Rhapsody (of Fire) split in two

[Orodaran]

http://www.rhapsodyoffire.com/

Looks like the band is diving in two... Staropoli (with the name of the band) and Lione on one side, and Luca Turilli (with a... Rhapsody, just Rhapsody, name?? weren't they forbidden to use that to begin with?) on another. Friendly split, everyone wishing the best to all, musical differences, bla bla bla.... so, Turilli is technically out of Rhapsody of Fire.

I think now Lione will be even more tempted to jump ship for Kamelot.... even if I remember reading an interview where he said that *if* he should ever join Kamelot, he *could* have done both bands still with a good organization of things....

[gergor]

Maybe the Turilli-part will be named Rhapsody of Dragonfire of Epic Madness or something like that.
I didn't understand this weird statement either - two Rhapsodys?
And how is Rhapsody supposed to sound without Turilli?

[Frozen within]

hmm, good maybe ?

[LeBard]

What.
No really, what?

I wonder if this has been planned for some time. That would explain the sudden appearance of Tom Hess in the band instead of just hiring Dominique. Since he, Tom, is now, for all intents and purposes, the new lead guitarist in Rhapsody of Fire (what). They probably hired him to let the fans get "used" to the idea of having him in the band, instead of replacing Luca Turilli right now.

But Rhapsody of Fire without Luca Turilli? Really? That's like Nightwish without Tuomas Holopainen. It just feels wrong. Luca was the band, moreso than Alex and even Fabio (much like Tarja was not the voice of Nightwish). A Rhapsody of Fire without Luca does not please me. I know Alex also have a lot of writing credits, but his keyboard parts... eh; I can't comment on the writing process of the band, but I always felt that Luca was the main contributor. His solo projects was basically Rhapsody but with other singers. Besides, Alex also had a solo project going on that never came into fruition, whereas Luca released four albums on his own. Which implies he, Luca, was the creative force.

So I'm definitely more interested in what Team Luca has to offer the world. And I'm surprised, and a bit disappointed, that Fabio stays with Alex. But maybe that's for the best since Alex without him would be utterly boring. Now we have two interesting bands to follow.

What on earth is going on with the names though:

Are both bands going to play Rhapsody songs, or will only Rhapsody of Fire perform Rhapsody songs? Will Team Luca be what Gamma Ray is to Helloween? This whole thing reminds me of the Stratovarius clusterfuck, except for the fact that when it happened to Stratovarius the band was getting stale and Tolkki was going insane (or something, I never really paid attention to that). Rhapsody on the other hand was really top notch on the last two albums, didn't see this coming at all.

So... My mind is blown right now. Good thing to see Holzwarth going both ways though. Who will play keyboards with Luca? Jens Johansson would be awesome, I saw him live during a Dio tribute and he was great (is he still with Stratovarius?). And even more interesting, who will do the vocals? If he will perform Rhapsody songs he needs to find a typical, boring power metal singer. If not, I guess Olaf Hayer is a strong (albeit a bit boring) candidate. Or maybe he can call Roy Khan and make him a new-born metal singer instead of cultist.

Interesting times. Not surprised to see that Rhapsodys official forum is closed down. I got banned there a long time ago because I criticized Joey DeMaio when the whole Magic Circle Music fiasco was going down. The community is good but oh man, the moderation. I prefer the spambots on this forum over the cry babies over there. Any negative comments, even constructive ones, throws people into a hissy fit. The only discussion that is welcome there is how awesome the band is.

Heh, just skimmed through their reasoning for closing the forum. Not too surprising to read things like: "Over the years we have simply lost the desire to repeatedly read the negativity that has spread like a cancer over our forum." Negativity, on the internet? Cry me a river. I wonder how they can read Blabbermouth comments without seeing a psychiatrist afterwards.

weren't they forbidden to use that [Rhapsody] to begin with?

I remember reading a rumour many years ago that I thought was bullshit, that when Rhapsody joined Magic Circle Music they had to change name because Joey, well, wanted them too. Just how Majesty changed their names for no apparent reason at all to "Metalforce" after joining the label. So the whole "copyright" issue was just PR drivel. I didn't believe it at the time because it sounded too insane, even for Joey, but just now I saw that "Metalforce" have changed back to Majesty. And now this. So...

*X-Files theme: Ooo Ooo Ooo*

[The Rider Of Rohan]

The whole idea of changing the name was a pre-emtive strike. At the time there was a website called Rhapsdody which was the supposed new iTunes, and they got into a bit of a legal fight there. Now, under international law there's no way that the website could have won (for example I can name any product Amazon, as long as it's not a website or a store) but sometimes its just cheaper to take the high road.

Rhapsody of Fire without Luca? It can be done because everybody's replaceable. If we can have Strato without Tolkki, we can have a RoF without Luca. We'd probably end up with two great bands instead of one, and that's good. That's basically how we ended up with two Helloweens, three Sepultura's and four Savatages.

The one thing I do not understand is why Luca didn't announce he'd go solo. He's already sitting on three albums, Olaf Hayer is a great singer and his name is already well-known.

Oh, and where's the mud-slinging? They pretend they're great friends, but I frankly don't believe it. There are no good endings, because otherwise it wouldn't end.

Beer for the one who calls that last movie-quote without googling.

[T3hOverlord]

Maybe one of the two Rhapsodys will not include all the narrations and black metal-type vocals found in the newest album that would be the Rhapsody I follow.

[rdyfrde]

It's weird, because I didn't see any ill will at Wacken when I watched their show. Usually if there's stuff going down in a band, you can see it in how the members are treating each other on stage or the lack there of (see Sonata Arctica right before Jani left). There was nothing to tell me that they were about to split into two bands. Hell, Fabio was actually paying attention to Luca instead of ignoring him like he usually does. Unless that was a sign.....

[Orodaran]

Well, seeing Stratovarius at Wacken '07 I didn't realize either that during the very show Timo Tollkki decided to split up the band

Anyway, they're professional musicians, at a certain level I think you can hide what goes on behind the scenes and put up a good show. And as far as reality vs what goes on while on stage... I remember when Helloween fired Grapow & Kusch in 2001, Grapow recalled the Wacken of that year where, at the end of the show, Weikath hugged him on stage, and he asked him after being fired why he did that and Weikath replied "Because I already knew you were out".

Therefore, so much for stage happiness....

[Narmoth:]

Actually, I think the deal is that Luca doesn't want a new keyboard player in the band.
He will play guitar together with Dominique Leurquin, something we got a taste of on the two previous albums of Rhapsody, where there were more parts with guitar only and no or little keyboards.
I think they did the split this way so both Alex and Luca could keep the rights to the live playing of songs, since they're both founding members.
I'm looking more forward to Rhapsody by Luca, I think, as I'm hoping for a bigger focus on guitars.
As for name: Luca's Rhapsody will simply be named "Rhapsody".

[ra me nivar]

They should name them:

1. "Rhapsody ("

2. "of Fire)"

And both bands are going to dress like XVIIth Century Dolls, or did Rhapsody (blah blah) quit doing that with time? Because if they are both going to do so, there will be a shortage of necklaces and all that stuff...

[spamel]

Looks like I will regret not going to BOA this year and seeing them before they split.

[somnia]

Let's just wait until those two groups split once more, then we'll have all the elements.

[Andreas]

The Rhapsody forum also split in two. Tom Hess (one of the new guitar dudes) took over the official one and most of the old mods took the database and created another forum. Some battle going on right now between those two.

[prongs]

I think as a band the definitely needed a change, i don't know however if that's the right move...time will tell.

[Kalmari]

The Rhapsody forum also split in two. Tom Hess (one of the new guitar dudes) took over the official one and most of the old mods took the database and created another forum. Some battle going on right now between those two.

Could share some more info about this? I read the forum often, but it seems that I have missed that completely.

[Andreas]

I'm not a very reliable source, since I wasn't that active at that time. But here's things in short:

There are forum fules now, which isn't a bad thing. The band supports them too, but the only one appearing online is Tom Hess.
Anyhow, some regulars got banned, and a former admin (Karsten) was banned. New guy is admin now. People get warnings for merely stating their opinions (or even get banned), just because mr. Hess doesn't like it. It's way less active now, the place to be is the new unofficial forum, epicrhapsody.com. You can use your old login name and password, they copied the old forum's database

[Desert_Storm]

The Rhapsody forum also split in two. Tom Hess (one of the new guitar dudes) took over the official one and most of the old mods took the database and created another forum. Some battle going on right now between those two.

Sounds incredibly stupid
Well I guess that each band gets the fans they deserve

[Andreas]

It is stupid indeed.