Epica

Interview date

21 Novembre 2008

Interviewer

Ostianne

I N T E R V I E W

Interview Yves Huts


In all your albums, there's a line between all your songs. What do you enjoy in writing about the same subject, as a "concept album"?

So far, the really concept album was "The Divine Conspiracy" and that was about like a plan of God to release all the religions of human kind, and wandering if they could figured out if the religions are basically the same. On "Consign to Oblivion", it was about the Mayas more or less, but it wasn't really a concept album. And for it, there was not really one line for the lyrics because Mark writes stuff about social, politics and some things like that, and Simone writes about personal feelings and experiences. So it is very different. Well, sometimes there is connexion between the songs but not all the time.

Of course, but when we study a little your lyrics, we can see that the religion is something really important. I would like to know if it's something the band want really to deny, or is it just something important, but you keep your eyes open on it?

Well, the thing is, we are all against the fundamentalism, not against any religions or something, but against people who are too extremely to religion. And Mark is really interesting in that kind of stuff and he writes lyrics about it. I think through his songs, he likes to give his opinion.

You wrote a films' music, and I would like to know if you consider this album (The Score) as a real album in Epicas' discography or if it's something different?

It is a full album of Epica. But it is different that there are no drums and guitars, and vocals on most of the musics. So I think you have the main path of Epica, and maybe we took a side-road with this. But yeah, I consider this as a full album of Epica, so it was our third / fourth album of Epica.

And were you interesting in writing a films' music?

We've never done that before. It was a real challenge to put music on images; all the music was composed on images. We really had to count the timing of the music; sometimes you have surprise effect and that have to be on the right moment. It was a different way of making music it was very challenging and very interesting. I would like to do it again.

We can say "The Divine Conspiracy" is a return to the basics because we can more listen to Mark sing. Was it because of the dark side of this album or just because the band feels he had to sing more than on "Consign To Oblivion"?

I think it was not really a deliberate choice, he felt it right. It comes naturally. The songs were harder, so, I think because of that, Mark sings more. It's really not something we think about. Because of that there is more grunts.

You know, this album has been release the same year as a lot of albums with female singer. Weren't you afraid of peoples' choice : Choose some albums, but not all because they can't buy everything?

Well, there's albums' release all the time, of course in 2007, After Forever and Nightwish releasing new album, but those bands are all at the same record label and it's really to the record label to do this thing, and we don't think about that. We just write music and the record label do the mark thing, distribution and promotion. We have a lot of trust in Nuclear Blast, they really do a good job. Our album was released one month before Nightwish, it could be conflicted but I don't put my energy in worrying about that.

If we don't speak about the Score, you release one album every two years. So is the next one will be in 2009 or you will wait to do it?

Probably, the next year we will release the next album. After this tour we're gonna record the next album. We are never sure the album will be finish, but we hope to release the album at the end of the next year.

So you already have to work on it?

Yeah. We have already written a lot of songs. Now we are at the last part of writing the lyrics and the vocal lines. We are almost ready to enter in the studio.

In June, you've played in Hungary for a special show. The fans were really disappointing when they learn there won't be a DVD about it. Why did you choose to not record it?

Mainly because the lights engineer thinks to record it, all the lights have to be ok, all the stage has to be ok... He said it wouldn't be hundred-pourcent suitable for a DVD. When you release a DVD, everything has to be perfect, but the circumstances were not a hundred-pourcent perfect. But still we think it was a very special show so we record the audio. We are working on a production of a live CD. Somehow, next year it will be release. I think the most important thing was the audio, because we play classical songs, transforming them in a metal version. Sometimes we play one of those songs, "The Imperial March" (ndrl Star Wars). On the live album, it will be hundred-pourcent live with Epicas' song and the others. We cannot always play this an orchestra so it was really a dream that came true.

When Simone was ill, you've played with Amanda Sommerville. How was the collaboration?

We did the US tour, in April, with Amanda Sommerville, and it was either going on tour with Amanda Sommerville or cancelling the tour. And we cancelled so many shows before because Simone was ill, so we chose to do the tour with Amanda. It was really natural. We didn't do any rehearsals. The first time Amanda came on stage was for the first show. And for the first moment, she did a really good job. She's a really good singer, and a live performer. On a personal level, she's just a very nice person. Being on tour with her was very good. Of course, we already have a background because she has been working with us since the first album, she does backing vocals on our album, she does the language check and vocal coaching for Simone. She's almost as the seventh member.

And do you think one day, she could sing a duet with Simone?

Well I think, we already have a female singer so, it would be really strange to do a duet with Amanda. But why not if we find something interesting for the vocals. It can be a possibility.

I read a lot of fans reaction about your music and sometimes they say you don't renew your music. What do you have to answer to them?

Well I think we do it. It's always a difficult balance to change your music and stay faithful to your music. If you change your music so much, you will loose fans, if you don't change your music at all they will say it's always the same. You can never satisfy everybody. But in my personal opinion, your music changes with every album, but also we stay faithful to the main Epica sound. For example, in the last album, we chose to have more grunts, more guitars, we recorded four guitars instead of two to make the sound heavier. There were also different influence like the song "Never Enough" which is a new direction on the Epicas' sound. So we do our best, but you can never satisfy everybody.

As you speak about "Never Enough", speaking about the video clip: your previous video clips had an "European touch" whereas "Never Enough" has more an "American touch". Was it to seduce the American audience?

No. Beside, we have a different director. I think we recorded it in Serbia, and we totally give freedom to the director: "This is the song, these are the lyrics and now, you can do what you want.". We read the script and we had hundred-pourcent confidence in him. Well, they made two versions on it, one commercial and a dark version. And we were really happy about the dark version. I think it's our best video clip so far. It was not really hard, we let the director do what he is best at. We didn't want something American or whatever. We've seen what he did in the past, and we say "ok, you are our man, and do it!"

You have a new drummer, Arien. How was he insert in the band?

When we recorded "The Divine Conspiracy" we heard him in a session drummer, and we were so happy about to say to him "hey, if you want to join the band, you can ! You are a perfect drummer, we cannot imagine any better drummer than you, so if you want to join the band..." It was hesitating, saying "I don't know". So we started looking for another drummer, of course, we didn't find a drummer as Arien. But after the us tour in 2007, he said : "Damned I had so much fun with them". And after that he said, "ok, I'm joining the band." We were of course very happy. Now we are more than a year later, he does a really good job, and he is a really nice guy to work with. There's nothing hard with Arien. The only problem is, if he would leave the band, we cannot find a replacer for him. So if Arien would leave the band, we fucked.

I think it will be the time for my last question. Do you have something to say to your french fans?

I love you. Je vous aime. I'm really happy that there are so many french fans who are coming to our shows. I was really surprise also tonight is sold out. We sell out Elysée Monmartre. I'm very glad that the french fans still love us, I'm glad there is more and more fans joining the rest! Keep it up!