Yes, the vocalists, in plural… It happened so, that after the lyrics were completed, we started discussing about schedules. At that point, Tomi called Matti P and told that he’s having personal matters that prevents him giving 100% to this massive 70 minutes progpower theme album. So, thinking about the situation for couple of weeks and having some discussions with other members, during one autums brainstorming weekend at Harri’s place, Matti’s wife threw the idea that what about you guys not just make a theme album, but a metal opera theme album. Same idea had been on Matti’s mind for some time and so it was decided: we solve the problem of not able to give 100% to this album by lowering the max percentage needed 🙂
Immediately couple of names came to our mind who we should ask. One was Jukka Nummi, Matti P’s old band made from the Oulu-days and there was already a perfect song for him too: Digital Tower.
One other male vocalist name also came up and he was asked and he agreed to this album, but unfortunately when the time for him to lock the schedules came, be backed out at the last minute. After he backing down and after asking from couple of other vocalists if they would like to participate, Matti P decided to drop one male character out of the story and increase the role of femaly vocalists. Same thing happened with the first female vocalist that strongly agreed to sing in the album: after couple of last minute cancellations, she just stopped answering our emails, texts messages etc, so she ghosted herself out of this. Not very nice thing to do, when you’re in the middle of production and need to get the parts done in order to finish the album.
Fortunately for us, savior came in form of Emily Leone, vocalist from Lost in Grey. We quickly scheduled the session to Grey Realm Studios to record her role in the album and it was the easiest recording session ever. All Matti P had to do was print out the melodies (with the lyrics) and sit on sofa and give thumbs up or down. And there was a lo more thumbs up than down.
Tomi participated on the hunt for the second visiting vocalist. His band mates knew Peter James Goodman and arranged contact information exchance between him and Matti P and after some negotiations, he agreed to sing in the album.
With Tomi and Matti A singing the rest of the parts, the cast was finally completed and the mega epic production started to take shape. Timeline for the vocal recordings were something like this: Tomi during late 2018 and bits and pieces here and there during 2019, Jukka & Peter James Goodman in January 2019, Emily Leone in November 2019 and Jukka & Peter James Goodman again January 2020, just before the shit hit the fan all around the world…
Oh, and there was one extra visitor: Juha Haipus was not able to participate due to scheduling issues, so Petteri Gullsten, from the same band that Matti P & Jukka was playing in Oulu, handled the bass, very many thanks to him!