Project Description
Interview with
SHARON DEN ADEL
From
WITHIN TEMPTATION
by Amy Smith
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Dutch Symphonic Metaller’s, Within Temptation, are on the verge of an epic return with the release of their seventh studio album Resist, following a four year long break after 2014’s Hydra.
AMNplify’s Amy Smith caught up with lead vocalist Sharon Den Adel to find out more about Resist, how a personal ‘Time-out’ helped save the band and whether or not fans can expect to see the band on Aussie shores in the future.
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Hi Sharon, how are you today?
I’m fine how are you?
A little bit tired, it’s been a bit of a long day!
Oh because it’s the end of the day in Australia, of course! It’s just beginning here.
Where in the word are you calling from?
From my hometown.
Let’s talk about about the upcoming record Resist. It is a really powerful album, chock full of anthemic tracks, with a heavy, dirty futuristic sound that really compliments the lyrical content. What was your vision for this album?
Do you mean the theme of the album or musically?
Overall.
It’s not a concept record, but the lyrics are related to each other more than others. Certain songs are personal in a way explainable to resist and some songs are a little more politically influenced. Lyrically what we are talking about is the fact that we’ve grown up in a digital age. When I was a kid with a computer, I had Commodore 64, floppy disk, and those kind of things to play games. We never thought that social media and the internet would become as big as it is nowadays and how it actually influences our lives so much. So, that’s been an inspiration for us. The of development of technology has nice things like calling you and sending people files for media and music all over the world; It can buy anything, anywhere, in the world! The not nice thing about this whole development is the fact that you are trackable and traceable at any time, losing anonymity in a way. I think governments have failed to give us good privacy laws before all of this happened.
I think companies have a lot of things to say nowadays. Like, Amazon are saying anything, anywhere and it’s kind of dangerous in a way that so many big companies get to say so many things and if they don’t get want they want they just take their company out of your country and they go somewhere else. Also, our lives are being so much controlled by algorithms. What people want you to see is what you get to see. You know? It’s based on previous choices you made on the internet, I think that is a dangerous thing in a way. When I want to know something about politics, I go to certain sites to read about it. If things are pre-selected already for me, I only get to see a certain portion of what is going on. Also, with all these elections where foreign countries are trying to infiltrate and make people vote a certain way I think that’s very dangerous. Those things were like a inspirations for us to write songs, like the Raise Your Banner song.
Musically we’ve been very much inspired by urban music. Especially because we think there is a lot of development on that front and in that music scene. I’ll mention somebody, a great band called Twenty One Pilots, which everybody knows of course. They do so many different styles of music! They don’t seem to have any boundaries, just do what they like to make and have fun with that. That’s what we want to do with our music as well! We’ve always been a symphonic band; The symphonic music will be there combined with new modern elements of urban music. So, that’s been the inspiration for us for this album.
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One thing I like about Within Temptation is that no two albums sound exactly alike. You do seem to take influences from eclectic styles and genres which is fantastic!
Yeah! You know, the thing is that you get a lot of change, but not everybody likes the change you make because they fall in love with you for a certain sound. But, like you said, we’ve always been a band that likes change. Maybe this album, that’s been more than ever. But it was also necessary to continue the band, because we really didn’t know what direction to go with the next album… I’m really happy that we did find a way to continue the band, actually.
Absolutely! And plus, it would get a bit boring if you’re just churning out the same thing all the time!
Absolutely! You don’t want to walk in circles constantly.
After Hydra period, you took a break from Within Temptation. In that time, you released a solo project, My Indigo. This had a completely different sound, a softer more alternative sound. What lessons did you learn and how has this impacted on your work with Within Temptation?
I think that the biggest lesson that I’ve learned is that you keep making music that is really close to you. There is a lot of people in a band, but as a singer you need to stay very close to what inspires you. I have to present these songs every night, I want it to be about something that I really find important. Not everything has to be political, not everything has to be autobiographic, but, the lyrics, for me, are very important, they have certain meaning to me. Sometimes I’ve written songs, in the past, that were just a story. With this album, and with My Indigo, I feel that the songs are very close, they’re from my own perspective and just me. If you just start telling stories that are just beautiful stories and you don’t feel that much connection to it, it doesn’t feel part of you. I think that’s the biggest lesson that I learned from My Indigo and the new album Resist.
That’s great. If you’re feeling it and are passionate, people are more likely to connect with it as well.
Yeah, I think so too.
So, you’ve mentioned that you have experimented with different sounds and done things differently on Resist. What were some of the challenges that you faced in the process of creating this record?
Challenges… aaah?
Last summer we started writing and recording new songs, and we had to finish because our producer was moving back to Sweden. He had been living here with his Dutch girlfriend in the Netherlands for all these years. They were really close to our home. We would drive by car and I would be at his home and do singing in the studio. The last day of recording I was standing in their home, their studio with all these boxes around me and a few microphones and all the things that you need to record everything but everything else was all packed. It was fun in a way, luckily we managed.
That sounds like a really interesting experience!
There are some really cool collaborations on Resist. How do you choose who to work with?
Well! It’s always from the song itself. We look at what does the song need, because that’s the most important thing; That it works, that it sounds the way you want it to sound. And of course, if people are available, if they like to do it and if they feel like they can add something to the song. So, with Jacoby I met him in Belgium at a festival, I think 3 years ago? I got into a conversation with him because our backstage areas were right beside each other. We got talking about art actually, nothing about music. I’ve always followed the band because I love the music and I like his voice. We were almost getting ready for the video for The Reckoning and week before, I said “Oh, maybe it’s a good idea to ask Jacoby for this one, because you know, he would go really well on this one and like both band very much”. So we just called him, his management and asked if he could do it. We sent him the song and got almost an immediate reaction. He liked the song and wanted to do it, he just had to find the time to do it, because he was in his own studio working on his own new album. So, that was a really nice way of working. And that’s, of course, the cool thing about the internet! You can send files to the other side of the world, you don’t need to come to the studio if you don’t have time. You can make things possible that are normally not possible. That’s the good thing about technology again!
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You’ve started the Resist tour, so you’ve had the opportunity to play some of the new tracks live. How do you feel about the response to the material so far?
We have played the new tracks live. People normally when they buy the tickets, they don’t know what to expect; They didn’t know what we were going play. It’s really nice to see that the shows were sold out or nearly sold out just based on our previous track record. Hearing the first single at the time The Reckoning, you would be surprised at how people know all the songs before the songs are even out! Because everybody is checking the internet of course! (Laughs). That’s really fun because they sing a long more or less with the lyrics. Most are accurate, not everybody but most of them. It was nice to see that people take the effort to check out new songs of ours, although we’ve been around for more than 20 years!
Awesome! It must be a strange feeling having a song out for such a short time and having people screaming lyrics back at you!
Yeah exactly (Laughs).
Within Temptation are known for some pretty grueling tour schedules! How do you balance touring with family life?
That’s something that we’re always working on. Every time we try to make it better. The company ask you to do a combination of a lot of things that you have to do for it to promote the album actually, not just play. Like now for instance, I’m in between the tour because I’ve done 6 weeks first, I did 3 weeks then like 9 days off and then another 3 weeks and now it’s 11 days off and then I’ll have another 2 and a half.
I try to not be on the road when family are having their birthdays and those kinds of things, because it’s important. You know, everybody in the band wants to be with their family at moments when it’s necessary. You can’t always organize it, but we try to keep everybody happy with that and try to be at home when there are certain specific days for everyone. Most of the time it works out, but not always. But you still have to keep on looking at what worked this tour and what are we gonna do differently next tour. We’ve been touring for 20 years and we still haven’t found the right way of doing it yet! But it’s getting there (laughs).
I’m very, very sad to admit that that I have never had the pleasure of being a part of a live Within Temptation show. Have you ever toured Australia?
Awwwwwww! No, we’ve never toured Australia. We’ve tried to do it a few times, but we couldn’t get the right kind of tour for where Australia was included. We did go to Japan a few times and tried to combine that with Australia, but it’s difficult because you need the right kind of festival or right kind of venue available, you know, because we’re just a starting band in Australia, of course, we’ve never played there before. And it’s very difficult for us also to see how many people would even come to a show, the investment is big to come over to Australia. Not just Australia, but also New Zealand, the combination, Indonesia even. But, it’s something that we’re always thinking about and trying to make work, but so far it hasn’t worked out yet. Most of the tours that we have done, we have been focused more on Europe, of course because that is where we are from. If we can focus a little bit on America, South America… mainly on Europe. Touring is so hectic that you feel the need to go into the studio again and write new songs. So it’s always on the debate “Are we gonna do another tour on the otherside of the world?”, which will take at least a month or two to get back into the studio. All those things together has ended up in the result that we haven’t played Australia yet. But it’s still on the debate. It might happen, but I won’t make promises, I don’t do that anymore. I don’t want to disappoint anyone.
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That’s fair, you never know what the future holds. But, I can tell you that there are many people who would absolutely love to see you here in the future!
That would be lovely!
But, I can imagine that attending a Within Temptation show would be a grand experience with epic production. What are some of the things that you think about when putting together a live show?
We try to make it sound the same way that it sounds on the album. Visually, we try to make something that fits the album and fits the atmosphere of the record. We try to make the musical adventure as big as the visual attention that we try to put on. Robert does the visuals, it’s Robert’s baby because he likes to make it special for every tour that we do. He does it completely on his own, with a few creative people that he has met throughout the years, so that’s his own project. What we do try to make together is that they fit together, that it’s the same atmosphere on stage as on the record. More or less you get to see the same kind of imagery that you would think of when you listen to the music.
Is there anything that I’ve missed that you would like to add to this interview?
We were surprised with the previous interview that he had never seen our DVD of Black Symphony or the Elements show, which is an anniversary kind of DVD. I know it’s not the age of DVDs anymore, but for people who haven’t seen us, it’s not a normal show but something that’s really spectacular that we did to celebrate many years as a band. Maybe it’s something that you could check out, if you like.
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In Vain:
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WITHIN TEMPTATION will release their 7th studio album RESIST on February 1st, 2019.
Pre-orders for Resist are live now, get yours HERE!
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