When you see the Sonata Arctica, Apocalyptica or Megadeth logo on Valco headphones, you might imagine a big conference room, a stack of PowerPoints and two marketing directors talking about synergies.
The reality is usually considerably more suspicious.
Someone knows someone.
In this case, that someone was Antti Kangasaho.
Antti is an audio engineer who has spent a long career working with sound and has filmed drumcam videos for drummers for more than ten years. Along the way, he has got to know a fair chunk of the Finnish metal scene.
He also happens to be such a serious Valco enthusiast that he has roughly every device we have managed to push out into the world lying around his place.
And that brings us to Sonata Arctica.
It all started with an online shop
Sonata Arctica drummer Tommy Portimo runs the band's online shop alongside playing drums.
The idea of having a pair of Sonata Arctica headphones of their own had been on his mind for a while.
Valco was not exactly an unknown quantity, either. Members of Sonata's crew had been using Valco headphones for years, so they already had plenty of first-hand experience from the road.
Tommy had also seen Valco's collaborations with Apocalyptica and Megadeth.
That led to a fairly simple thought:
Sonata should have their own pair too.
Tommy had already been thinking about getting in touch with Valco when the subject happened to come up with Antti Kangasaho. Antti said he knew some people here and promised to ask around.
That was pretty much it.
No bidding process. No six-month sponsorship saga. Not even a proper Excel spreadsheet.
Antti put the right people in the same room.
At first, the headphones were meant for the shop
Tommy's original idea was to make custom Valco headphones for Sonata Arctica to sell in the band's online shop.
That suited us just fine.
The result was a pair of headphones made in Sonata Arctica's own style. When the first units landed in Tommy's hands, there was no need for a long strategy meeting about whether to put them up for sale.
“When I got the first headphones with the Sonata logos on them, I didn't have to think twice about whether to sell them in our own shop.”
The collaboration grew a little beyond the original idea at the same time. The headphones ended up going not only to the band, but to the crew as well.
And into actual use, not a display case.
They are used on the road, on planes, backstage and at home, just like any other headphones.
This is actually a pretty important part of these collaborations for us. Sure, you can make a headphone with a nice logo on it and take a couple of pictures for Instagram. It is much more interesting if people are still actually using them after the camera has been put away.
Then something unfortunate happened: people bought them
The Sonata Arctica headphones ended up in the band's online shop.
According to Tommy, the response exceeded expectations.
“Sales have exceeded even our wildest expectations, and the fans' feedback has been nothing but positive.”
This is not exactly a huge mystery.
There is a fair amount of stuff in band merch whose main purpose is to tell other people which band you like. Mugs are nice. T-shirts are pretty handy if society insists that you wear one.
With headphones, the idea is a little different.
You can use them every day for years. And because they are Valcos, they can also be serviced when life eventually beats some plastic part 3–0.
Why Valco?
Tommy says he has aimed from the start to use as many Finnish products and companies as possible in Sonata Arctica's online shop.
According to him, the fans have appreciated the local connection too.
But in this case, a Finnish flag on the side of the package was not the deciding factor.
The Sonata crew already knew the headphones. They had also become familiar with the way Valco does things.
Tommy specifically points out that the headphones can genuinely be serviced in Finland, instead of a broken product automatically being replaced with a new one while the old one disappears into an electronics graveyard somewhere on the other side of the planet.
It is one of those things where the world of bands and Valco fit together surprisingly well.
Life on tour is not especially gentle on electronics. Equipment gets packed, unpacked, dropped and transported thousands of miles. If something is actually used, something will happen to it sooner or later.
When that happens, it is nice if the first solution is not the trash can.
This is how these things usually happen
The Sonata Arctica story is also a pretty good example of how all Valco's other band collaborations have come about.
We do not sit in an office listing artists who should receive our next sponsorship proposal.
So far, the pattern has always started with someone already using Valcos.
Then that someone knows someone else. The subject comes up. A message gets sent. We try something.
Sometimes nothing comes of it.
Sometimes the result is a headphone with Sonata Arctica written on the side.
In this case, the chain went roughly like this:
Sonata Arctica's crew uses Valcos → Tommy starts thinking about his own Sonata headphones → Tommy talks to Antti → Antti knows Valco → the people get put in the same conversation → we make headphones.
As a marketing textbook example, this is perhaps not ideal.
But this is how the world actually works surprisingly often.
And at least so far, it has been considerably more fun for us than arguing with lawyers.
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