SYMFONIA

INTERVIEW BY MARKO SYRJÄLÄ AND ARTO LEHTINEN

Symfonia. Does that name of the band ring any bells out there yet? Maybe not for everyone as Symfonia is basically a new band on the metal map. But behind Symfonia there are well known names and persons involved in the band. When unveiling names such as Andre Matos, Timo Tolkki, Uli Kusch, Jari Kainulainen and Mikko Harkin it is quite obvious the interest toward this five piece may increase tremendously. The Metal-Rules.com team had an nice and pleasant task to witness the debut show of Symfonia at the Finnish Metal Expo. After the show we were lucky enough to have an opportunity of doing an interesting and in-depth interview with vocalist Andre Matos regarding the birth of Symfonia, Avantasia, and plenty of other topics including Symfonia’s future activities. Ladies and gentleman, the first Symfonia interview here at Metal-Rules.com.

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Symfonia

None of these musicians need an introduction.  They are all legends among the melodic metal community. By sheer coincidence, they all found themselves living on the same continent, in Scandinavia. They decided to join forces and express their talents in the form of a new melodic metal project: SYMFONIA.

Honoring the heritage of their previous bands Stratovarius, Helloween, Angra and Sonata Arctica, SYMFONIA continues their superb melodic metal tradition with an incredible musicianship that is a match made in heaven. This is a force that no serious melodic metal fan will be able to ignore.
SYMFONIA will make its World Premiere 18.2 at the Finnish Metal Expo, an International Metal Meeting, where they will take the stage at 11PM in the evening.

The recordings for the debut album of SYMFONIA will start in November at Studio Mega in Sweden, for a Spring 2011 release.

A brand new interview with Timo Tolkki can be read in BW&BK here.

““Everything with Symfonia has been very fast,” Tolkki reveals. “I don’t want to use the word ‘pre-destined’, but after Revolution Renaissance I said, ‘That’s it, I’m opening the flower store…’ (laughs). It’s a weird story. It all started with Andre Matos because someone told me that he’s living in Sweden now, in a village of something like 2,000 people. He comes from Sao Paulo, a city of 25 million people. I began thinking about it, that I had one of the best power metal vocalists practically living next to me. I know the guy very well, and I had nothing to do. I gave him a call and asked if he wanted to write some music, and Andre came to visit me in Helsinki. He spent the week here, went to sauna – where I showed the Brazilian what ‘hot’ really means (laughs) – and we worked on some music.”

Check out the band here: http://www.symfonia.fi/

EDGUY

with ANDRE MATOS and H.E.A.T.

Islington Academy, London

10th January 2009

Review and live pics by HannTu

Can we get a ‘Hell Yeah’ for cheesy 80s rock slash power metal? You bet we can, and when German schlockmeisters Edguy come to town, you KNOW you’re in for a rockin’ good time.

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