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Name :  level 15 Stradivarius
Date :  2008-05-13 02:02
Hits :  3068

Stratovarius Statement 1

Tolkki's main motivation was greed

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 naivit? 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, disappointing 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
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level 15 Stradivarius
  Stratovarius Statement 1
2008-05-13
3069
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redondo 2024-10-28 18:43
관세적게내는법은어느분글을본거같은데,그냥 지르니이런엄청난부담이.하지만시디만온전하다면야
GODSIZE 2024-10-28 16:17
세금은 당연히 납부해야 하지만 사실 짜증 나는 건 사실입니다 ㅎㅎ
redondo 2024-10-28 10:03
통장에서 빠진금액이 39만5천ㄷ 최근가장 많이 쓴게 6매14만원에휘청였는데. 폭주를 도배죄송
redondo 2024-10-28 09:57
희귀반들을 지켜보다 9매에40만원;; 인켄테이션x2,말리볼x2,시니스터x2등. 세관에있음.
redondo 2024-10-28 09:50
관세폭탄 6만원쯤 나온다네요. 10일이상 걸리다네요. 서류작성 우체국 팩스보내고 고생;;
GODSIZE 2024-10-27 20:44
오늘 검색해 보니 다행히 중간 배송단계 로그 건너뛰고 통관 중이라고 뜨네요 거의 2주 정도 걸렸네요
metalnrock 2024-10-27 12:37
출고중 분실이면 아마존이 책임지고 재고 확보해주길 ㅠㅠ
metalnrock 2024-10-27 12:36
저도 조용히 보고 왔습니다. 라이브 좋더라고요 ㅎㅎ
서태지 2024-10-27 09:04
Hellride 공연. Nightrage 좋았습니다 lml
GODSIZE 2024-10-26 16:38
아마존도 출고중 분실이 있군요 chat pile 프리오더 해 놓은 cd가 사라졌어요 cd는 당분간 품절 같은데 ;;;