The band have released seven studio albums altogether, sold over four million records worldwide, toured (most of) the world many times over and had a who’s who of heavy music, and not so heavy music, do guest spots on their albums and tours – as diverse as Cristina Scabbia from Lacuna Coil, Gavin Rossdale of Bush, Corey Taylor of Slipknot and many more.
They tour here in late August, early September, and while drummer Mikko Siren recognises that it’s taken them too long to get here, he couldn’t be happier that the time has finally come. “How long has it taken for us to get there!” he exclaims, “I guarantee we have tried for so many years. I cannot understand, because I’m just a drummer!” he laughs. “There’s really weird reasons why we’ve never been out there, and now we’ve just forced our management and said ‘we need to get some shows out there’. So they found a way for us to do it.
“(We’re) truly excited,” he says. “I don’t think that any of us [have] even visited the country, even on holiday, so it’s a great opportunity for us to come over and play the shows. We are honestly really excited.”
Being that it’s the band’s first ever time here in virtually two decades, Mikko informs Aussie fans what they are to experience at an Apocalyptica show. “We have been on tour for three years now,” he reveals. “The show has found its structure, it’s really theatrical the way we do it at the moment, and we’ve tried to do music from almost every album. We have a structure that we have to follow because of the theatrical nature of it, especially when we come to a place that we’ve never been before. We always try to play things from the older albums as well, because we know there are fans that have been waiting for those shows for ages and they might know the band from the first album, which was a cover album of Metallica songs. So we play the Metallica stuff too.”
Unfortunately for the band, no days off have been scheduled for the tour so the members can experience the country a little, which Mikko is quite disappointed about. “I’m not expecting a lot, I don’t know which asshole planned the tour, but we don’t have a single day off,” he laughs in mock anger. “It’s going to be travelling all the time! All the things I’ve heard of Australia are nothing but crazy positive, so I expect people to be happy, and of course I’m really proud to be presenting our music. I think the audience will be surprised because even though people hear us on the albums, they still don’t have a clue what’s going on onstage, they can’t believe the energy and the attitude we deliver with these instruments, and I think the surprise will be positive both ways.”
Australian fans can count themselves pretty lucky for getting to experience the Apocalyptica show now, as it may be a little while before the band return with a new album and get back on the road again, as Mikko explains. “We already had a plan when we came to record Seventh Symphony,” he says, “and that was to do that album, and then do the tour, and after that we would have a one year break when we [wouldn’t] do anything. We will not be creating any new material, we won’t be doing any shows. The band has been together for I think 18 or 19 years and that has been constantly doing things. If we haven’t been touring we’ve been writing new stuff. The main thing in this band is that we are super excited about everything we do, and we want to keep it that way, so we really need to get that break. We really need to get some fresh air. After one year we’ll see what’s going to happen, but definitely we won’t be doing anything between September 2012 and September 2013.”
If you’re a Melbourne based Apocalyptica fan you’ve missed out, because their show at The Hi Fi Bar on Saturday, September 1 is completely sold out. But for devotees a trek interstate won’t seem so bad – this may be your only hope to catch the symphonic metal majesty that is Apocalyptica.
BY ROD WHITFIELD
