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The Inherent Beauty Of Music With EICCA TOPPINEN From APOCALYPTICA · HEAVY Music Interviews

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So my name is Ekatopinen and I'm the founder of Finnish cello metal band Apocalyptica,
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and we just released a new album, Apocalyptica Plays Metallica Volume two,
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which is a great follow up for the previous Metallic album we made, which
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was twenty eight years ago. Nothing like the time between albums you might think.
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There's there's been eight albums in between, so we haven't been just doing
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nothing. Did did I hear you right before? Did you call it shallow
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metal? Is that? What is that? What the term is for it?
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I don't know, but that's kind of like, yeah, but that
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has has the two key element. Because I was talking through it before,
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I'm thinking, how would you describe this music? But cello metal is beautiful?
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Okay, So, as you say, Apocalyptica release your ten studio album,
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Apocalyptica Plays Metallica only a couple of weeks ago. So how's the only
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reception been for it? It's been really great so far. What I've I've
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heard and and other people have been talking about it. It's people seem to
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be very very happy and very surprised with the album. You know, like
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there is a lot of there's a lot of stuff that it's it's been positively
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surprising for for people. So I think it's been it's been really really good,
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really positive. And for those I'm familiar with Apocalyptica, which there can't
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be many left in the world by now because he's a huge But can you
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explain what it is you actually do with albums? What is the band lineup
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is basically three cellos and drums. So with this kind of album, this
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was a concept album because we started as as a classical cellist group of cellists
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playing Metallica because we love metal music, and that was our first album and
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our starting point kind of and and after that we have done mainly original music
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and evolved the sound and the finding new ways to how to how to use
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our instruments cellos, to to play metal through music. And and now on
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this album we took a retake on on on Metallica songs again with a new
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perspective. So these versions are instrumental versions of of cool cool listing of Metallica
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tunes and bringing a new perspective, a new edge to the original songs.
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Very good and released as singles. You released one The Call of Tulu,
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The Unforgiven two and the Four Horsemen. So was there a particular reason you
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chose those four songs, like were they more popular? Did you think that
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people would receive them better? It was not about that. I think it
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was more about kind of that wit which things those songs introduced of Apocalyptica,
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Like for Horsemen was the first single because it kind of it was a little
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bit combining many elements of the album, like that plain cool riffs with cellos,
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you know, like the Horseman riff is legendary. But also that that
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how we how we did the mid section there, that we made it super
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calm and beautiful and you know very cellow is. So this this contrast that
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I think it's one of the key elements in Apocalyptica, this combining this raw
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energy with something beautiful but kind of melancholy in the way. So I think
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that was a great opener. Okay, this is what you can expect,
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So the single is always something that that you highlight that what people can expect
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from the whole album. And then Unforgiven too was a choice because of the
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it's it's a ballad and we wanted to have that kind of side also that
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okay, we have this this World in the album as well. The third
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single was one that's the most epic epic song on the album and also shows
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that that how how in different because we have orchestra there and then we have
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James Headfield speaking the lyrics the Solder story in the song, so that kind
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of showed one one end of it, and and then having Cliff Burton playing
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bass, having the original bass rack from Cliff Burton, the best player of
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Metallica on call of I think it was it was more like to kind of
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to highlight the different sights. It was not so much about that which songs
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are popular or famous or something, because with the with the instrument those songs
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we we've been we are experienced enough that we are not expecting any any massive
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streams or sales for instrumental music because that's not really happening. That's not how
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how the market seems to work. So it was more about giving good insights
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and good good to taste of what the whole album is about. Yeah,
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you mentioned it called it Petrolo and the solo or the bassline by Metallica's original
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bass player Cliff Burton, who passed in nineteen eighty six. So that's pretty
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awesome. Bright, how did you come across that? Like? How that
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how that workout? Yeah, that's sick. All this kind of the metallicas
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involvement in this album, we didn't think about it when we started to work
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on the album, and all those ideas started to come up when we were
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working on the music, and for example, called Tulu. It's one of
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my favorite songs of all time from Metallica because it has some these colors and
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the wipe of the song has something something super power. And then some years
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ago I realized that actually a lot of those sound elements in the song that
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I always loved and I was very fascinated about. I realized that they actually
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played by bass that's on the bass line, and there came the idea that,
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oh, would be so cool to you know too, to get that
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bassline and last spring. I then said the message to Lars Ulry and I
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was like, Okay, we're working on this album and I would like to
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have a call with you because there are a couple of ideas that are just
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you know, rising from from the process. And and I talked to Large.
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I was like, Okay, this is pretty crazy, probably, but
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I was thinking that we were working on Call of Tulu and this would be
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amazing if we could get that, And Lars was like, this, this
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is such a great idea. I love that you always have this kind of
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out of the box ideas, but I have no idea how to make it
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work. Even he was like, he was like, oh, but that
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might be difficult. You know, James needs to approve, and then Cliff
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Burton family needs to approve, and then we need to figure out what all
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kind of contractual you know, things they are because the album was released nineteen
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eighty four and record company of that time might have some rights on the actual
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recording and stuff. But then just things happened smooth. I went to Yachteborg,
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Sweden to see Metallica last summer and was hanging out there whole weekend.
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Then what happened was really cool that I was invited after the first show.
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I was invited into this little dinner, kind of very casual dinner and sitting
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there with my girlfriend and then Rob thru Hill is coming in and he's like,
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oh hey, and just through the one woman into our table and we
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were sitting with that woman and talking and came along super super well and maybe
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after one hour or one or half, we were talking about the album,
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and I said about this kind of idea, and then suddenly turned out that
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that she was a stepsister of Cliff Burton and the person and the person who
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is actually taking care of Cliff Burd's legacy, and she loved the idea.
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And then but you have to ask Laras. I was like, already spoke
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with Lark, but then you have to ask Tony, the manager of Metallica,
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and and you know, everybody was so excited. And then I talked
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with everybody and and and the manager was like, okay, I need I
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need to call a couple of lawyers not to figure out that what's the legal
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side of it? And and everything just worked out, you know, it
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was it was crazy with all these things. I think the reason why why
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these things worked out was that we were never going to Metallica that we want
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something of you. You know, we were not asking that, okay,
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can we do this, could you do this? Blah blah blah. It
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was more like we were I was presenting the like we are excepted. We
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have this and this idea. I think this would be great, you know,
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if if we could do this person this way, like you know,
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James talking and and all that stuff, and they were like, wow,
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this is cool. Yeah. So I think that was the reason that Metallica
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got equally excited about what we were doing as we were fantastic. And one
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thing I really loved right like I had to listen to the album before and
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like, you've got James Dfield and Robin on one, but listen to the
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song. It takes you around the two minute marks and so you can actually
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tell that it's one like you're not you're not playing on the fact what they're
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in there, like you let your music do the talking before the band comes
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in. I think that's a beautiful thing. That's respectful and it's it shows
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that you're you're confident in what you're doing. Bro. I think it's a
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really really nice way to do it. Thank you. Happy to hear that.
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It's like my band mate Perto he made the arrangement. It was his
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kind of vision because we have recorded one we released in nineteen ninety eight album
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on the second album, so we didn't want to do any retakes in general
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for this new album of the old songs that we have already recorded but always
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felt that this is so grandiose, this song is so cinematic, and he's
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a big fan of all kinds of superhero movies, Marvel stuff and you know,
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like a lot of the Rings whatever is big operas, you know,
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all this bombastic, grandiose stuff. So he really wanted to make it the
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biggest possible and very cinematic. So we also hit our friend Finnish guy used
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to Tega Man who is working in La been working a Skywalkers sound and doing
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some sound for some Marvel movies and stuff. So he made all the the
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sound world there, you know, like the war fields and the bombs and
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everything. So we went all in with that symphony orchestra, the whole whole
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symphony orchestra, real orchestra to party about it. So it was not so
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much about Okay, richellos are playing one. It was more like like making
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it something bigger, bigger than life in the way that because the story of
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one is unfortunately too relevant even today. Yeah, so so we wanted also
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to to kind of the lyrics are amazing on that song, and I think
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the story comes across a little bit differently when it's spoken than it's when it
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sang. It gives a different dimension to it, and that's powerful, and
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I think that was the whole whole point of this record, of every song,
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of every version we did that we wanted to bring a new perspective kind
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of too, to show Metallica's original music in the in a little bit new
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way, to bring new dimensions or you know, different flavors, to highlight
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them that they are not so obvious on the original ones and so on.
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It would be a difficult question for you to answer in the twenty minute interview,
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mate, but do you be what what's the process of deconstructing songs on
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that that is so heavy with instruments and then reconstructing them with shallows? Is
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it? I think this was pretty challenging on this album because we really didn't
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want to go the easy way like just to do like a first album when
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we did we just played metal songs as they are using the instruments we can
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play, which was four cellos on that case. But this time we Apocalyptic
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is a different beast than it was twenty eight years ago, and and we
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really wanted to dive into the deep of the core soul of every song and
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to understand it and kind of digest it and to make it our own.
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So that left a lot of great songs we wanted to play out because we
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just figure out the apocalyptical version that's not turning out great. You know,
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it's okay, but it's not it's not something really Oh wow, this is
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fantastic. You know that we had to have this feeling for every version that
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we felt that okay, this is this is something really great. So and
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we gave ourselves more freedom to to modify the originals, you know, the
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chain structures, and to make them. Yeah, the focus was that that
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how it works as apocalyptical version, So whatever needs to be done to make
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it a great apocalyptical version of Metallica songs. That was the full approach on
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this one. So I think some some arrangement turned out came out easier somewhere
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took a longer time, let some anger to make out of time to get
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hold of it. I just had the feeling I just somehow intitively knew that
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it's gonna be great because it's a great song, and I really just needed
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some time to crack the code in a way you know that, Okay,
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what is how it works? How it works the best for us, and
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I think the version turned out great in the finaland and to Live is to
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Die, that's probably of all the versions most different to the original, like
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it's an epic I don't know, I can't remember it is. It's seven
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eight nine minutes long song instrumental song by Metallica, and our version is about
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three and a half minutes or something like that, and it's fully acoustic.
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It's very beautiful, but it's still the same music. And I love the
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version because it really shows how great music Metallica does. That if you just
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take the core elements, like the few melodies and stuff out and built around
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that, it creates something really really unique and beautiful and which people probably doesn't
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realize when they listen to the original, that how great the things actually are
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because the tonality and the colors are different. So so sometimes it was a
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challenging because I think we we have some kind of traps versus the arrangements of
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at least twenty songs and only nine ended up on the album. So there
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was a lot of trial and error in that sense, like like trying and
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just yeah, yeah, it was a matter of which kind of things started
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to really get into the floor. So I without listening to the music.
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If someone said to you, I'm going to play metallica with cellows or I'm
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going to do heavy metal with cellos, you stick that was stupid because it
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just doesn't sound like it should work. But there is a strange connection between
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heavy metal music and cellos and then that sort of things in there, like
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it's more of a connection what a lot of metal heads would like to think.
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Yeah, I think that it's the emotion, you know, metal music.
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To me, metal is more more attitude than actually a music style in
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a way. And the attitude I mean by the attitude, I mean that
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that that there is this certain level of intensity and and that everything it's done
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in the way that it should feel, you should really feel it. That
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it's capturing so much the energy of different kinds, and and it's very emotional.
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Metal music is really emotional. Even to outsiders. It could be like
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brain that are running on the most bit, but you know that's not the
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that's not the case. It's it's actually super emotional. It hits you deep
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and and cello as an instrument is it's said that it's most like human voice
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because of the rains and the colors. So it's very very deep and dimensional
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instrument. So combining that very powerful passionate music with that kind of instrument,
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I think that that creates a great dimension to metal music. Oh said now,
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I did a quick scout up before speaking with your. Metallica has got
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eleven albums, mate, So how many void even apocalyptical place metallic are you
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going to go up to you? That's that's hard to tell. We've been
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joking that, Okay, whenever it's time for us to retire, if that
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ever happens, that maybe that's the time for the volume three. You know
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that we will play this kind of three three old guys, like barely with
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shaking hands. We will. We will play some full acoustic versions in the
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church next to our future graves, you know, metalic tunes. I don't
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know, but at the moment it's impossible to say what happens next. My
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guess now it's like it's not going to be another Metallic album. That's not
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going to be the next thing. We have always we never have a lack
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of ideas. We have like too much ideas, and it's impossible to know
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what kind of wach ideas start to really excite us the most from one year
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from now or two years from now. But they are great tunes there,
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there are a lot of you know, Metallic Cup is not running out of
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great songs. But but like I think to make another Metallic album that that
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requires that we need to get excited about it. And the way how we
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got excited this time was that that we took it as a challenge that we
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need to reinvent the wheel. Like you know, the first album was so
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revolutionary without us knowing it at that time, but it turned out to be
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so revolutionary. And then it's like, Okay, if we do another Metallic
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album, it should be something totally different than being lame or being lame,
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yeah, a repetition of the previous one or or something. And I think
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we did pretty deep this time on this stuff. And and I think now
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it's time to tour with it. And because releasing in an album is fun
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thing, but then going on tour with the album to play those songs and
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share the energy and the magic with the audience, that always starts to lead
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us into some direction, and that kind of starts to revealize, Okay,
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what can happen next here's a question point that I didn't have written down,
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but I only just sort of it. Like as fans of Metallica or Fickle
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Bunch, like a lot of them complain about their music from the Black album
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onwards and say it's not the same as what Metallica used to From your point
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of view, doing what you do with the music, did you find the
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songs after from Black Onwoods were easier to sort of to put the cheat or
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to change around like you do, like with they different respect I think you
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know, the Metallic material is easier for us in a way that the songwriting
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structure has more elements. There are so many more elements, like you might
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have five six great rifts in one song and then the the latter Metallica songwriting
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has been more simple, simplified in a way, and like it's more like
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it's more rocking, if I could say in a way that it's it's most
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straightforward. Especially the recent albums. A couple of latest albums that a lot
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of great songs on those albums. It's not about the quality of songs,
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but the kind of the structure of the songs, the material inside the songs.
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On the new stuff, it's harder for us to make instrumental version because
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when we take lyrics and change performance out and we played that kind of melodies
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with cello, it sounds absolutely ridiculous. So we should figure out something else
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there. And then if there is only two three riffs in the song,
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it doesn't give us a lot of jews when we really don't want to do
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like a copy of what Metallica does. So that was kind of the challenge.
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I tried many of the newer songs and then it turned out that okay,
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but the same thing is happening alway, it's so much better with this
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other song what we have already here. So we didn't really succeed on getting
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making great apocalyptical versions of those. There are songs like for Horsemen, for
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example. It's a good example in comparison because the vocal melody there is it
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is just fucking silly, you know when it's played with other But but it's
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not carrying any weight on the song in a way because there are so many
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different parts of the song, and there's so long guitar solos and instrumental parts,
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and and also that like there's so many other elements that kind of fills
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the space that without the lyrics, the vocal melody is pretty dull, and
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and that was probably the challenge on the newer stuff, that if you kind
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of lose the vocals, then there was not enough happening, not enough elements
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for us to make a great inst mental if you get what I mean.
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So very cool, very cool. I've got a question for you about another
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one of your songs, has got nothing to do with this album, if
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you don't mind me asking it, But I've always loved your song of Not
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Jesus with Corey Taller. It's one of the best songs I've ever heard,
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Like, is that one of your Is that one of your originals? That
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he Songhe did he write his own lyrics for that. No, it's actually
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that song came came to us. It's it's written by a guy called Johnny
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Andrews. And I've wrote many songs with Johnny also in the past, like
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shadow Maker, End of Me. I think I've written like five six songs
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with Johnny. But but I'm the Journey's original and it came true to us
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through our new record label of that time, Marting Dodd. He had the
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song and he was like, you guys should do it. And we actually
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refused, to be honest that we refuse to do it. For a long
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time it was like, well, it's a it's a great song, but
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the content is it apocalyptica, you know, And we probably we were a
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little bit protected. No, no, no, we don't want to get
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any songs from outside, which I learned that it's a stupid, uh stigma
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to have not to not to record great songs if you have an opportunity,
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you know, like being so like, oh I need to do everything myself,
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you know kind of thing. So I'm happy that we gave up on
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that in the way that okay, well okay, let's try it. And
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then it turned out to be like this is actually cool, it is really
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cool. It's it's cool apocalyptica thing. So and and originally died. They
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was to get Marion Manton to sing it, and and he was pretty much
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locked in, but then something happened in his life and he basically disappeared from
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everybody's including his manager and everything. And then and then then we had to
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figure out something else. And I had I had the demo we had made
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demo of the Jesus and also I don't care. And I went to London.
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I was in London and went to see Stone's Hour and Aastorial London.
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Met Corey after that and I had like pressed on se did those two songs,
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and I was like, you know, take a listen and if if,
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if either of these songs resonates, and let's do it. And he
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picked up the us. Wow, it's a powerful song. Like musically,
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it's great lyrically, it's great. It's just the whole thing about like we
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does to give you a bit of a chip. Now, Like that song
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got me into Apocalyptica, so you might have known me. Yeah, there's
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other people around the world that happened. Sorry, at the end of the
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day, there is a bloody good choice man. Oh yes, yeah,
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yeah. It was absolute the right choice because it's a great it's it's a
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great track and and to me it's it's it's an Apocalyptica track, you know.
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So kind of this this d Lemma that who actually wrote all the details.
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We did the arrangement ourselves and kind of that's what we do with Metallica
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songs on this new album is like we take them in and then we all
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so it comes out as it feels to us it's like Apocalyptica song. That's
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the impression I got listening to it. Yeah, And that's that's how we
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always wanted to do covers, like when we did hell then we Till in
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the Man, the David Boie song that didn't felt very difficult for me,
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I would produce a yack of Hellner was kind of like pushing me the idea
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while we were recording the album that you know, I think this would be
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great. To till this would be great. I'm like, yeah, it's
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a great song, but the color of the origin. I was like,
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I don't hear any Apocalyptica in here until the magic happened and I somehow I
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was like, ooh, I kind of owned it. You know that I
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have to own the song to you know, feel it's it's ours and that's
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why we do it because it's our song, even it's David Bowie's song,
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or even it's Metallica song. That that's that's I think that's how you should
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do it, that you need to own what you do. And that's what
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happened time the Jesus that we really owned what we did with that song,
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and it turned out to be apocalyptical song because in the final land, I
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think too many bands are are two perfection lists in that sense that it's not
26:17
the real thing if they do it at all by themselves. But you can
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have a great band and in some parts of the early early phases on your
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carreer, but your songwriting skills are not like on the top level yet.
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So so you people, it's great. That's how I've done that. I've
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got the possibility then to write together with great songwriters, Like my first collaborate
26:44
and co writing was with fucking Max Martin, like it's insane, and as
26:49
a result came I Don't Care, Don't the biggest hit of apocalyptic of all
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times. It's still like stream two and a half million every month. It's
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insane, right, And and so it's really like it's seventeen years old song
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and it's it's streaming like crazy. That that kind of proves proves that the
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song song is really fantastic, and it's completely it's completely an apocalyptica song,
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even it was stepped into a new territory kind of unknown. And and that's
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how I how I developed my songwriting skills was like I was writing with very
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experienced writers together. So it was like, I fear the songs on my
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songs even they have written together with somebody, because there's enough enough my my
27:38
flavor and colors in there. And and to be honest that that those songs
27:45
have been the key elements of the success of Apocalyptica, exactly as you say
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that you found Apocalyptica because of I'm not Jesus, And if we would just
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have been doing only instrumental, you would have probably never heard about us,
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or maybe with the new album now with the Metallic album. But you know,
28:02
that's kind of the thing. Yeah, we shouldn't be too much so
28:08
full of ourselves that thinking that we are the only ones that knows how to
28:11
do things. You know, need to be open. But at the same
28:15
time, shouldn't lose your own own kind of core thing and on what you
28:19
believe. So you that's that's kind of the challenging task. I think what
28:25
has been always that not to sell yourself out. It's not about selling yourself
28:29
out that you let somebody in, you know, and that's a big difference.
28:33
Should go on a T shirt, right, that's a great quote.
28:40
Sure, I'll better let you go back because you got other people waiting to
28:41
talk to you. But it's been absolutely pleasure. But I really enjoyed that.
28:45
And the album is fantastic, and so anybody out there he hasn't heard
28:48
it. It's Apocalyptica plays Metallica volume too, and it's not what you'd expect,
28:52
but it's better than you would ever expect. I'm so happy to Yeah,
28:57
that's do you take careen. Ifually make it back out of Australia,
29:02
we'll get to catch up and have a beer. Okay, Yeah, I
29:04
think I hope we will come. Well, we start the tour now in
29:08
Europe in the fall with fifty shows or so, and then it's North America
29:14
in the spring. But I hope in the end of next year that that
29:18
we can get days for Australia together. Dam