Interview by Miriam "NocturnalConcerto"

Edited by Lindz Riot

So, we can start

Ok

First of all thank you for accepting this interview.

Oh no problem! Thank you for having me (laughs) 

Sorry, I’m a little nervous. So how are you? And congratulations on your pregnancy.

Thank you very much, I’m fine thank you, you too?

Yes, I’m fine only now I’m a little bit nervous. 

Oh I’m sorry I surprised you!

It’s ok (laughs), so your upcoming album "The Unforgiving" is coming out on the 25th of March 2011 and as the first concept album in your career, how did this idea develop?

What happened was we wanted to write a concept album for a long time but never had something to come on our path to write a whole concept album for and this time we first tried to find a movie we could base the lyrics on and do it in that way, but it was very difficult to get the movie release date at the same as our album. You know, it could easily be postponed and you don’t have a release date together and that’s a little difficult of course. And to be sure that we could keep our own time schedule, we felt like that we had to do it in a different way and maybe we could make up our own story, so what we decided do was tell the story instead of a movie. The most important thing is to have a good story and it doesn’t matter what kind of form it will be, whether is a comic or a movie or a book form. Just as long as you have a good story to base something on that you can really write cool lyrics about or go for. And so eventually we came up for the idea of the comic and we hired and we met with the artist, somebody who drew the drawing for the comic and he became a friend of ours, so we asked him like "would you like to draw this comic for us?" and he goes "yes I can". So we asked "do you know someone who can materialize a good story?" and he gave us Steven O’Connell. We called Steven and he really didn’t have a good script lying around, but then he asked ok what kind of movies did we like, what kind of books do we read to give him an idea of what kind of corner we are coming from to have a story for. He started with a basic rough storyline and he called us later and gave us the basic story line asking what we thought  of for what he had in mind. At the time it wasn’t called "The Unforgiving", it was just rough storyline idea of people who are basically good people making bad choices in bad circumstances, you know, they’re given a chance to change themselves in the afterlife, by mother nature. Well we like the idea a lot, and despite of it, we started feeding him the ideas we wanted in the story while working on the basic story line. When it was finished he was like "ok, I’m going to share it with someone who can write three short movies for us". What happened then was the production company also had some good ideas with the storyline and we asked if can we put our ideas in as well because it would make the story even richer in some parts and in other parts, a little more deeper. He sent something so we had a lot of creative people around us. We did it in several meetings, six episodes of course, six different parts, and the whole six parts will be the whole story of the comic.

This time with "The Unforgiving" you've decided to cover all the arts: cinema, comics, music. Can you tell us more about the Dutch film "Me & Mrs. Jones" and its film director Paul Ruven, when did you meet him and how did this collaboration happen with you lending him the song "Where is the Edge"?

Yes, well the songs that you hear for "Me & Mrs. Jones", the songs are based for the story of "The Unforgiving", but he was allowed to use those two songs for his movie. Cause you know, he was still looking for soundtrack music and he really liked our music and especially the song "Lost", which is also used in the movie. It was something that really referees to a certain character, almost like it had been written for movie, but actually it was written for "The Unforgiving". Of course the lyrics are multi purposeful so you can use it when you have a bigger movie, it might look like it’s written for that movie as well, but it was written for "The Unforgiving". We really clicked with him, I think also he was the one who introduced us to the production company who made the short movies later on.

I was thinking, have you ever thought to produce and project a full-length film based on the concept album?

Yah we would love to, but that’s very expensive (laughs). We were really glad we were able to do these short movies in this certain quality of course. We hope there will be a director that says "Hey, this is cool, I would like to make a movie about this". You know, you never know (laughs). We’ll still keep dreaming though. You never know what could happen in the future and we hope so.

So let’s talk about the band’s current issues: So now you announced your 3rd pregnancy, so congratulations on that.

Thank you.

Unfortunately Stephen left the band in March 2010, are still you still searching for a new drummer or will you hire a live drummer only? (Note : this interview was done in Febraury at the time, we didn't know about the name's drummer)

It’s gonna be a new drummer, it’s going to be our second drummer now.

So I’m sure you want to wait in announcing the new drummer?

Yes, it should be in two weeks or something like that. (Laughs) Sorry, it’s still a mystery!

I understand (laughs). SO I am a huge fan, I have all your albums and I check out always all of your videos on YouTube. This is actually how I discovered Ronald Kolk according to the YouTube video report he will collaborate with the band for designing new outfits. Can you tell us more about him and what we can expect?

Well it’s more like, in a few weeks when I have a little more time off from promotion, I’ll go to him and what I’ll do is I’ll make some mood boards, and a mood board gives all the wild ideas I have in my head. And he will pick out all the things he likes and since he has a lot of experience of course with clothing, it will make a spectacular show. So we are gonna combine our ideas and see what he can make for me. And I’ll be wearing the outfits on stage in the near future, but I won’t be only wearing his cloths but I will combine it with other items from other brands of course. It’s more like if you make high fashion, with leather pants, but the very cool ones or with very smart looking boots and everything. It’s gonna be very different from what I’ve done before, because I’ve always worn very cool dresses. It depends on what part of the show for what kind of cloths I will be wearing.

At the end of the 2009 you've published "An Acoustic Night at the Theatre" live album and to this followed a rerun of the Theatre Tour in The Netherlands, Holland, and Belgium only. Why you have not brought the Theatre Tour to rest of Europe?

Well we would love to go to everywhere, but the problem is that you need certain set ups for the theatre and most venues are not use to having metal or symphonic rock bands in the theatre and that’s something that’s happening now in Belgium and Holland a lot because promoters see that they have to bring new things to the theatres because they hoping to bring a new audience to the theatre this way and for them it was a special thing to do. It’s not very usual, they didn’t see the whole picture of what within temptation was trying to do. We were hoping by making the album and maybe some footage, you know, video footage of it then people might understand it and then we could go abroad as well with that. Unfortunately the video didn’t work out because of the lighting, it was very difficult to film it but never say never, maybe the future will bring it to Italy, be we have not played much in Italy at all. Though I think we have been there a few times, but not as much yet. I think first we have to do our rock and roll metal show and then we can go into a theatre (laughs).

I told you straight before that Italy is such a difficult place to have a band like you in a theatre because, in Italy there is a strange mentality, no one likes to promote metal in Italy.

No, well that’s the same thing in most countries I think, not even rock music in some places. But I think if people get to know you more, who you are as a band, and how diverse you are to them then things might change, it has to change somewhere. In Holland it has changed now, so you know before we did this there was never a band who did the same thing as theatre before, not a metal rock band that has played there, not a band like us. You know, we have always played metal festivals or something like that. I think it has to start with somebody at a certain time so you never know, never say never is what I say. Always keep faith (laughs).

(laughs) Yes, many of your songs are featured in such TV series like "The Vampire Diares" and now recently in "The Borgias" trailer with the song "Jillian". Did you know of this or it was a surprise for you too to discover your song on such mainstream TV series?

Well, they are very cinematic series of course, very dark in a way, and epic also. So I think we suit those kind of series. So I was not that surprised, but I was surprised when people used our music afterwards because you’re never prepared for it. It’s always an honour of course to be asked to have your music used for something like that. So we are always very happy when people ask, we just say of course! And it spreads the name of Within Temptation to new people who have never heard of us before, so they get to know of us that way. Even to countries that have never heard of Within Temptation at all sometimes.

Exactly, it’s a way to know you also.

Well we always hope that they like it!

Now you have played with an orchestra, shot these 3 short films and in the near future will publish those comics, what's the next Within Temptation dream to fulfill?

Starting with this comic, we might follow it up in the future, it depends if it goes with the next album we write.. I am unsure about it at the moment, because though we are enthusiastic about it and very happy, it is a maybe. But maybe in the future one day there will be a full length movie. That is still a dream that we have. It maybe or may not happen but there is always new dreams for us on the horizon, so it is very cool.

Yes, it is exciting, every day you discover something new to do and fulfill.

Yes, exactly, you always have new dreams again, cause you have new ideas for new inspiration and then you also think of things that you haven’t thought of before, like are they even possible or well are they just a new thought no one has thought of before.

Well we are at the end.

Well thank you very much.

I really thank you for answering my questions, I hope I did not bore you with that.

No, No, No! You were my first Italian interviewer! 

Are you kidding me?

No! You are my first interviewer from Italy this whole week. And the first one for this album, so it is nice to know.

Really? I am really proud of it!

(Laughs)

Well thanks again from me and all of our Femme Metal readers.

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