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Chad Bowar: Describe Edguy’s very first show.
Tobias Sammet: It was at a party of our school on July 6th 1992. We played 17 songs in front of 35 people, and we played the whole set as an encore. We covered songs and threw in a few own tunes. The cover songs were Mötley Crüe's “Kickstart My Heart,” Kiss' “Rock and Roll Hell,” AC/DC's “Highway To Hell,” Guns N’ Roses' “Paradise City,” “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynrd Skynrd, “Smoke On The Water” by Deep Purple.

Hey – everybody who says we've sold out recently by heading towards a more classic hard rock direction, we have gone back to the roots! The metal years were just a little commercial sell out in between. (laughs)
There’s so much turnover in bands these days. How has Edguy managed to keep a stable lineup intact for so long?
Lack of chance! We are bound to do what we do, we haven't been to university and we cannot work as plumbers as well. There is no other potential chance to distract us. No, seriously: We are friends and we really appreciate our situation.

What have been the high and low points in your musical career so far?
I haven't had any lows personally. Of course, what drags you down is when you release an album and you put all your blood, sweat and tears in it and you really, really believe in it, and you know you have done the best thing.:And then some asshole critic or fan tells you it’s crap, a commercial sell out. What do they know about me, about my intentions? It's so easy to just come up with blind accusations, but it is just so unfair.

Everybody can dislike anything, that hurts enough, but it is impudent to tell me what my intention supposedly was. I have learned to ignore that, but it's still just not fair and it's always been the biggest bummer in my career. Highs? Where do I start? Having realized I have sold over two million discs in my career with exclusively what I believe in? Having toured the world five times? Having played stadiums and arenas with Aerosmith, Iron Maiden etc.? Having headlined Wacken in front of more than 100,000 people? Having had several top10 albums? It's all a huge gift, my whole career...our whole career. We might not be the Rolling Stones, but it could have gone much worse.

Is there an Edguy album that you think is underrated or didn’t get the attention or publicity it deserved on its initial release?
None of them got the attention they deserved! But especially Tinnitus Sanctus is an album that had the quality to be a classic. I mean classic in the purest sense of the word. Not a metal classic, but a classic. Because it is so good.

Who are the top 3 German metal bands of all time?
The Scorpions, the Scorpions and the Scorpions!

Anything else you’d like to mention or promote?
I wanna thank people for checking us out. Early next year is Avantasia time, I hope you go check the album, and if you like it please buy it.