How does Tobias Sammet pick guests for Avantasia albums?

The new Avantasia album Ghostlights features a number of guest vocalists from some of the most powerful voices in music, so we decided to find out how the band’s mainman decided on who to choose for each song.

Even though the record features the likes of Within Temptation’s Sharon den Adel and Nightwish’s Marco Hietala, Tobias freely admits that “When a song like The Haunting or Seduction Of Decay came together I didn’t know who the singers would be.”

When he first wrote Seduction Of Decay, he thought he’d need a singer like a young Robert Plant. However, that turned out to be too obvious, so opted for Geoff Tate. And for The Haunting, Tobias was looking for someone theatrical but could also carry the anthemic melodies. While looking through his record collection he stumbled across Dee Snider, who he describes as “a perfect mix of a peacock a jackal and Bugs Bunny”. And that was it!

Ghostlights is out now, via Nuclear Blast.

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