Holland’s leading gothic film score Metal titans, Epica, are truly one of the most innovative and provocative artists of today’s musical landscape. Encompassing all the attributes of brutally honest Metal aggression and a sophisticated reverence for classical and operatic treasures of the past, they stand firm in their creation of fine art for the new millennium. There is an intelligence present that is extremely difficult to find in the current scope of modern music. While their extremely diverse fan base continues to grow, the world is constantly reminded that real talent still exists, in spite of what the media tries to sell us. Having completed a very successful world tour in support of their last CD, Consign To Oblivion, the band, fronted by the sensational mezzo-soprano vocalist Simone Simons, are on the verge of releasing a new chapter in the band’s legacy and embarking on a headlining stint in the U.S. I had the pleasure of speaking with Simone in regard to their increasing popularity, the obvious comparisons to other female-fronted bands, and the controversies surrounding the band’s ability to fuse such relatively different styles of music, among other interesting aspects that help to define exactly who Epica are. Check it out!

OT: I really enjoyed your performance when you played the Galaxy Theater in Santa Ana, CA. I’d been looking forward to seeing the live show for some time. Listening to the Consign To Oblivion album I have to say that the music and lyrical content come across as very complex, there’s really quite a bit to it.

Simone: Oh, for our new album you can expect even more, trust me; we’re workin’ on it now.

OT: Right on. When do you expect it to hit stores?

Simone: I hope it will be before June.

OT: Awesome! Now, the mix of seeing what appear to be two incompatible genres really does work for you. Watching the show there were elements that, at times, stood out in a sense that, in my mind, made me doubt what I was hearing and say to myself this doesn’t work, this doesn’t fit - but it does. Do you find it difficult in winning over the die-hard metal fans or the purists? Obviously you are attempting to bridge the gap between the different styles i.e. classical/opera and metal.

Simone: Well nowadays female-fronted bands and gothic metal is getting bigger. There are coming more bands every day, ten more bands are being born. Nightwish, Within Temptation, Lacuna Coil, those bands really set foot on the ground for the female-fronted metal bands. I hope that it’s not something temporary and that it will stay like that: more chicks in metal. But so far, from the start, we didn’t expect to have such really huge success. We toured a lot and that’s why we gained metal fans all over the world. We did about three hundred and fifty shows in three and a half years, so that’s quite a lot. But I think we are one of the lucky bands and we also had a very good label. Transmission Records was doing a lot of promotion and nowadays that’s very important. And they paid also a lot of money for a good production of our debut album, ‘cause I think if you have a low budget and you go to a crappy studio, or whatever, because you can’t afford it, the music can sound much worse. ‘Cause if we’d not worked with Sascha Paeth, who’s worked with Kamelot and Rhapsody, if we would have recorded it with a lower budget I don’t know if it would have turned out so great. So we had a lot of investments from the start, which put us already on a little bit higher level to start off with. We have, of course, our guitar player, Mark Jansen, who was a former band member of After Forever, which was already quite big. So we had that extra push as well

OT: I know somebody like Angela Gossow from Arch Enemy obviously has somewhat of an advantage because she has this harder sounding voice. There are women in metal who try to sound metal, you’re obviously not trying to sound metal, you’re trying to sound like who you are. And even though it is becoming more popular there are still those purists who can’t accept the evolution of the genre and they still make up a considerable portion of the metal community. Have you personally faced much criticism?

Simone: Actually, I think a lot of the really hard metal fans have turned into Epica fans. We get many emails from guys saying, “I wasn’t really into this music and I was kind of prejudice about chicks in metal and I think it’s kinda gay, but I must say that we like Epica.” And I think it’s not only because I’m not really singing metal but we still have a grunter in the band. Like Nightwish is maybe a little bit softer but we still have that ‘beauty and the beast’ contrast, and the next album is gonna be more beast than beauty.

OT: Have there been fans that have come across from the opposite side of the spectrum, not metal fans at all, but they really appreciate the classical-opera element?

Simone: Yeah as well. And our fans are from babies up ‘til people in their eighties - that’s really true. My Great Uncle, he turned seventy-seven, he moved to San Francisco fifty years ago and he says he’s very proud of me, and we’ve had many older people who were talked into Epica by their grandchildren. And we’ve seen babies with little Epica girlies [t-shirts] on, that’s really nice. I always tell the parents to put ear protection on their children because that’s very important. The older people don’t care about ear damage anymore so they don’t need ear protection.

OT: Now obviously, what happened with Nightwish losing their vocalist, there has been ongoing speculation as to who will replace Tarja. There’s this underlying fear that something might happen with you guys as well, in the sense that you would leave the band or you want to do a solo project or just go the classical-type route.

Simone: Well I like classical music a lot, but I also like metal a lot. I like my band, I like to travel around and right now we’re focusing on a new album which will hopefully take us to a higher level. And the reason why it ended up with Nightwish is not how we are living together in a band. It’s not comparable, I must say, and I think Epica has still a great future ahead and I want to experience it. There has also been a lot of gossip that I’m the new singer of Nightwish but I think they will probably choose a singer who is not already known in the scene. I have already an image; I’m red-headed I sing classical-pop and a little bit of rock. Tarja was the opera diva, a totally different stage personality, while I would not like to be the successor of the singer who already created the sound of Nightwish. Nightwish would sound different with me and I don’t like to be in a band which has already been around for many years. With Epica I was there from the start. With Epica I was growing to what we are now. I like Nightwish a lot, really, it was one of my inspirations when I started, but they’re not my songs. I would have different feelings singing them; I would have different memories with it than with Epica. I like Nightwish a lot but Epica is a little bit heavier, which I like very much.

OT: So you never were interested in going the route to replace Tarja?

Simone: No, no. When we played in Finland Tuomos came to visit us and we talked about it and he said, “Do you know that people are taking pictures of us and we will be in the gossip magazines?” “Simone and Tuomos, Talking’ or ‘In love’. And we were laughing about it and we were really agreeing that it would not be a very good idea. He’s a very nice person, he’s a very good musician and he thinks the same of me and Epica, and he would never take the singer of another band. He has too much pride and honor.

OT: You’re talking about the differences in the music but a lot of people, when they hear the two bands, take it at face value and make comparisons. How do you handle the comparisons being made?

Simone: You mean those people say we are traditional like Nightwish?

OT: Like Nightwish or even After Forever, I’ve heard a reference to them.

Simone: Well I think it’s very easy to compare a band like Epica with another band who has a female singer who sings classical, but as for me, I’m very alone in the R&B and Hip/Hop scene. If I would compare it…, I mean if I’m with Dr Dre or so I would probably be attacked by one of the fans ‘cause they’re not alike or whatever. For an outsider of the female metal scene; they put it all into one jar and it’s all the same. I don’t blame them, if they listen long enough to Epica, they will find out that it’s something different.

OT: I would think so. Now I’ve read different reviews that you guys have been referred to as like ‘film score’ metal. Is there a big influence from composers such as Hans Zimmer?

Simone: Yeah there is, actually. Mark and Yves, he’s the bass player; they are both really into film music. Yves and I are also big time Danny Elfman fans. Also a lot of movies with Tim Burton, Danny Elfman made the score. I must say I love music from Gladiator. When I watch the movie I think I’m mostly hearing the music and not seeing the movie ‘cause I’ve listened to the CD over and over again. So we even made a film score CD, do you know about it? It’s called The Score.

OT: No, I’ve never heard of that, no.

Simone: You don’t know? We even released the CD, just pure film music. It was released after Consign To Oblivion ‘cause it also had some different versions of songs that are on Consign to Oblivion. It’s a green CD, it’s called The Score and it’s very nice; it’s written by Mark and Yves. I would recommend it to you.

OT: That’s cool; I’ll have to check it out. Now it was really interesting seeing you perform with Kahn from Kamelot. Not surprising at all being that you’ve guest soloed on each other’s albums. How did you guys originally meet and agree to be on each other’s albums; how did that all come about?

Simone: It all started when we changed our name to Epica, ‘cause Kamelot and Epica, we recorded our albums in the same studio, and they were finishing the album Epica when we were recording The Phantom Agony at the same time. And we got a contract, we talked a little bit, they were of course a little bit annoyed at first that we call ourselves Epica.

OT: I was gonna say… (Laughter) I knew that there was the Kamelot album Epica and I said to myself, ‘Mmmm, Kamelot must have had a pretty big influence over them.’

Simone: (Laughing) Yeah because nowadays it’s a little bit of a mixture that sometimes people get into Kamelot because of Epica and they surf Epica on the net but then they see the Kamelot album and they get into Kamelot and its vice-versa. Yeah, we talked a little bit at first, we were friends with Kamelot so they already listened, but we got along pretty fast. Then Mark asked Roy once to sing on our album but Roy said he doesn’t really do anything besides Kamelot and he wants to keep his voice for Kamelot. And then when we were going to record Consign to Oblivion and they were finishing up The Black Halo, and we were discussing it again and Thomas said that they needed still a female voice for their first single and so we thought, ok, but we wanted Roy for our album - so we made an exchange. The first single was gonna be a video as well, so I flew to Sweden to do the video and the video was a huge success. And then we decided to do a tour together and we did a European tour, we played some shows in Holland, we did a Brazilian tour and then the American tour; so that’s the story.

OT: Very cool, right on. It was definitely an extra-special treat for all the fans to get to see you guys perform together.

Simone: Yeah, I did it the whole tour and it was one of the highlights of the show, but the song goes by in a flash but it’s a very nice song.

OT: Yes it is. Now Consign to Oblivion was a semi-concept album.

Simone: Mhmm, mhmm that’s true.

OT: Where did the inspiration for that concept come from?

Simone: The concept lyrics were written by Mark and the subtitle is, A New Age Dawns, and it is inspired by the Mayan culture. A New Age Dawns is basically about the Mayan culture talking about the year 2012: it foretold that something will change with the solar system and that humankind, our consciousness will reach a higher level and another message is also that we are losing track of our own lives - the harmony between humankind and nature. Lately there have been a lot of catastrophes, like the tsunamis and also other things, that humankind are destroying themselves and nature as well. Even the last words of the song, “Consign To Oblivion”, that we must return to the laws of the nature. So that’s basically Mark’s message on that and the other lyrics are more personal and can be interpreted in many ways; so that’s how we wanted it.

OT: I just thought it was really interesting for a Dutch band to be talking about Mayan culture.

Simone: Yeah, he got a book from his Mom and he really liked it and since then he’s got a book shelf full of Mayan culture and the year 2012.

OT: Every other gothic metal band out there has gotta talk about vampires and what not (laughter) so it was kind of interesting to hear something different.

Simone: I watch movies about vampires but I don’t write about it. (Laughter)

OT: That’s cool. So the last tour of the U.S. was very good, and you plan to return this summer.

Simone: We’d planned to for sure come back because from the first show on in the U.S. we gained a lot of Epica fans, and we had a lot of Epica fans which we didn’t even dare to think of. Many people who came with a whole stack of Epica stuff, ‘Can you sign this?’ Hey, where did you get that? (Laughter) So it was really a huge surprise and I think next time when we come back it will be even probably more fans. And nowadays with mySpace also, I go to concerts with many American fans who came to the show and also wrote to me that they came to the show. That’s also a way for bands to become bigger in America and get more fans. But I must say Kamelot helped us as well, they are partially an American band and they toured in the states before. So I would say the tour couldn’t have been better.

OT: Well thank you so much for your time Simone, I look forward to seeing you play again in the summer.

Simone: You’re welcome.