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Metal Assault in association with CWG Magazine presents

May 25th 2010, Los Angeles CA

It's rare to find a band that's as innovative and interesting as Apocalyptica, a band that I feel isn't given nearly enough credit in the U.S. You may know them as the 'guys that did the Metallica cover album on the cellos,' but Apocalyptica is much more dynamic, and has done so much more in their two-decade career than a mere 'Metallica cover album."

The aforementioned album came out in 1996, near Metallica's Load period, and showcased four classically-trained cellists from Finland playing 8 Metallica standards; aptly titled Plays Metallica By Four Cellos . "We're all classically trained in music theory and on the cello," said Eicca Toppinen, founder of Apocalyptica, "When we were in college, just for fun, we decided to play classic rock standards on the cello for friends at parties. People loved it! We started thinking, 'If you can play Purple Haze on the cello, you could play Metallica and heavy metal on the cello.'"

After Plays Metallica By Four Cellos, Apocalyptica opted to do another cover album, except this time it was a few Metallica songs and a bunch of extreme metal songs, including Sepultura's "Refuse & Resist" and Pantera's "Domination." In short, Apocalyptica had changed the face of classical music. When one thinks of 'strings,' Beethoven and Bach usually come to mind, but thanks to Apocalyptica, Metallica, Sepultura and Slayer now come to mind.

"I wouldn't say we set out to change the world," said Eicca, "We were regular guys that loved music and especially loved metal music."

The other logical assumption about Apocalyptica is that Plays Metallica By Four Cellos let to Metallica's risky, yet innovative, yet 'we really are in it for the money' album S & M ; you would be correct in this assumption.

When asked if Apocalyptica was responsible for the whole 'S & M' concept, Eicca said, "Metallica's manager had been trying to convince them to do an album with a symphony for years, and James didn't want to do it, because he thought that their songs wouldn't work as symphonic music. When they heard our Metallica album, they were amazed that we made it work. I guess you could say we 'indirectly' inspired S & M."

When asked if Metallica lives up to their 'We consider ourselves better than the common man' mentality portrayed in " Some Kind Of Monster," Eicca replied, "Metallica has been very good to us! They were truly fans of our cover album. They've brought us out on tour a few times to open for them, and when they filmed the DVD for S & M, they had us flown out to watch the performance. They're all really great people. Don't believe 'Some Kind Of Monster!'"