December 24, 2009

ANOTHER VOCALIST CONFIRMED FOR NEW ALBUM

On April 3rd Tobias Sammet will unleash what he personally calls ‘the most intense epic’ in his career so far, a two disc continuation of his latest Avantasia album “The Scarecrow” which went straight in the Top-10 album charts in several nations upon its release. The album featured high profile guest musicians such as Alice Cooper, Michael Kiske, Rudolf Schenker and many more and received an award for “Best Rock Production 2008” by the association of sound engineers in Germany.

For his forthcoming releases “The Wicked Symphony” and “Angel Of Babylon” (both albums will also be available in one box set on April 3rd) Tobias has confirmed the following guest stars so far:

Klaus Meine (Scorpions), Ripper Owens (ex-Judas Priest), Eric Singer (KISS), Michael Kiske (ex-Helloween), Jorn Lande (Masterplan), Russell Allen (Symphony X), Bob Catley (Magnum), Jens Johansson (Stratovarius), Alex Holzwarth (Rhapsody), Felix Bohnke (Edguy), Producer Sascha Paeth (ex-Heavens Gate) and Andre Matos (ex-Angra).

And now a new singer can be confirmed. Avantasia fans may be familiar with him, he is the man who has sung the role of Falk von Kronberg back on “The Metal Opera”: Ralf Zdiarstek.

Tobias: “I first heard this guy when I was 15. That's when his band played a little regional gig and me and Edguy were on the billing too. Now, all I knew is that the band featured the guitar player of Kingdom Come, but I immediately fell in love with Ralf’s voice, it blew me away and I wanted to be able to sing like this guy one day. To me he was the mullet-version of Geoff Tate, haha. I called him a few years later and asked him to sing backing vocals on Edguy’s Vain Glory Opera album and he agreed, as long as music and lyrics had no negative or even Satanic spirit or message. Well... To cut a long story short: He ended up on several Edguy albums (remember the Hallelujah-passage on “Theater Of Salvation”?) and a few years later on both Metal-Opera albums of Avantasia – as a lead singer. And now I have managed to get him in the studio again for a track called “Black Wings”, it’s a very dark track and the vocals sound very eerie. You gotta check this out, it’s something I guess we haven’t done before. Rambi sings like no one else, he’s got a unique voice and I am happy to have one of my best friends on the album again!”