EPICA : Keepers of the flame

-Your last album, apart from ‘The Score’: ‘Consign to Oblivion’, is very inspired by the ancient Maya’s philosophy : what are, at your sense, the most interesting points of the knowledge of this culture ?

-Simone : The album has four songs based on Maya culture : Mark has written those lyrics. He was reading books about Maya culture: he’s got one book from his mother and got very inspired by it. We were in holidays in France, near Grenoble, he also bring those books and told me he was gonna write lyrics about this. He find this really interesting, the wisdom they had, but it’s only partially a concept album, not totally : we wanted to have something special for the artwork, so we decided to do it from the Mayas, which is original. Many people think it’s a concept album but it’s only four songs that are about that. I wrote the others! One thing I find very important about the ancient Maya’s culture is the prediction about the year 2O12, which is the end of the fifth sun’s cycle and there’s gonna be big changes, people will have some sort of higher consciousness. And beside, we’re losing grip on living together with nature, we don’t live in harmony anymore. A lot of nature disasters are happening now with hurricanes, earthquakes, and it’s also a sign from the earth that we’re doing wrong, ‘cause now, in such a short period, everything seems to explode, and the plan crashes as well. I think it’s a sign from nature. I try to live as well as possible with nature: Don’t thrown anything outside the car, keep it inside and throw it in the trash bin. That’s mainly what Mark thinks about the Mayas and of course the galaxies and stuff : he has read all the books, and I don’t know as much as he does about it, but we’ve been to Mexico, we made a tour in December, unfortunately I ended up in an hospital for an infection but I’ve seen what their art is, in Mexico it’s close to the Mayas, and Mexican art is beautiful…at least what I’ve been able to see!

-Talking about art, the cover sleeve, the booklet are very beautiful and very well documentated : it’s important for you, this ‘total art?’

-Simone : The artwork is mostly my job, I worked together with a designer, but I think nowadays, with a lot of piracy, it’s really important to present your CD in a nice way : The music has to be good, of course, but the first thing you see, if you don’t know the band, is the cover. You don’t like it or not. I bought a lot of CD’s, just looking by the cover art, or someone told me it’s a good band, you should buy the CD. It’s like a little book we have here, (talking about ‘Consign to Oblivion’ booklet) with informations about the band, biography, photos, it’s something to collect: you want to have it because it’s special. I like it very much and, when I see a CD I always look at those kinds of things. I think that, for people who like music, and today you can download music with good quality, you like the have the CD, put it in the CD player, have the original one and also, now I’m a singer but I’ve downloaded some music in the past, but it’s mostly only one song, if I like it, then I buy the whole album. Today, I have more money so I can come in a shop and buy some! I always buy, I don’t copy CD’s anymore.

-On your album, there’s a real classical band a real choral singers: aren’t you frustrated not to have this on stage and work with tapes instead? Any special project in that direction?

-Simone : For an Epica show, we never really have a complete orchestra, except for some private parties, for the parents of Yves, a very big party during almost four days, and there was a real orchestra. When we have an acoustic song, like ‘Feint’, we did that with a channel player, but we have all our orchestra on hard disk, it’s rolling along with what we play, so we don’t have thirty people standing on stage, just a little tape.

-You toured this year participate to the Kamelot LP (Black Halo), and Roy Khan is appearing on your album too…

-Simone : Yes, we’re gonna tour with them again in Brazil and Belgium, and I think they’re gonna ask me to do a song again. But, as they are the main act, and we don’t play ‘Les trois vierges’ live, so far, we’re not gonna do it with Roy. We’re gonna do four shows in Holland next week with the Mexican band we were touring with. They have a good singer, and I asked him to make ‘Les trios vierges’ on stage with me.

-Tell me about the Aina project?

-Simone: Oh, that’s already two years ago, I think. I was asked to do some singing, but it was at the end of the recording process, the last song, which is also cool, but I don’t have any lyric, it’s only lalalalala, something like that. It’s not very special but at least I contributed a little bit. They had everything written and then, the record’s boss asked me to sing something on it. But, if there was going to be an Aina 2, I’d probably gonna be on it with a better role!

-This time, you have written half the lyrics of the LP: important personal evolution and do you intend to write more in the future?

Simone : Yes, well, for the new album, I’ve already written songs, almost thirteen lyrics, almost already finished! But, for the first album, I did write only three songs: ‘Adyta’, the intro one, ‘Alusive consensus’ and a bonus track, but I didn’t that much experience in writing lyrics. Mark had already experience from After Forever, so he took most of that part on him. But, for this new album, we’ve travelled a lot, I have been in hospital a couple of times, you get wiser and older and more experienced, and I have enough to write about, so that’s what I did on this album. And also, I must say, it’s a way of learning how to write a lyric, ‘cause it have to fit the melody line, the vocals, and sometimes you have to rewrite it. I’m really interested in English language, I read dictionaries al the time!

-This year, you issue a DVD : Do you intend to issue another one with live concert, for example?

-Simone : there’s already a small DVD with the album, but it’s mainly a documentary, with some live parts. We did tape European and Mexican tours, but it’s lying somewhere, we don’t know when we are gonna use it, that’s something for the record company. When we have the chance, we tape some shows and we’ll use it in the future, but we don’t have plans for it now.

-The video for ‘Feint’ is very beautiful: will you realise other videos for this album? I‘ve read that four videos were ready : ‘solitary ground’, ‘Feint’, ‘Phantom agony’…

-Simone : Yes : ‘Number Twenty’, our new single. We recorded a video for that, and we’re gonna play that song tonight also.

-Which bands who made you wish to be in a band?

-Simone : Nightwish, Rammstein, Lacuna Coil, Tiamat, Within Temptation, but also Sting, Bjork, Heather Nova. There’s a new Spanish band, Agony Ark : we’re gonna tour with them in Spain, they have a good singer and they are nice people. I like Tristania and Dimmu Borgir too. I’m always forgetting some!

-And another band from Holland, The Gathering?

-Simone : I like the old Gathering, ‘Mandelian’ and ‘Night time birds’, more than their new material, more spacy, trance music, like you can blow and get high…but they are recording a new album now, and I’ve been told it’s gonna be heavy, so I’m curious to hear what it sounds like. Hanneke has a baby, she’s a mother and I suppose something changed in her voice, I don’t know: when you have a baby, hormones changes and your voice change. So I’m curious. She’s a good singer, I might say: she sing always very clear, very pure, she sounds innocent to me! That’s a lovely voice to listen to, you can recognize it immediately, but it doesn’t have that power, which I like.

-Did you or do you have role models for your singing?

-Simone : Well, at the moment, not really, but the reason why I started was Nightwish of course, I’ve got a CD from a friend of mine, I was sixteen years old and I was already listening to metal music and rock, and I love the combination of beautiful classical female vocals with what we could say ‘Happy metal’, that was Nightwish at the beginning, the first album. From the opera singer, I like Montserrat Caballe, especially in the opera ‘Aida’. A lot of people told me already, when they hear me singing, that they thought I was a big opera singer! She’s a big woman, but she can sing like a bird, really high and really soft, and it really touches my soul. That’s basically my emotions and my inspirations for my vocals. And I have a good singer teacher!

-Would you enjoy to record of purely classical songs, as Tarja from Nightwish intend to do?

-Simone : That would be nice, but I’m too busy with Epica at the moment. I still have classical singing lessons, as well as pop and rock singing. I have already sung in a choir, but it was just for three months, like some kind of side project, but we did two concerts and that was finished. We studied a piece of music, but it was not for a long time. But, for long term, maybe five years or so, it would be nice. I’ll still take classical and opera lessons, I’m studying that at the moment (she shows me her book, which contains the ‘Stabat Mater’ partition). I have absolutely no time when I’m home, so, as we travel, I take my own classical lessons!

-Four favourite albums?

-Simone : Let see : Rammstein : ‘Reise, reise’ und ‘Mutter’, I listen that almost every day, Nightwish : ‘Ocean born’. ‘Black Halo’from Kamelot. If not, I have my list on the website, so people have to check there!

-Talking about movies, tell me more about this soundtrack, for ‘Joyride’: will you play some extracts tonight?

-Simone : Not for this score : this one, for now, is just for people to listen in their living room, or maybe we’re gonna play the CD before we go on stage. Originally, half of the songs was written for this Dutch movie, ‘Joyride’, but, since Epica has a lot of films music influences, our record company thought it would be a good idea to record a full score CD, and so far, it’s very successful, we sold a lot already and never did expect so much. It’s Epica with no guitars, no vocals, no drums, just orchestral parts, except three songs.

-Other soundtracks in the schedule?

-Simone : For now, we don’t have a project, but if someone has a proposal, I guess we won’t refuse it, if it’s a good movie. Mark and Yves writes a lot of stuff, and we could use it for an new Epica album but we could also use it later if we have another movie or if we’re gonna record another score on CD.

-Who are you favourite movie music composers?

-Simone : Hans Zimmer goes for Mark. For me, if any, it’s danny Elfman. I really like Tim Burton too. There’s this new movie, ‘Corpse Bride’, and I can’t wait to see it!

-It’s gonna show here in ten days!

-Simone : Yes? Aargh! But I guess it’s gonna be in Holland too around that time. I have already pictures of it on my computer, and when I write to the website, I listen to the soundtrack. I love that kind of films!

-Next projects for Epica.?

-Simone : A new album next year. But, way before, we’re gonna tour in Brazil in December, and then Argentina, then Chili, and then an European tour: Holland, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Germany. We’re gonna be busy. You can see all the dates on our website. We won’t get bored! I hope that the people visiting our website are gonna like our music, we’ll see them at one of our shows!

Interview made on October 9th 2OO5 in Paris.

Thanks to Jeroen Brom for his precious help and Simone for being so nice and cool.

‘The score’ is out on Transmission Records.

Visit the Epica website : www.epica.nl