Metal band Apocalyptica wants to take you on a journey into the mind

We sat down with Eicca Toppinen, the band’s co-founder and cellist, to find out more about the inspiration behind their unorthodox church tour idea and whether religion ever played a role in their decision.

Apocalyptica, as all other performing artists lost all their work due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But besides the downsides and struggle of losing all work for over one and half a year, totally empty calendar allowed them to take their time and prepare something truly unique for their next performances.

"Instead of producing a rock concert, we want to create a healing environment for our audience where they can let their minds travel (...), we want people to experience this collective energy and elevate ourselves into something new and exciting that is not just about playing music - we intend to get somewhere much higher." - Eicca Toppinen

“The original idea has been around for a long time (...) we played in churches many years ago, but that was part of a regular tour”, mentioned Eicca. This time around, the band had to “consider so many more things, such as the acoustic of the church that won’t let us play just any song. We had to make some adjustments to the sounds of our songs to accommodate the concerts to these new surroundings. Every song is rearranged for this special purpose, and even the drum parts are re-arranged to fit acoustics by going more electronic percussive, he continues.

Traditionally, churches’ architecture often produces early reflections, which are sounds that arrive at your ears in less than 30 milliseconds after the direct sound. Early reflections give a feeling of ‘life’ and ‘air’ to a given acoustical space, which is one of the reasons why churches are usually designed with this feature in mind. Without early reflections, the sounds inside worship spaces would be flat and dead; in other words, the opposite of what Apocalyptica wants the public to experience when seeing their live performance.

“Instead of attending a rock concert, we want to create a healing environment for our audience where they can let their minds travel (...), we want people to experience this collective energy and elevate ourselves into something new and exciting that is not just about playing music - we intend to get somewhere much higher”, explained Eicca.

As far as the religious side of churches is concerned, the band’s decision to play in these sacred spaces was more of a “spiritual decision rather than religious” he confirmed, as they want people to come together as human beings instead of being divided based on their beliefs. “This will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for our public, especially in these times of covid, when people need healing and this sense of connectedness to something greater than us. I believe this will have a strong impact on them and I hope it will be a soothing experience for our fans” mentioned Toppinen.

The band will be touring around 16 churches in Finland, and the first stop will be Marian Kirkko, Lappeenranta on the 15th of November. The public will be invited to attend the concert online too, keeping in mind that such places can only accommodate a limited number of people. For this reason, one of Apocalyptica’s concerts within the ‘Journey into the mind’ tour will be specially organized to be streamed along with a live chat feature. You can show your support for the streaming campaign on https://www.eventu.al/campaign/finland/helsinki/apocalyptica/151.

Interviewer and author: Ioana Zamfirescu