EDGUY mainman Tobias Sammet's AVANTASIA project is planning to embark on a headlining tour for in April 2013. Also in the works are several summer festival appearances, as well as South American and Asian tours at the end of the summer.

Commented Tobias: "I know I once said we weren't gonna do it again, but then I don't see a reason to let this die. I wanna put on the biggest thing you have ever seen, I wanna bring more vocalists, play longer shows, and just make it a giant rock opera.

"I love to headline festivals — you run over people in 90 minutes and kick ass. But I also like to do our own AVANTASIA indoor tour, because we can make it much more AVANTASIA-oriented and play almost three hours without caring about anything else but AVANTASIA. So we said we have to do a giant indoor tour as well, and it's going to happen in April. I am so looking forward to it. The stage designer has just showed me his stage and light design, and it looks absolutely killer. It will be huge.

"2013 will be a major year for AVANTASIA, and people don't have a clue how big things are actually going to be! I am very excited — the album will be amazingly epic, and the tour will be, too!"

Sammet entered VOX Klangstudio in Bendestorf, Germany late last month with producer Sascha Paeth (KAMELOT, EDGUY, EPICA, RHAPSODY) to begin recording the new album from AVANTASIA for a spring 2013 release. The CD will once again be a rock opera based on a conceptual story very similar to the early AVANTASIA albums and will feature "a legion of guest instrumentalists and vocalists," according to a press release.

The drum tracks for the new AVANTASIA album were laid down by Russell Gilbrook of URIAH HEEP.

Tobias originally wanted to put AVANTASIA to rest after the release of the "The Flying Opera - Around The World In 20 Days" concert DVD in April 2011, but he has since had a change of heart. He explains, "Even though I love to record and tour with EDGUY, I didn't foresee how much I need AVANTASIA when I decided to finish this chapter of my life in 2011. I didn't know if there would be another AVANTASIA album one day, but I didn‘t feel like doing it. After the worldwide success of the latest studio releases, an arena world tour that was sold out pretty much everywhere, collaborations with childhood heroes like Alice Cooper, Klaus Meine, Rudolf Schenker, Eric Singer of KISS, etc. I 'knew' that I had said everything I could possibly say in the name of AVANTASIA. But that's not what AVANTASIA is all about. I wanna create more great music, I wanna create more fantasy worlds, the bigger and the more epic, the better. And listening to the material that I have created for this forthcoming chapter in the history of AVANTASIA, I know there is no way I am not going to do it! I have got the feeling and the certainty that this is absolutely meant to happen and to be!"