Into the “Moonglow” with AVANTASIA

For Avantasia fans, it must feel like they are about to have another Christmas. Not only is Tobias Sammet’s all-star rock opera releasing another album, titled Moonglow, but the tour that we thought would never happen is happening – yes Avantasia is coming to Australia with a shitload of special guests. See the full list below.

With so much epic news happening around Avantasia at the moment HEAVY Mag decided that the only way to deal with it was to sit down and have a chat with the man himself – Tobias Sammet.

“It is absolutely exciting these days,” says Sammet the excitement very easy to hear in his voice. The album is out in four weeks, the ticket sales are going great and it seems like Australia is really interested in what we have created. With the world tour, we have a wonderful line-up and we are going to have a great line-up and then as part of that something is happening that I never thought would happen… I spoke to so much press last year and when they asked about shows in Australia I kept saying ‘oh that will never happen’ but here we are about to tour Australia. And we are not going to tune down or even tone down, every singer that we will have in Europe we will bring to Australia and yeah we are going to play approximately three hours… it will be great. And some of the people in the band have never been to Australia and they are really excited about it.”

“That is what has to happen so you can put things together and have them sold in bite-sized portions,” says Sammet when talk turns to Moonglow and what kinds of things were sparking his inspiration for this album. “If you consider it to be art then you are giving something of yourself, something of what you write. And for me that is a reflection of what is going on in your mind, it is what you need to get off your chest… that is always what it has been about for me as a songwriter…I always want to get things off my chest and I want to write things down and get them out musically. It really is a case of just writing things down, playing it and getting it all off your chest by notes and doing things that resonate with your feelings. For me I wanted to write a concept that was fantastic in a way but at the same time to incorporate my own feelings and things that I had in my chest and I came up with a concept that has been influenced heavily by the revival of the Victorian Gothic novel and romanticism, a creature that is being brought into an environment where it can’t cope with its surroundings – there is so much light and all this bold and the beautiful so it is scared so it turns to the dark to find shelter, and in that dark it finds its own peace… a haven… but also put out of its own misery to a reality that helps it cope with its surroundings again. It is a very Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Edward Scissorhands Tim Burton-esque album.”

The touring artist line-up for the Australian Avantasia tour:

AVANTASIA TOUR DATES