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Stratovarius
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Joined: 07 May 2008
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 Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 4:18 am Post subject: statements topic |
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| Second try. Needs moar on-topic. |
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RonimuZ
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Joined: 09 Apr 2005
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Location: Joensuu (/Kajaani), Finland
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 4:31 am Post subject: |
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Kind of pity because some things were indeed interesting..
Hm. Anyway, the statement (the part where it's said that JJ, TK, JM and LP will continue) sounds good imho, when will we know more? |
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boswoth
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 4:55 am Post subject: |
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| RonimuZ wrote: |
Kind of pity because some things were indeed interesting..
Hm. Anyway, the statement (the part where it's said that JJ, TK, JM and LP will continue) sounds good imho, when will we know more? |
I have some of the first thread saved. If someone missed it here is short version. Timo Tolkki said the other guys are liars. Someone got a blow job from someone else. Then someone was angry bout something happening in different forum years ago. |
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StratoArwen
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Joined: 09 May 2008
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 6:10 am Post subject: Re: May 7 statement topic |
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| This statement has some harsh words but I think Tolkki deserved them. I believe this more than his version and all his blogs. I lost a lot of respect for him from how he reacted here (what was deleted). Time only will tell what comes next. Rest in peace Stratovarius, no matter what happen now it will never be the same for me. |
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IceBreaker
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Joined: 13 Jan 2005
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Location: Somewhere out from Strato-forum (=Etelä-Kymenlaakso)
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 8:22 am Post subject: |
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| Yes, no matter what will happen in the future as it will never been the same for me. Embittered members and ex-members giving different kind of statements doesn´t sound very good. Never. And on the forum side never known newbies talking plain shit neither. For IceBreaker it´s maybe better to stay out this all as much as he just can. Silent supporting or ignoring would be much more sensible move unfortunately. |
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boswoth
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 9:37 am Post subject: |
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Well this was what Timo Tolkki responded
| TimoTolkki wrote: |
I am very surprised about this. But my original statement in www.timotolkki.com is still all I have to say about this. There are several outright lies in the Strato statement and it is also clearly written by Jens alone. I will make some comments about these here:
"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."
Well I dont really live my life through anybody else's eyes. Neither I felt "stinging personal humiliation". I felt sad.
"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."
My main motivation was not greed, it was what you can read in my statement. It's true of course that my decision was a hard one and left others on their own. But sometimes in life you have to make decisions based on your own well being and what you want to do.
All the guys have a stable income from other sources, Jörg is running a booking agency, Kotipelto has his own band and record label, Jens has a record label with his brother and Lauri has loads of work as a bassist. By the way, just yesterday Lauri sent me an SMS where he was inetersted n joining RR and he was asking questions about who will be playing in it.
"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."
I didnt present any Stratovarius demos to Frontiers at that point. Btw I paid for those demos and I mixed them without any fee in Sonic Pump studio, which alone would cost 1000€. The contract was signed after I broke Strato.
There were 2 contracts: One for Saana, my solo album and one for RR. I of course felt no obligation to tell anything about my personal life/business to people whom I have left behind.
Why should I do that?
Frontiers demanded the Stratovarius clause because they probably thought that I might put Strato back again. It simply says that as long as RR contract is valid and active, there cannot be any Strato records, which was totally okay for me since the band was already broken up. Why should that be a problem? The money I dont comment other than that's a blatant lie.
So to make is clear: First I broke up Strato and finished my Opera and then I started thinking about forming a new band.
"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."
Again, these were my personal business things after the Stratovarius was already broken up.
So nothing behind anybody's back.
"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."
Another lie. The mail was extremely long and I asked them to come back to me after reading it.
At that point I did and was concentrating in my opera. There was no plans of RR at this point. I was fully in the production of my Saana opera. I told in the mail the same reasons I am telling in my www.timotolkki.com statement.
"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."
I could not mention anything about the Frontiers deal because there was no Frontiers deal at this point. I for sure didnt want "anybody to talk me out of it". Why would I want to do that after I just broke up the band? And Jens has all the time been sending me emails and we have been talking on the phone with very friendly terms. Now I see that this all has been just a big lie.
"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."
Yes, this is very unfortunate, but Jens is making a mistake by assuming that RR is a project.
It is a band as everyone can see: I am looking for musicians.
I waited as long as I possibly could in announcing the RR band, but the reason why the legal case did not succeed was that Strato management and lawyer could not get us out of the deal although they had ONE AND A HALF years time to do that. That is a very bad peformance for a simple case if the record company takes the option or not. I was not informed about anything at this point about the legal case although I was asking constantly. So I had no choice, but I waited to the very last day I could before the announcement. And also, all those losses and legal costs are my concern as well...
And I knew that if I would release RR without telling about Stratovarius break up, everybody would just take it as a project, which it is not. So these are the reasons for announcing the split before the RR release.
There are lot of business talk here and money figures and that anger "Faustian greedy narcist". Maybe you compare my statement to this one...
"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."
This is a lie. I asked them if they would like to do a farewell tour of Stratovarius, as I have explained in my statement. It was nothing to do with financials, but as a respect towards Stratovarius fans. My Opera wasn't even out yet, so how could it have failed at that point?
It is now taking off nicely and I am happy. I dismissed the idea of farewell tour, that Jens was happy about, but Kotipelto and Jörg in a very hostile way rejected.
"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".
Well I've never been called a Faust before so at least that's a new one. I don't consider that I have betrayed anyone, but that I have stayed true to myself and my beliefs. Also from the very beginning I shared all the income from every source equally between all the band members.
That doesnt sound like greed to me. Bitter it does sound.
It is not a story of Faust, it is a story of a rock band and this statement verifies all those things I am writing in my statement. There is hate. There is tension. All those things were and are still there.
The statement ends "the remaining members of Stratovarius". Although I own the name and all the rights to that, I have no problem if the guys want to continue the band without me.
I am very happy with RR getting interesting fresh musicians and doing loads of creative stuff in my life. Too bad it had to end this way. |
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boswoth
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NeonVomit
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stratohawk
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exe knight
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NeonVomit
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boswoth
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 10:29 am Post subject: |
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| stratohawk wrote: |
Hey don't dig that out again! I prefer your short summary that you posted before:
| Quote: |
| Timo Tolkki said the other guys are liars. Someone got a blow job from someone else. Then someone was angry bout something happening in different forum years ago. |
I think that is more than enough, maybe even offtopic too much. |
Yeah, those things is when it all went crazy so I thought I would get that out of the way early that it was things like that what caused the old thread to go. |
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boswoth
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 10:36 am Post subject: |
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| exe knight wrote: |
No TT didn't, he said that JJ is obviously lying in most parts and that it was propably written by him alone. |
But the statement was signed by all of them? If JJ just went crazy and posted that, at least one of them should have stepped up and complained by now. Actually, nobody of them has commented anything. |
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exe knight
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boswoth
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Korppi-
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Beast_Pete
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Joined: 02 Mar 2003
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Location: Budapest, Hungary
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 11:15 am Post subject: |
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They would know by now...
I just think they are simply wiser than Tolkki was and just don't want to post here. |
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NeonVomit
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Location: London, UK
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 11:41 am Post subject: |
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| Beast_Pete wrote: |
They would know by now...
I just think they are simply wiser than Tolkki was and just don't want to post here. |
It would be like dumping petro onto a forest fire, really. |
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StratoArwen
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Joined: 09 May 2008
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 11:46 am Post subject: |
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| IceBreaker wrote: |
| Yes, no matter what will happen in the future as it will never been the same for me. Embittered members and ex-members giving different kind of statements doesn´t sound very good. Never. |
Yes. I am very sad. I hope I can listen to the old Strato records again without thinking about how it ended. They really seemed like so good friends.
And also with this Revolution Renaissance, I haven't heard it but from this talk it already gives me a bad feeling in my stomach, how it was based on deception and came from the bitter ashes of my favorite band. And how these "fresh new" guest musiscians almost was replaced back with Strato guys in January.. and the ones on this record will be replaced by totally new guys for what comes next. |
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StratoArwen
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nefertari
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stratohawk
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 1:01 pm Post subject: |
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| nefertari wrote: |
| ( they all did sign it and stood behind it) |
Am I the only one that doesn't give a dime about such a "signment" on a digital text published in the internet? Those 4 initials don't mean anything. They are suggesting that it's the opinion of all the 4 members, but this text might (just theoretically) also be written by someone who was never part of Stratovarius. What I'm trying to say is that even if the text is "signed" with these initials, it doesn't mean it is the opinion of all of them. TT said something about Lauri asking him to play in RR. Well...
It's just the old truism "Don't trust anything you find in the net". |
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nefertari
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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| stratohawk wrote: |
| nefertari wrote: |
| ( they all did sign it and stood behind it) |
Am I the only one that doesn't give a dime about such a "signment" on a digital text published in the internet? Those 4 initials don't mean anything. They are suggesting that it's the opinion of all the 4 members, but this text might (just theoretically) also be written by someone who was never part of Stratovarius. What I'm trying to say is that even if the text is "signed" with these initials, it doesn't mean it is the opinion of all of them. TT said something about Lauri asking him to play in RR. Well...
It's just the old truism "Don't trust anything you find in the net". |
Well, it really is the statement of all the others. I have been talking with Kotipelto about the statement ( when we were still
waiting for it...) and he told every time that it is THEIR statement.
From Lauri Porra´s blogs in Myspace ( http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=55495773&blogID=39020421 ) : " Monday, May 05, 2008
Clinics!
Current mood: excited
Greetings everybody. Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I..ve been really busy working on some great stuff with some good friends which you might know. Lot..s of exciting stuff coming up so stay tuned for info about it soon. Meanwhile...
Clinics! |
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cliff
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Posts: 3355
Location: Tampere
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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| nefertari wrote: |
From Lauri Porra´s blogs in Myspace
Greetings everybody. Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I..ve been really busy working on some great stuff with some good friends which you might know. Lot..s of exciting stuff coming up so stay tuned for info about it soon. Meanwhile... |
Great news! I'm really looking forward to hearing new material made by Kotipelto & Jens & Lauri & Jörg.
Lauri is a real genius, a real musician. You can check his solo stuffs to see what I'm talking about. Same thing about Jens. A couple of days ago I heard his Last Viking album, this is uncredibly good! Jörg is an amazing drummer, probably the best drummer ever. I know many people thing that Kotipelto doesn't write good songs, but I think he does... besides, his last album Serenity is MUCH better than any Stratovarius album made during the last 8 years.
About this Revolution Renaissance. I have a couple of songs from it, and let's be honest. It sounds good, better than this "Stratovarius" album. Still, I don't see anything in it which shows "a return to the Visions root!".
Ah, I wish I could see Porra in his clinic.
I just hate that Musamaailma store, I think they're just a bench of incompetent sellers. |
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nefertari
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NeonVomit
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 2:21 pm Post subject: |
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| cliff wrote: |
Great news! I'm really looking forward to hearing new material made by Kotipelto & Jens & Lauri & Jörg.
Lauri is a real genius, a real musician. You can check his solo stuffs to see what I'm talking about. Same thing about Jens. A couple of days ago I heard his Last Viking album, this is uncredibly good! Jörg is an amazing drummer, probably the best drummer ever. I know many people thing that Kotipelto doesn't write good songs, but I think he does... besides, his last album Serenity is MUCH better than any Stratovarius album made during the last 8 years.
Ah, I wish I could see Porra in his clinic.
I just hate that Musamaailma store, I think they're just a bench of incompetent sellers. |
Ah I dunno, I really love Elements pt.1 and think it's way better than Serenity, but other than that I agree with all you wrote. Lauri really is something special, a rare talent and it will be interesting to hear what his effect on the songwriting of the band would be like. I want to go to his clinics too! But it's like, way up to the north and stuff. Jorg and Jens are also amazing and well TK has 'the voice' that could only ever be Stratovarius.
I guess a real big question is what will happen to the name 'Stratovarius', TT owns the rights to it. Will the other guys form a new band then if he doesn't agree to let them use it? Like use one of the many common misspellings?  |
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RazielSR
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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I'm wondering too, what are they going to do with the name?
And about Kotipelto's solo stuff...for me is bad. And I HOPE they don't make songs like Kotipelto's band. I think TK's voice is wasted in his band. |
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Mysteriet
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browneyedgirl
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black death
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| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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| RazielSR wrote: |
| I think TK's voice is wasted in his band. |
What do you mean? That if one doesn't sing high, almost displeasing and impossible to understand, it's wasting? Or what? |
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