In the spring 1999 there was tentative talk Timo Tolkki of Stratovarius would mix Ecliptica but in the end Mikko Karmila mixed it. It was said Tolkki would require the drums to be played with click track which made Tommy Portimo really nervous as he wasn't used to playing with metronome [1]. The album was recorded in many small sessions during half a year,[2] the Unopened single and its b-side Mary Lou were recorded first during early summer 1999 [1].
Blank File is the final song written for the album and Tony Kakko wrote the lyrics in studio during the second last recording day in the backroom of Tico Tico studio. Tony came up with the drum intro few minutes before the song was taped. [2]
Destruction Preventer bridge was originally in San Sebastian, I don't know which part exactly but likely it was either of the sung bridges. Perhaps it was the "Yesterday I saw a light, moving fast across the sky..." part but this is just a guess.[3]
Tony and Jani Liimatainen were present at the mastering session at Finnvox Studios. It was on the day album was being mastered they were told them about the European tour opportunity with Stratovarius.[1] Before the tour Rhapsody guys had seen Sonata Arctica promotional pics and were wondering what kind of junkies they were since Sonata Arctica members looked so pale and had circles.[3] 😄
Ecliptica was meant to be released on November 15th 1999 but it was delayed few days prior to that date to November 22nd 1999. [4]
Tony's real name is Toni and Tommy's real name is Tommi. [1] Their names were anglicised for the Agre Pamppers demo already. I guess this was done because Toni is a girl name in English speaking countries so people would have mistaken him as woman and Tommi decided to anglicise his name too.
Marko's nickname is Make and Henrik's nickname is Henkka. Both are simply common nicknames in Finland on their respective names.
Live tracks performed on June 16th 2000 at Provinssirock festival Finland were originally recorded for Finnish Radio Mafia radio programme. The live tracks are poor quality and drums are sloppy, especially on My Land. Tommy blamed playing on warm day with hot spot light glowing behind his back and lack of practise time due to touring. [1]
San Sebastian is the fastest Sonata Arctica song at around 172 BPM. The tempo of the song fluctuates since it was recorded without metronome. 8th Commandment and Wold & Raven are almost as fast at 170 BPM.
The lyrics of Black Sheep are about the novel The Howling Miller by Finnish author Arto Paasilinna. Tony's girlfriend came up with the name Silence [1].
Wolf & Raven music video was filmed at Villa Elfvik, Espoo. Band members got little sleep on set, especially Tony since he had more scenes to film than other band members.[1]
Tony Kakko played most of the keyboards on Silence as Mikko Härkin recorded mainly keyboard solos. The booklet pictures were taken by Tony when hiking with Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish and Tuomas can be seen in one of them. [1]
The Power of One is the longest Sonata Arctica song at a length of 11 minutes and 33 seconds. At the end of it there is a blooper where Nik van Eckmann says "I f***ing touched the mike, hold on".
Tallulah is the most popular English language karaoke song in Finland. [10]
The Orientation interview was recorded in Helsinki during Tuska metal festival in July 2002. Notice reflections of Helsinki-style trams on the windows in the background.
The Last Drop Falls cover image has edited picture of eye of Tarja Turunen.[5] This was an inside joke from label Spinefarm.[1]
Marquee, the Japanese record company, originally wanted Takatalvi to be called "Super Sonata Special Collector's Edition".[6] 😄
The word Takatalvi means "winter comes back" like there is a colder snowy period again when spring is in progress.
The album cover depicts personifications of four seasons, with fall passing a spectre of ongoing season to winter [8]. In the album booklet it reads "Football stadium choirs by FC Sonata" which means the whole band sung backing vocals resembling football chants.
The band started recording the album on 15th of September 2002. The songs were mostly written during the one and half month before entering the studio. Many were completed in the studio such as Gravenimage of which Tony had no idea how the song would turn out. [8]
At the end of the album there is a recording of incident of where a bird flew into the studio and Ahti Kortelainen lures it out of the window. Tony says "You deserve a Greenpeace price" to which Ahti Kortelainen responds "A roasted bird". After a silence Henkka says: "I am Henkka and I came now".
The band made open search for keyboard players and got 30-40 serious applications. One of them was a 15 year old individual from France who wanted to move to Finland, but he was told him was way too young. Two were chosen for the final auditions in studio: Vili Ollila and Henrik Klingenberg. Both could play well, but Henrik was chosen because he fit the band better personality-wise. Their auditions were more about drinking than playing since the band wanted to test chemistry.[8][1]
The Misery was originally called Playwright's Misery. The Cage had working title DDB as Tony wrote on The Collection compilation booklet, but he does not remember what the abbreviation meant. When Sonata Arctica had rehearsals for Winterheart's Guild tour, they would end the rehearsals with their favorites Broken and Champagne Bath. [8]
In the Winterheart's Guild album booklet the band members are depicted in the seats of the album cover as the four seasons with clothes painted on the pictures. Tony is the first dressed like the old winter wizard of the cover. Jani is on the next pages as spring. Then Marko Paasikoski appears dressed as the summer and Tommy in a green robe as fall. Henrik also appears on one of the final pages. By Draw Me lyrics there is a paper on the ground with a drawing of a teenybopper. Not a kind of person I would imagine the narrator of the Draw Me to draw. [13] 😄
The song Blinded No More was originally called Summersong as Tony wrote on Reckoning Night studio diary.
Tony shouts something unclear in Finnish during Misplaced at 2 minutes and 56 seconds. I reckon it is "Laita ääntä vähemmän kovemmalle" which means "Turn the sound less up" though I'm not sure about the words in the middle. If my interpretation is correct it's a malapropism caught in recording where Tony asked to turn volume down, likely the music coming from headphones while recording vocals, but said it erronously. In any case while the album was being mixed the band and the mixing engineer Mikko Karmila thought that outtake was funny and put it in the middle of the song in low volume. I can't imagine Misplaced without it.
During Reckoning Night era live shows Tony and Jani would raise microphone stand and guitar respectively to the air during the song Don't Say a Word when there is a pinch harmonic. During the first show with Elias Viljanen in 2007 so happened that Tony raised his microphone stand as a habit, but Elias didn't raise his guitar because he didn't know and Tony was embarassed. [1] 😅
As you might know Sonata Arctica plays Vodka at the end of their concerts which is musically based on the traditional Jewish song Hava Nagila. Tony and Timo Kotipelto came up with the lyrics while drunk during European tour during Tony's 25th birthday when Sonata Arctica was supporting Stratovarius on Ecliptica tour [1]. At that point it was an inside joke and it wasn't played live yet. During late 2000's Vodka contained the song Nukkumatti as medley, the Finnish version of theme song of the German children TV program "The Sandman" as a cute joke. The song is about telling kids to go to bed with the titular character Sandman's magic sand helping them to sleep. The Sandman comes after drinking too much Vodka too. The Finnish Nukkumatti theme song is different from the original theme song by the way.
Tony sometimes makes a speech about his Toyota Corolla car he had during 90's. Once he drove his trusty Toyota all the way from Kemi to Helsinki to attend Depeche Mode show. Tony is or at least was a fan of Depeche Mode especially the Violator album.
Agre means angry or aggressive and Pamppers is contortion of diaper brand Pampers as an inside joke. The cover drawn by Tony is fitting for the title as there is a raging baby in diapers trying to sort big pile of bubblegum.
Pentti Peura played bass from 1995 until he was fired in 1997. Marko Paasikoski played guitar 1995-1997 and bass 1997-1998. Janne Kivilahti joined to play bass in November 1998 and his role in the band was always a bassist.[9] There have been misconceptions that Janne played guitar first due to misleading Metal Rules interview where Tony says "this new guy, he started, he was playing guitar actually earlier" of which he meant Marko and not Janne.
Tony was not present during the first rehearsal in December 1995 because of his army duties, but he was already chosen as the vocalist. [1] In Wikipedia timeline it reads Jani was singing in 1995 besides playing guitar, but there is no indication of that anywhere and thus the band played instrumentally.
Another guy was supposed to play drums at first, but that didn't work out. Jani suggested Tommy to be their drummer at the first rehearsal. Tony and Tommy joined Tricky Beans at the same time in early 1996. [1]
Well the information is getting more obscure as the article progresses. 😉
Jani sometimes would point at the camera (with his index finger) when being filmed or photographed. Henrik liked to put a traffic cone on his head while walking on the street drunk in Japan in 2003-2005. That made him a wizard. 😄 It happens in the For the Sake of Revenge DVD "Men Of The North In The Land Of The Rising Sun" documentary.