Classical Cello Metal Maestros 

Formed in 1993 in Helsinki, Finland, Apocalyptica has come a long way over the past two decades. First gaining recognition as a Metallica cover band after their 1996 debut album Plays Metallica by Four Cellos, they have gone on to release eight albums and sell over five million copies. Consisting of three cellists (Eicca Toppinen, Paavo Lötjönen and Perttu Kivilaakso) and one drummer (Mikko Sirén), the band has progressed from playing instrumental music to featuring guest vocalists — such as Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson, Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Corey Taylor of Slipknot and Gavin Rossdale of Bush — to recruiting Franky Perez as their full time lead vocalist. Tokyo Journal’s Executive Editor Anthony Al-Jamie spoke with cellist, songwriter, producer, arranger and Apocalyptica cofounder Eicca.

TJ: How did Apocalyptica come together?
EICCA: We are classically trained cellists and we are big metal lovers. We started to play Metallica songs for fun. It was like, “Let’s play the music we like with the instruments we can play.” The first time we played Metallica songs was 1993, but we never thought about forming a band. We played two to three times a year at small student parties, and at the end of 1994 we were invited to play at Teatro Heavy Metal Club in Helsinki. From that show we got a record deal to make the first album. We thought it would sell maybe a thousand copies and that would be cool. Now that same album has sold 1.5 million copies. The first two albums were cover albums. On our third album, Cult, we started to feel, “Ok, we are a band and we want to make music for ourselves.” It was a natural step to start to write our own music. That was still with four cellos only. Then on the next album we thought we could add drums. We started doing collaborations with different people and now we try to make our albums with vocals. The band has been changing the entire time, album by album.

TJ: How would you describe your music?
EICCA: At the moment, I think it’s cellophonic metal. I think the core is metal music with a very strong classical influence, but we also have strong influences from other musical styles because we like all kinds of music.

TJ: Who are your musical influences?
EICCA: My background is thrash metal — bands like Sepultura, Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer. My favorites at the moment are maybe the French metal band Gojira and the Finnish metal band Stam1na.

TJ: Is there a musician you really want to perform with?
EICCA: It would be great to get together with Yo-Yo Ma. Actually one of us, Perttu, took a master’s class taught by Yo-Yo Ma, but I don’t think Yo-Yo Ma can remember students from 20 years ago (laughs).

The complete article is available in Issue #277. Click here to order from Amazon.