were here to play, not to talk ;-) Once again it was a bit cold but not as bad as yesterday. The reason I’m bitchin about the cold weather is because it’s next to impossible to play fast stuff and piano noodeling when your fingers are freezing. Just take a computer keyboard and go outside during the winter and try to type a letter and you’ll see what I mean ;-) Nevetheless no big mishaps during the show. We did film and record it for future use…No there won’t be a DVD from this tour but we might use some of the stuff as bonus material somewhere…have yet to see how it looks though…

After the show we took some quick showers and packed the bus and once again it was time to hit the road.

Sunday 16.8. More Travel ;-)

Some 1000km later I got home, this was probably the first time I’m the one who gets dropped off first ;-) It was just after noon so it wasn’t too bad either. The rest of the boys, especially those living in the south had some more driving to do but everyone got home before midnight…I think…Next up is the last 2 shows on this world tour in a few days. The last show in Tampere will be a very special one since we’ll play the Ecliptica thing for the last time…we’ll also throw in some acoustic stuff and whatnot…no support bands, only SA. This will also be the last show this year and we won’t be playing in Finland before the summer of 2016 so get your fix now, while it’s still available ;-)

cheers,

Henkka