here is another interview, this one about savage circus actually. It's poorly transcribed (sigh) but it addresses many of the questions in this thread.
http://www.metaleagle.com/interviews.php?action=show&id=86
excerpts:
George: OK. And I have to tell you that I reviewed the last album of PERSUADER and I think that in SAVAGE CIRCUS the singer sounds more like Hansi than before!
Thomen: Yeah, right.
George: Was it something that you wanted or it just came up?
Thomen: I think it is a little bit because of the songwriting. The songwriting is sometimes very similar to BLIND GUARDIAN and Jens has a very similar voice to Hansi. And if he has to sing in this tune he automatically gets more similar to Hansi. That´s the point. And because nobody pressed him like: "Hey, sing like Hansi", or something like that, we only said: "Hey, you sound pretty similar to Hansi sometimes, so sing everything in your way and let´s see what comes out." And Piet finally recorded this stuff with him and when I heard everything finished I said: "Fucking hey guys, that song´s really cool, this song´s amazing and sounds so similar to Hansi sometimes" (laughter) It´s so incredible! And Jens is always (Thomen pretends to be Jens): "No, that´s not true! I´m not sounding that much like Hansi!" (big laughter from both) And I said: "Come on guy. Go back and listen to it!" (big laughter from both)
George: I don´t think that anyone would accept that he sings like Hansi, if he did so or sounds like someone else.
Thomen: Yeah.
George: You told me that it was musical differences that led you to leaving BLIND GUARDIAN. Was it the musical direction the band wanted to follow or were there any new songs that you didn´t like they´re style?
Thomen: No. It was mostly the sound they wanted to follow now and hopeful already "A Night At The Opera". In my opinion this album was... OK, I must say I´ve been 100% behind everything I did with BLIND GUARDIAN, even "A Night At The Opera". But, I think everything has its limits. And after recording "A Night At The Opera", I noticed that it was too long produced, for over thirteen months! And this is a thing that is absolutely unnecessary from my point of view. And the musical style of BLIND GUARDIAN already on "A Night At The Opera" got much more progressive than on the older albums and the thing that really disturbed me most was the amount of tracks they recorded. And then our final had two hundred twenty tracks George! This is really too much in my opinion.
George: Two...!
Thomen: Two hundred twenty tracks in the songs! Recording tracks, like the vocals sixty tracks, the lead guitar seventy or something like that.
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it is an enjoyable listen though just i dunno kinda lacks credibility to me when i think about it.
