Split de Stratovarius

[NicoGan]

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HERETIQUE !!!!!

[Miki]

HERETIQUE !!!!!

[Mout Mout]

Arf, un petit concert tous les 3 ans je dis pas non quand même. Mais c'est tout.

[Stéphane]

Pour cette tournée, je les avais vus à Toulouse dans un Bikini plein à craquer, j'en garde encore un très grand souvenir. Bon son, groupe au top de sa forme, super ambiance, joli light show, et play-list de rêve C'était l'bon temps

Ah ben merde, j'y été aussi, et c'est la que j'ai compris que Strato c'était chiant (j'etais fan jusque là lol). j'ai trouvé ça d'un chiant ultime ce concert, ceci dis tu as raison, le groupe été parfait ..... mais chiant ! Avec un charisme général proche du néant

[bruce bruce]

Ca devait arriver depuis un bon moment et c'est pas vraiment une surprise, mais bon ça rend forcément un peu nostalgique de leur belle époque. Et comme certains, l'époque des concerts d'Infinite a aussi été marquante pour moi, j'en garde de super souvenirs.
Alors bon vent à tous les zicos et qu'ils trouvent chacun leur nouvelle voie!

[Bib]

Putain, la nostalgie comme tu dis !!!

Ca me rappelle la période 98/2002 en gros où j'écoutais pas mal ce groupe...

[ominergy]

Je crois que le Strato de la "grande époque" tenait du fait que le gros Timo avait embauché des mercenaires (Jorg , Jens ...) en montrant l'image d'un vrai groupe uni . Tant que la thune rentrait bien comme il faut personne n'ouvrait sa gueule , mais quand le groupe a moins bien marché. le coté "employé" est ressorti et les rats ont quittés le navire . Perso le gros Timo je ne l'aimais pas des masses avant , mais je pense que finalement il était le seul à vraiment aimer son groupe.

[Cardinal-Sin]

A part ça ça n'a pas l'air complètement fini cette histoire, y a une petite bataille entre les strato et timo tolkki

Timo Tolkki published a statement» on on April 2 this year. The other members of Stratovarius would now like to set the record straight. You can't argue with someone's perception of things, you can just explain how you see things differently.

The confrontations, fights, incompetence, tensions, negativity, bitterness, hostility, disinterest, bad musicianship, and unfriendliness that Timo described were never there. He constructed this alternate reality around these simple and for him painful facts:

1) The band's momentum has been slowing since 2004.

2) The media chaos of 2004 made him lose a lot of trust and respect both within and outside the band.

3) Stratovarius' label Sanctuary had severe financial problems from 2005 on. It forced us to start a legal process at the beginning of 2007.

If you live your life through other people's eyes, declining sales or a perceived loss of power are matters of deep, stinging personal humiliation.

Other sad facts remain. The legal fight left us without a way to make a new album, and financially strapped. Timo's main motivation for what he did was greed, not issues of friendship or art.

In the summer of 2007, he presented the Stratovarius/ Revolution Renaissance demos we had all financed and recorded to Frontiers Records, and signed a recording agreement for a solo project. Unbelievably, he promised Frontiers that he alone could (and would) stop Stratovarius from being active for the duration of the R.R. project, for marketing reasons. In exchange for this, Timo alone was paid 154,000 US dollars.

He did this behind our backs, as we were deep in pursuit of Sanctuary legally with a large legal bill. He still hasn't had the guts to tell us what he did. We pieced it together from various press releases of his and scattered email correspondence.

In October he sent us a mail saying he didn't want to continue, a quite impersonal way after having been in the same band for 12 years. He explained that he was tired of Stratovarius, and would concentrate on things like his opera. We had known for some time he really hated playing live.

He did not mention anything about his Frontiers deal, which placed the rest of us at great financial risk. He very clearly asked that we wouldn't contact him and try to talk him out of it, which we all respected. He would later make much of the fact that nobody tried to talk him out of it.

This year, Sanctuary agreed to settle, but Timo's announcement and Timo's announcement alone ruined that, leaving us with a debt of 54,000 US dollars. The total loss is around 346,000 US dollars. There was no reason for the timing of his announcement other than some foolish belief it would make the promotion of Timo's project record a bit easier. What he did to the rest of us was stupid, selfish and more than disappointing to us since we all stood shoulder to shoulder with him financially in 2004.

Then late January, surprisingly, he proposed us playing as hired guns on R.R. (turning it into a Stratovarius record), and doing a tour with Jari on bass. Apparently he again had financial problems due to his failed opera project. He then quickly dismissed the idea himself.

In short it's not so much a story of simmering discontent leading to a wise and respectable decision. It's definitely not a story of naivité. It's the story of Faust, the story of madness, of a band's natural and slow decline, but in the end something mundane: the story of a supreme narcissist going broke and betraying friends of 12 years who helped save him a few years earlier.

Hopefully this explains the situation a little bit. Sorry if it is long on business crap, and short on humor or music. This was a terrible, disaapointing blow to us.

We would like to thank our fans who make it all worth it, and despite it all, we would like to thank Timo for the past, the nice music and the good moments.

The rest of us want to make clear that we are doing great and that we will continue making music together, because we care about each other and we care about our fans. We have grand plans indeed, and we will have some very interesting news in the months ahead!

-TK JM JJ LP
the remaining members of Stratovarius

[guardianofsteel]

Mais c'est une caméra caché à lui tout seul ce groupe

[Miki]

En français et en résumé siou plaît ? La flemme de tout lire avec mon anglais catastrophique !

[Everflow]

^ En gros ils disent que Tolkki ne cherche que le pognon ou disons sa sécurité financière dans cette affaire, et non pas l'amour de l'art qu'il clame haut et fort.
Et ma foi ils m'ont l'air plus crédibles que lui, ils avancent des faits alors que Tolkki passe souvent son temps à se plaindre des autres et jouer la victime.

[Bib]

ça sent encore bien la merde cette affaire...

Jusqu'où iront-ils ??

[Pierre]

Le communiqué final du gros Timo, aussi long que mes meilleurs CR
Bon, pour résumer... il rappelle l'histoire du groupe, dit que Jörg Michael et Timo Kotipelto sont des faux culs qui ne pensent qu'au fric, que l'attitude de Jens Johansson et de Lauri Porra lui a fait mal, et que pour ne pas qu'on l'accuse de se garder pour lui toutes les royalties liées au nom de Strato, il laisse le nom du groupe libre d'exploitation et ne veut plus jamais rien avoir à faire avec ça, ni de près, ni de loin!


I am writing this in Canton, a small city in China after a week from the statement the ex-members of Stratovarius published. Yesterday an earthquake killed over 50 000 people 1500 kilometers from here. That actually put things into perspective for me regarding the recent events. My mind has calmed down and I am able to think more rationally about the whole sitution. I am going to take you on a small journey to some key events that hopefully are enough to make you understand what kind of things have been going on. I simply cannot just be silent after that slanderous attack towards me and my music that the other guys launched some time ago. However after this, I will continue my life and leave this behind.

My memories go back to the year 1984 when I received that phone call to join Stratovarius when the guitar player/ main songwriter had been fired, and when we started building up the band from scratch. I started singing and composing songs that were totally different from those Ozzy-influenced blues songs the band had been playing for 2 years. We worked hard, played every day, made demos and finally we made our dream came true: we got a record deal with CBS. Fright Night, Twilight Time and Dreamspace followed each others. It took over 8 years before any of us saw any money from the record sales.

At this point Stratovarius had become my band, I was the ”Kapellmeister” and the band was my symphony orchestra. Together we made some truly memorable music. At this point I worked alone full time as a manager and a booking agent for the band. With this enormous amount of work, the foundation was laid for the later success of Stratovarius. I was never paid for this work and not then and not after that have I ever considered money to be the reason why I am a musician.

The much-critizized firing of Tuomo Lassila and Antti Ikonen were simply due to a non-dedication to the band’s activities. They both were not at all into heavy metal and I don’t think they ever thought that the band could become so successful. They didn’t like the direction the music was heading. It was another painful decision that I as a leader of the band had to do. And it was for the better. They could continue to do what they did best. Today Tuomo Lassila is a respected Classical percussionist in a Symphony Orchestra. Still I am looking at that time with a certain nostalgia, with a certain ”innocence”. There were no big corporate deals or managers breathing down my neck to ”make that hit record fast”. We played to very small audiences, sometimes to seven people, but it didnt matter, it was fun. There was not much money involved, but more than that, there was fun and there was creativity. And there was friendship too.

When Timo Kotipelto, Jens Johansson and Jörg Michael joined the band, I knew I had found the line up, that would take us as far as you can go with this kind of music. The only thing I was concerned was, that I was the only guy in the band that had a spiritual approach to life and that I had been writing songs about Love, Peace, Universal Brotherhood since I was a teenager . But I did not give it so much thought, since I thought that I would be able to express that message anyway, because it is a strong one. It culminates in the symbol of Fleur De Lys, which means and represents to me the spirituality and all those core human values I have always been writing about. At that time I did not understand, that like many of those who had been walking this path, that I would face a lot of violent hatred and laughter. Now I know better, but today that only makes my message stronger. You have to learn to look at the evil eye to eye and laugh at it. I found that symbol 1992 and put it on the cover of my first solo album and later on the Stratovarius logo 5 years later. And now it follows me to my new band Revolution Renaissance.

When the guys joined the band, I made it very clear what I wanna do and made contracts with each one of them. In that contract I also determined the rules that I would decide all the artistic factors of the band, that I own the name Stratovarius, and that we split all the income evenly with all the members... discounting the fact that I had been working years without any money with the previous line up, and created the necessary contacts that now became very important to gain success. Of course, everything from Episode onwards is written forever in Power Metal history and I don’t have to repeat our achievements here.

It was around the time when we left Nuclear Blast and signed a big money contract with Sanctuary that things started to go wrong. I think this move ultimately destroyed the band, added a corporate aspect to the music and resulted in the worst Stratovarius album ever: the black Stratovarius ”united” album. And I am as guilty as the others of all this. As the big money entered the picture, so also entered highly questionable methods to market the band using whatever means possible. Due to legal reasons it is not possible to go into details, but I just say this: whatever marketing trick was used at that time, everybody was part of it: the whole band, the management and the record company. And I repeat: the whole band including Timo Kotipelto and Jörg Michael. And I can prove this and they know it. And one day I might just do that. Maybe soon. Maybe in a book. It was all this what ultimately lead to my total nervous breakdown in Spring 2004. The recovery has lasted to this very day, but I can say that today I am almost fully recovered and have not drunk a drop of alcohol in 3 years and have been on medication for 4 years to combat one of the most painful and vicious mental illnesses: bipolar disorder. The medication works wonderfully and I am able to work and be creative. And most of all I feel free. I am fortunate to have that medication that many sufferers before me, for example Ludwig Van Beethoven or Ernest Hemingway (who blew his brains out with a gun), did not have. They had the same illness, as do many people who work in ”entertainment”.

The damage done to the band was irreversible. Somebody has said that sooner or later you start to hate your leader. Much has also been said about the band members ”saving me”, when I was in a hospital or when I was thinking about commiting suicide. On the contrary, I didn’t receive any acts of kindness from ”my friends”. Not one of them visited me in the hospital although all the guys were in town. The only person that seemed to care later was Jens with his phone calls, and you the fans, from whom I received thousands of letters that gave me real hope and comfort. The people who actually saved me were my wife and daughter, my mother and my therapist. I had the worst depressive episode of my life that last 7 months. I could not even get out from the bed. During this time, my ”friends” were not even in touch with me. Instead what happened was that they were slowly working behind my back to take over much of the bands control, especially financial, with the help from the management. And they succeeded fairly well. It was very clever. When I recovered enough, I found out that lots of things had been changed and that I did not have that control over the band I had before and what I needed to be able to express my music, my art. All this was done behind my back during this time. I faced increasing demands to do things I didn’t want to do, and demands from Timo Kotipelto to get his songs into Stratovarius records. The only problem was: we are so very different and our music and message is so very different. He would never write lyrics like ”Celestial Dream”. His music and lyrics doesn’t have that spiritual dimension that mine has. Not that they have to, of course.

I was lied to directly about the promotional activities of the Stratovarius album and Jens and Kotipelto did the full promo tour while I was tricked and told that I would do the most important interviews ”later”. Due to this, I didn’t talk to the press for that album at all, although I very much felt I needed to and the last time I had done interviews, was 2003, but not because I didn’t want to. It was organized that I could not. These things were arranged behind my back by the band and the management. They wanted me silent and make me look like I was not ”there” so much anymore.

During the rehearsals and the world tour of Stratovarius record, I felt lot of aggression towards me. I felt like I was not wanted in my own band. I designed the whole show myself, including the projection screens and the peace message with the Declaration of Universal Human Rights in the song ”United”. The whole spirit of the show was so contradictory to the feeling that was in the band. As the tour progressed I really started to have the feeling that I am not wanted in the band anymore. I was told by Jörg Michael face to face that ”this band is over”. I was really confused what to do after the tour so I did what I always do: I put my feelings to music and started writing songs. The songs were completed quickly in August 2006 and the demos delivered to the management in October. They in turn sent them to Sanctuary for approval and that started the whole legal thing. We had festival appearaneces scheduled in 2007, but at that point I really felt that something weird was going on... a nd that everybody was in it only for the money. Like trying to get whatevery they could as fast as they could. Insane gig offers for one gig off in India etc followed, which I refused to play, much to group’s anger.

The Sanctuary lawsuit was going on because they did not want to pay what was in the contract. I said, I don’t care about that money, let’s just leave and find a new label, we have to get the album out. I was pressured largely by staying away from that due to the financial arrangements that were done behind my back while I was sick. I asked for information about the lawsuit but I was given very vague answers. To be short: I didn’t know what is going on. I said that we don’t need that money and that we should just leave and find another label, but it was our management and especially Jens that heavily resisted this option. Sanctuary would have let us go for free from the contract. Gamma Ray left and signed with SPV and is doing great today. But we had to go into that legal battle because of 420 000€ per record. Sanctuary found out that Jari signed the contract but is not in the band anymore. Bang! No money. The guys contacted Jari and asked him to sign a paper where he stated that he is still in the band although he was playing in Evergrey. It was just: money, money, money. And all this time, I was the only one who was actually making music. I used almost a year in my life for composing and recording my Classical Rock Opera ”Saana”. And the evergrowing feeling inside of me that something is terribly wrong.

At the same time playing the festival gigs and feeling all this hatred, I started to think about my future. I knew at that point that I would be happier without these guys, except perhaps Jens and Lauri. As the months went by and I was doing my solo album Saana, I felt so much happiness doing that project that I fully realized what I should do. I was aware of the consequences, but I wasn’t aware that I was against a big money making machine. I have explained much of this period in my first statement.

So there was one thing left. I had to decide if I would continue Strato without Kotipelto and Jörg, from whom I felt most of the hatred coming. I came to the conclusion that there cannot be Stratovarius without these guys and that it would be wrong to the fans to replace them. So I decided to end something that I started 23 years before and yes, I do consider that, although there are always those who remind me that I am not an original member. But I do consider myself as an original member of Stratovarius as the fans know it. The band started in 1982 and I came in 1984. I do consider myself as the soul of Stratovarius and that it has always been my band. But I also consider that I could not have achieved all that success without the classic line up. It was a match made in heaven. Why it ended the way it ended, is partly a mystery to me. But my motivation was not ”greed” as the others claim. If it would be, I would certainly have waited to have that 420 000€ plus the high fee Stratovarius receives from the shows. Instead I decided to go on my own way and stop Stratovarius while it still had some dignity left. I was fully aware that I would have to pay for my share for the legal costs, but I didn’t care... although I waited as long as I could to give time to those who wanted that money more than to create music. And I do blame the management and the lawyer for handling the case badly and slowly.

You have to do your own thinking: why would I leave a succesful band who was winning the legal case with all that money and go and start all over again with a totally new band and relatively unknown musicians with very little money compared to the Strato if I wasn’t completely totally unhappy about almost everything in the band the worst being the very fake human relationships and how I had been treated in the last couple of years? Does this make any sense to you? And if it does, then perhaps it has come time to ask: who are the ones that actually are greedy? And who wants to exploit the name ”Stratovarius” and who doesn’t? For those who don’t know, the deals me and Strato always make/made are so called ”master deals”. It means that the artist pays for the studio, flights, the general costs of making the album. After paying all the costs of the RR ”New Era” album that includes mega names and studio rent is 460€ per day plus also the costs for making cover, pictures, what is left is nothing compared to what I was making in Strato. The ”supreme greedy narcistic Faust” doesn’t really fit into this scenario. But a guy who loves music and has made it from his heart since the age of 14 and follows his ideals no matter what, does. That guy is me.

So now we come to that point where I had the new album of my new band ready and still no solution from a simple legal case. It was 2 months until the release and the case had been going on for almost 2 years now. So that was the day when I had to make it public. It still took about a month until the Sanctuary/Universal people heard about the break-up. Then it was of course too late.

I wrote my statement with a clear conscience and without hatred, telling about the reasons of the split that had already happened half a year before. Rationally, peacefully and with respect. I wanted the fans to know the truth. Since then I have spent much of my time in the Strato forum and RR forum explaining the situation and trying to be with the fans. My sincere wish was that the split would not divide the fans and I spent a lot of time even defending the guys and writing blogs urging fans not to take sides. I believe the fans deserved to know more than the general chit chat. Some people say we should not talk about private things in public. But it is absolutely impossible to understand the whole thing without going into those details. At the end of the day it is just down to rational thinking: why didn’t I stay? Why did I leave?

Then the other guys published that hate filled, bitter and cruel statement accusing me of just about everything that has ever happened. The biggest thing that hurt was that it was signed by Jens and Lauri, who I thought were my friends. That cut very deep and I am still recovering from that disappointment. That really broke my heart. And I still can’t believe it. But it is true.

After that statement it was of course inevitable that the fans will be divided, thus the situation was against everything that Stratovarius had ever represented and I had written songs about. They were not divided after my first statement. I certainly didn’t intend to start a flaming war but I was shocked about the lies and aggressiveness. And I did write some stupid things in the forums, which I apologize about to you the fans. But I am only a human being with weaknesses and sometimes too much is just too much. The pressure was just unbelievable. I was stabbed in the back by the guys I had given all my creative energy and efforts, not to mention the money, for 12 years and I was called ”greedy supreme narcistic Faust”. The whole statement made little sense to me,stating that band had declined since 2004 and that I was somehow ”humiliated” by this. I think the humiliation lies on the other side and in the ”abandonment” by my ”friends”. Also, I don’t think the band had declined. We played extremely succesful world tour of 100 shows around the Globe for ”Stratovarius” album. That’s hardly a decline. The fans were there. They were hungry for a new Strato album. Sadly they had no idea what was going on. I really don’t understand the whole statement in any other way than cleverly putting all the blame on me and trying to destroy my new career, while continuing under the name ”Stratovarius”. It is a very different statement from what I did and wrote in a very different way and tone. There is unbelievable repressed hate in that statement towards me. Thus, much of what I had felt towards me in the last couple of years is manifested in that letter. Later I heard from 3 credible sources close to Jens that he actually toned the statement down and that it was even more aggressive. The source of that aggressiveness would be Jörg Michael and Timo Kotipelto, exactly as I have felt. Jörg Michael is also the only guy who has put up the statement on his myspace site.

Now we come to the final point since the others want to continue as Stratovarius. My thought of not wanting to continue Stratovarius without Timo Kotipelto and Jörg Michael was totally contradictory to their thought of continuing the band without me. And since I had written 95% about the songs and lyrics and was responsible for the whole essence and message of the band, it would be impossible to call that band Stratovarius. It would have nothing to do with that name. This would be no Deep Purple without Blackmore where the songs were written mainly together... plus they had no serious message like Stratovarius does.

So there will never be another Stratovarius. It was a unique band and the name itself doesnt mean that it would bear the trademarks of Stratovarius. It means more to me than money. It means the very essence of the message it has carried in my songs for 23 years. That is a very long time. My new band cannot replace Stratovarius. Neither can any other band. My dignity prevents me from using that name without my ex-band members. This is the contrary regarding the other guys and what they are inteding to do. At this writing, they are most likely preparing all kinds of Stratovarius releases that I blocked, out of the reasons that they did not have enough quality.

Since I consider this a devastatingly disappointing and utterly disrespectful move, I am going to do something people don’t probably expect from me. First of all in my life philosophy this kind of act is evil. And I do not want to have anything to do with evil. Although both moral and legal rights I own would easily grant me the rights to prevent the guys using the name Stratovarius, I am going to do the opposite. I am going to give them full perpetual rights to the name and also I do not want to receive any money regarding record sales of the back catalogue or possible new products in which I am involved . Ever. You will find this letter that has been mailed to the Stratovarius management with this statement. Simply, I don’t want to have anything to do with that name in its present form, Jörg Michael, Timo Kotipelto and Jens Johansson ever again. The old records and their message speak for themselves. So the guys are free to use the name. I am doing this with a clear mind that everything that you put to the universe returns to you. And above all, I refuse to co-operate, negotiate or have anything to do with what I consider to be evil. And here is the very corporate money making machine in its full force exploiting the name, like it could really have the same meaning without me.

I hope this letter clarifies some things from my side and I promise that this will be the last statement from my side. From now on I will let the music talk with my new band Revolution Renaissance, that carries that spiritual essence of the Fleur de Lys. That’s why it’s in the logo. And of course we will play lots of Stratovarius songs in the shows too.

I wish you nothing but good things, blessings and much happiness. I thank you for a great life and I hope to see you somewhere along the road. Take good care of yourselves and I am very sorry that it had to end this way. When the curtain falls at the end of the day, it’s only the Music that counts. And you will get that from me in the future too.

Love, Timo Tolkki

[RG]

De toutes façons ce groupe n'avait plus rien à offrir, Bye, bye...

[Hellion]

Euh ben justemment non, pas bye bye ! on va se taper un strato sans Tolki (visions part 2, 5th dimension... un truc qui va caresser les fans dans le sens du poil...) ! Ce qui est effectivement assez naze ! Bizarre de la part de Tolki quand même de les laisser faire ca ! Ou alors il bluff et il a pas vraiment le droit de les en empecher ?

[Pierre]

Si, il pouvait tout à fait, mais ce mec-là n'a pas toujours fait preuve d'un comportement rationnel jusque là Mais à la limite, c'est tout à son honneur: il refuse de rentrer dans le jeu des autres qui l'accusent de splitter le groupe pour récolter les royalties pour lui tout seul, il prend le public à témoin en montrant qu'il n'en fait pas une histoire d'argent, qu'il place Timo Kotipelto et Jörg Michael face à leurs responsabilités, et qu'il refuse de continuer ce petit jeu. Là, sur ce coup, je le trouve pas mal... Maintenant, attendons la réponse de l'autre partie

[NicoGan]

[dupinguez]

Bah je pense que le Tolkki il va vite s'en mordre les doigts de pas vouloir toucher de royalties sur les produits Strato. Car disons-le tout net : son Revolution Renaissance, c'est pas bien terrible (j'ai le promo vu que je chronique chez les eternels). C'est du Strato sans Strato, à savoir qu'on avait beau critiquer, n'est pas Kotipelto qui veut, même quand on s'appelle Sammet ou Kiske. Du coup, Tolkki essaie de leur faire chanter du Koti, et ça ne fonctionne pas. Pire encore, les compositions sont peu inspirées, banales, tournent en rond et n'apportent rien de neuf.
Heureusement qu'il est producteur, car m'est avis qu'il va pas en vendre des masses de son Revolution Renaissance, surtout que son futur line-up n'a pas l'air bien plus prometteur.

Je suis bien plus impatient d'entendre ce que vont donner les autres membres, sous le nom strato ou pas d'ailleurs. S'ils arrivent à dégotter un gratteux un peu couillu, y a de fortes possibilités que ce soit un truc bien.

[Pierre]

Mouais... Kotipelto en solo, ça ne casse pas des briques, et ça n'a pas non plus remporté un grand succès. Il assure bien sur scène, mais ses compos personnelles sont assez banales. S'il continuait Strato avec le reste du groupe moins Tolkki, ça ne ferait sûrement pas de miracles. Strato était magique quand il y avait cette alchimie entre les membres, entre "Fourth dimension" et "Infinity". Si ça continue sans Tolkki, vu que celui-ci leur en laisse le droit tout en les mettant face à leurs responsabilités, ça ne fera que ridiculiser un peu plus le nom du groupe.

[Bib]

Kotipelto en solo c'est moisi ! Tolkki en solo c'est moisi !
Y'a qu'ensemble qu'ils arrivent à faire des trucs !!

Cela étant, je suis d'accord avec Pierre ! On va voir ce que les autres osent faire du nom Strato ! ou d'ailleurs !

[gegers]

Je suis je pense un des rares a avoir aimé l'album 2005 de Strato, et je suis en général assez preneur pour tout ce qui vient de Tolkki. Donc Revolution Renaisance ok, pourquoi pas. Et puis la voix de Kotipelto m'agace un peu sur la longueur donc avec Sammet et Kiske cela ne peut qu'aller en s'arrangeant.

Par contre Strato sans Tolkki ça je suis curieux de voir. Un duo de compositeurs Johansson/Kotipelto ça peut rendre pas mal également. C'est vrai que Kotipelto tout seul par contre c'est assez mauvais. Attendons de voir.

[Miki]

Le 1er album solo de Tolkki contenait pourtant quelques trucs pas mal. Idem pour le "Coldness" de Kotipelto, là où son 1er effort solo, c'est vrai plus heavy, frôlait pourtant le ridicule... C'est quand même bien dommage que ces deux là ne puissent plus travailler ensemble. 'Tain, quand on repense à "Infinity" ou "Visions"....

[Polochon]

Borf...

Le reproche principal que lui faisaient les autres est qu'il aurait empoché une coquette petite somme de la part d'un label (Frontiers Records je crois?) quand il les a assuré que Strato n'existerait plus après Machin Renaissance (je n'ai pas une grande mémoire des noms propres en ce moment, sorry). Or il ne parle pas une seconde de ça. Donc on peut supposer que c'était vrai. Auquel cas il ne serait pas aussi désintéressé qu'il veut bien le dire.

Il se plaind de ne pas avoir participé à la promo du groupe depuis sa crise en 2003... Pourtant il me semble bien qu'il a pu expliquer ce qui lui était arrivé, que c'était dû à ci et ça mais maintenant c'est du passé il va mieux, vive la musique et les copains/musiciens retrouvés? Ou tout ce que j'ai lu à ce sujet venait de ses posts sur le site officiel? (Pas impossible hein, mais....... me semble bien avoir lu une ou deux interviews de lui perdues ici ou là?)
Ceci étant dit à la place de leur management si j'avais un musicien qui sort d'un problème pareil j'attendrai un peu avant de l'embarquer dans des tournées promotionnelles interminables... mais bon c'est moi.

Après il nous fait la complainte du grand martyr abandonné de tous. Si les autres avaient vraiment voulu le mettre "hors-jeu" ils auraient très bien pu le faire déclarer irresponsable, hop mis sous tutelle, et zou ils font ce qu'ils veulent avec le nom Stratovarius jusqu'à ce qu'il réussisse à prouver qu'il est à nouveau responsable de ses actes. Voire ils le laissent tomber comme une vieille chaussette dans son hôpital et vivent leur vie sous un autre nom pendant qu'il essaie de se remettre.

(etc etc...)

'Fin au final personne n'a forcément totalement raison ou totalement tort dans ces histoires... mais au moins ça fait de la lecture!

[RG]

Euh ben justemment non, pas bye bye ! on va se taper un strato sans Tolki (visions part 2, 5th dimension... un truc qui va caresser les fans dans le sens du poil...) ! Ce qui est effectivement assez naze ! Bizarre de la part de Tolki quand même de les laisser faire ca ! Ou alors il bluff et il a pas vraiment le droit de les en empecher ?

J'avais pas vu l'histoire des autres qui continuent sans lui!
Quoiqu'il en soit, bye bye quand même en ce qui me concerne.
Les 2 timo en solo font de la merde, et après "infinite" Strato a fait de la merde, je sauve quand même 2 ou 3 titres des 2 "elements", "Soul of a vagabond" par exemple que je trouve excellente.
Alors franchement bye, bye.
Reste d'excellents souvenir de concerts: la 1ere partie d'Angra au Zenith, la tournée "infinite", un peu moins celle d' "element 1", mais ce groupe avait quelque chose en live, on ne peut le nier, maintenant en ce qui me concèrne, c'est fini et bel et bien fini.

[Mr. Sandman]

Je sais pas si ça a déjà été remarqué, mais Strato disait que son prochain album aurait comme initiales R.R.
Cela doit certainement signifié Revolution Renaissance.
Donc c'était peut-être prévu de puis un moment.
Enfin j'dis ça, j'dis rien.

[Polochon]

Bah oui à la base ce truc solo de Tolki devait être le nouveau Stratovarius. C'est une des raisons des cris de rage des 4 autres.

Sinon si c'est encore un coup d'intox, ce qui n'est ma foi pas forcément impossible en effet (...vu ce qu'ils ont déjà fait par le passé hein...), on ne pourrait que regretter qu'ils n'aient pas compris que ça ne marche plus depuis belle lurette ce genre de "publicité": ça pouvait être marrant dans les années 80, mais maintenant... c'est ce qui fait passer un groupe de la tête d'affiche au Zénith de Paris à un Elysée Montmartre à peine rempli!