Timo Pudas, the keyboard wizard of Urban Tale answered our set of questions... no urban legends or tales, just the truth and nothing else!

1. So, the album is out soon and ready to conquer the charts, melodic rock ones at least. Are you happy with the results?

We have reached our first goal now and we are really happy with that but the next album will be even better...

2. Now that you have a deal for Japan too, do you think that you can achieve respectable sales figures?

We hope so. We are looking forward to gigging in Japan.

3. What are your favourite songs on the album and why?

It's very hard to pick some favourites from album that you've been doing and when we tried to pick some we found that every band member has their own favourites. We are standing behind every song on the album.

4. Should you release a single, what songs do you think would be your most "potential radio hits"?

Yes, we've been thinking about that. The most radio-friendly songs would probably be "King Of Hearts", "One Day" and "Engine".

5. You started out as a cover band I recall, is that what you still do to put food on the table? Or do you have "normal" jobs as well?

We are professional musicians and playing covers is what we do for living at the moment but our main interest is of course Urban Tale and we hope that someday we wouldn't need to do other jobs. As far as I know "normal" people don't see playing any music as normal work.

6. What's with the Nokia connection? Does one of you work there? It seems that you play quite often in their events...

Well we don't "work" for Nokia but they like to use us on their parties and we of course like to be there...

7. Frontiers has a lot of AOR artists. You being "a member of the family" now, have you checked out the other groups of the label? Any new favourites?

Frontiers has wide variety of bands on their catalog and we are happy to be part of it. We listened to many of Frontier's bands when we were looking for the deal and it's very exciting to see some of them live at the Gods.

8. I guess you were expecting this somewhere down the line... you are often compared to Journey, especially the vocals of Kimmo Blom remind people of that band. How do you feel about it? Have the others tried to remove some of the "Perryisms" of him?

Well, some people just happen to have very beautiful voice and Kimmo's voice is as beautiful as male voice just can be. That's what Kimmo is like and we don't see a reason why he should try to be something else. Of course it's very flattering to hear comparisons to Steve Perry, Journey, Toto and other big names. Now when Steve isn't on the scene there's probably need for singer that sounds a little like him and I guess some people get very excited when they hear some similarities. On the other hand when people try to describe our music they don't necessarily have any other ways to express what they are thinking so they use these comparisons.

9. In Finland Journey really isn't a household name. What kind of comparisons do you get here from the "common man"?

That's true. We hear often comparisons to Toto, Yes, Savage Garden, American rock...

10. What kind of a musical background do you guys have? Have you had bands before, or are you currently moonlightning in other groups or something?

Because we are professional musicians we have played many kinds of music. We still have to do some other gigs and bands too but we are really looking for the day when Urban Tale is so big that we don't need to do anything else.

11. Hmmm... the name. Where does it come from? Our swedish editor Urban would like to think that you named the band in his honour, but somehow I don't think it is so...

Our first name when we were doing those Journey tributes was a finnish one. When we started to do our own music in English we took the name Tale but found soon that it had already been taken by a british progressive rock band. One of our Swedish (!) friends suggested then that we should take the word Urban in front of Tale. You can congratulate Urban's parents for good choice for their sons name.

12. In case your CD cannot be found in everyone's local CD store, can you recommend some online retailers who carry it in their catalogue?

www.aorheaven.com ,www.cdon.com, www.nehrecords.com, target-records.com etc. Any shop were you can find Frontiers' records.

13. If there's anything else you'd like to say to your fans, here's your chance. Fire away!

We hope to get a lot of chances to see you on gigs. Rock on!