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Still on the road..


October 12, 2009 After the return of Stratovarius the band started touring in May 2009 and is still on the road, now in Latin America and the Polaris World Tour will continue until Feb 2010.

At this point we want to introduce the new drum kit which Jörg is playing since then, on all dates in Europe. The company which makes the drums is called Kirchoff and check them out here: http://www.kirchhoff-schlagwerk.de/

Here are some recent pictures:

Here a few shots from the show in NY at Times Square/Nokia Theatre, September 16 by Marco Soccoli:

Here is a shot from Sauna Open Air by Jussi Eerola:

Also the Cymbal Set changed a bit, cymbals now in use beside the lengendary AMUN Series are:

MB20-10RS-B 10" Rock Splash MB20
MB20-12RS-B 12" Rock Splash MB20
MB20-14HSW-B 14" Heavy Soundwave Hihat, pair MB20
MB20-15HSW-B 15" Heavy Soundwave Hihat, pair MB20
MB20-16MHC-B 16" Medium Heavy Crash MB20
MB20-18MHC-B 18" Medium Heavy Crash MB20
MB20-20MHC-B 20" Medium Heavy Crash MB20
MB20-16HC-B 16" Heavy Crash MB20
MB20-17HC-B 17" Heavy Crash MB20
MB20-18HC-B 18" Heavy Crash MB20
MB20-19HC-B 19" Heavy Crash MB20
MB20-20HC-B 20" Heavy Crash MB20
MB20-18RCH-B 18" Rock China MB20
MB20-20RCH-B 20" Rock China MB20
MB20-20MHR-B 20" Medium Heavy Ride MB20
MB20-20HR-B 20" Heavy Ride MB20

Check out all dates here:
www.stratovarius.com/tour
www.twisted-talent.com


Return of Stratovarius


news October 23, 2008

STRATOVARIUS RETURNS IN 2009

Live gigs and new album with Matias Kupiainen on guitar

Finnish melodic power metal legends Stratovarius are breaking the silence since guitar player Timo Tolkki left the band. They will return with a new studio album in 2009. It is a positive and powerful record that the band's fans all over the world are certain to take to their hearts.

"After Tolkki gave his blessing for us to go on without him, and after writing music together again this summer and a lot of thought, we have decided to carry the legacy of Stratovarius into the future", says Jens Johansson.

"We are all very excited about the record and about playing Stratovarius music live to our fans. We can't wait.", adds Timo Kotipelto.

The new guitar player is 25-year old Finnish guitar phantom Matias Kupiainen. Jörg Michael says, "in Matias we found new character who fits perfectly with his way of melodic guitar shredding, he is a killer player, a 'Wunderkind' from Finland!"

The first two festival dates for 2009 have been confirmed already:

Wacken Rocks, Kreuth / Aurich, May 22, 2009
Wacken Rocks, Kreuth / Aurich, May 23, 2009

More 2009 festivals are planned and will be announced soon. These dates will be followed by a concert tour.

Stratovarius is:
Timo Kotipelto vocals
Matias Kupiainen guitars
Lauri Porra bass
Jörg Michael drums
Jens Johansson keyboards

For tour updates and other news, go to http://www.stratovarius.com
For high-res images suitable for media, go to http://www.stratovarius.com/media/
Finnish media contact: taija@propromotion.fi
Finnish booking: jouko@karppanen.fi
Booking & management, rest of world: info@twisted-talent.com


Stratovarius / Tolkki


news May 7, 2008

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 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.

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, disaapointing 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!

This statement is officially signed by: TK JM JJ LP
the remaining members of Stratovarius


Roadie Crew magazine - Issue # 91


news September 24th, 2006

Not everybody speaks Portugese and, oh well, the translations given now and then on Stratovarius forum were... quite bad actually but thanks everyone for your efforts !

Therefore, we thought the original answers would happy everybody.

 [ Read the full interview ] 

Music Moscow 2005


newsNovember 8, 2005

Each year, in Russia, takes place a Musical Technologies Trade Show, which is now the largest exhibition of music instruments, professional audio and lighting equipment and technologies in Russia and surrounding territories. Distributors of world name brands, as well as Russia’s top manufacturers take part in the show.

The XI International Specialized Exhibition "Music Moscow 2005" held on October 13-16 at Cultural Exhibition Center “Sokolniki” in Moscow.

Jörg, who is endorsed by Premier and Meinl, was invited by O.K.& Co. - Premier, Meinl and Vic Firth distributor on the territory of Russia and GUS countries, to perform some drum clinics. He also headlined a show with a former drummer of Santana and Mel Gaynor (Simple Minds) playing before him. Watch out the photo reports !

 [ Report 1 ] 
 [ Report 2 ] 
 [ Report 3 ] 


Statement


newsFebruary 25th, 2005

Hi,

This is Jorg Michael speaking!

Wow, a lot of time passed by since I posted the last statement here and so there is a lot of things to tell.

 [ Read the full statement ] 



Jorg & Kaledon News


newsSeptember 12th, 2004

Jörg just drummed the next official album of italian rockers Kaledon!
The recordings took place in Como / Italia at Mirage Studio in the beginning of July and the producer was Mr. Alex Azzali, engineer Mr. Andrea Tapasso!
Check their webpage at: http://www.kaledon.com
Personal statement follows soon!

Photos: studio pics with band
 [ kaledon Jorg 1 ] 
 [ kaledon Jorg 2 ] 
 [ kaledon Jorg 3 ] 



Jorg & Saxon News


newsSeptember 12th, 2004

Jörg is the new drummer of Saxon! After playing the drums on the new Saxon album "Lionheart" (release date September 20th) Jörg also will join the Lionheart world tour which will be kicking off on September 22 in Kiel/Germany!

Check officially confirmed tourdates at: http://www.saxon747.com/frame.html

Jörg was introduced to the Saxon Line up on their release party at the Markthalle Hamburg on August 20 where they also performed a couple of songs live!
The first show they played together was one day later at the Mission Impossible festival in Sweden!

Before that Jörg had a guest appearance at the Wacken Open Air 2004 in the song "Crusader" during Saxon´s 2 hours show!

A personal statement of Jörg will follow soon!

 [ Photo 1: in the studio control room ] 
 [ Photo 2: official photo ] 
 [ Photo 3: at the Hamburg Markthalle ] 



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Contact:  [ webmaster@jorgmichael.com ] 
Writing and Pictures: Muriel.B
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