Interview By Robin Stryker

 

Hailing from the land of top-notch symphonic metal, the Dutch sextet Magion immediately grabbed our attention with their three-song promo album, earning a 90/100 review and a slot on Femme Metal’s upcoming compilation album. Here is a band that delivers the entire package -- female vocals that shift effortlessly from mid-range to operatic, with superb composition and musicianship. Vocalist/lyricist Myrthe van Beest and guitarist Arjen van der Toorn sat down with Femme Metal to chat about all things Magion.

Hi guys, thank you for talking with us today!

Myrthe: Thanks for having us, it is our pleasure.

When the band first started in 2005, it was called Spheres. Why did you change the name to Magion, and what does the name represent?

Myrthe : We made that decision because Spheres used to be the solo project of our guitarist Chris Vrij. People kept making links to that other band. While actually our sound is nothing alike. Sometimes people came to see us and then they were very disappointed to see me singing instead of Chris growling. It just made things a bit complicated so we decided to change the name. I came up with Magion. It sounds a bit like Imagine and Magion is also a satellite. We quite liked that idea so Magion it was. We haven’t played much under the name "Spheres" but funny enough it still comes up frequently.

Arjen: Yeah, in fact the Magion-satellites were launched to investigate the Earth's ionosphere and magnetosphere; so there you have them "spheres" again!

Please introduce your other four band mates.

Arjen: Well, first of all we have our founder David de Waal. He’s a very experienced and popular drummer who played in numerous bands (a.o.: Intestine, Infinite Dawn, etc.) before he started Spheres/Magion. David is one of Magion’s main songwriters. Several times he has proved to be a very energetic and flexible guy by learning another band’s repertoire at short notice to temporarily help them out.

Next we have founder-member guitarist Chris Vrij. He had been operating mainly in the local underground metal scene for many years with his former band/project called Spheres. David involved him in this new musical project which started as Spheres and would become Magion later on. Chris is not only a great guitar player and songwriter but he’s also an experienced producer; he records/produces all music for Magion at his home-studio and nowadays he’s also producing other bands. Besides sharing guitar-duties for Magion with me, Chris takes care of the occasional raw vocals.

David and Chris approached keyboard player Walter Romberg after his former bands Slander and Infinite Dawn quit. Besides considerably contributing to Magion's massive, epic sound, he also plays some sensitive piano pieces and sometimes a nice solo. This gentle giant has the build of a basketball player which looks great on stage; Walter's always easy to spot behind his stack of keyboards!

Last but not least comes our bass player Menno Bruggeling who joined Magion in June 2007; just a week before I did. Menno played in a cover band for several years. Together with David he produces the heavy, supportive basis of Magion's music. Menno is not only a fine musician but he’s also a very clever and inventive person who’s constantly trying to stimulate Magion's further development in every possible way.

Have you been involved in bands, other than Magion?

Myrthe: My first ever band experience was, when my niece (who plays the guitar) decided that we should make a band and that I should be the singer. I wasn’t at all convinced of my vocal talents back then, but she was very persuasive and so we tried. It didn’t last very long but I did get the idea into my head that I wanted to sing in a band. My niece made me put up an ad on musicfrom.nl (a Dutch Internet magazine) and soon I was invited to sing in a cover band called Connected Hearts. We did covers of the Cranberries, Alanis Morisette; the usual stuff. I only did one gig with this band and soon after that we split up. I posted a new ad on the Internet and I got an audition with a band called Slander. This is where I met Walter our keygiant. I sang in Slander for about a year until some of the members got into a big fight and couldn’t work things out. Walter quit and went to Spheres (now Magion). I wanted to join Walter as well, but the guys wouldn’t let me audition because they thought I didn’t have the right level of skill.

After Slander split up I was of course very sad, when the Spheres guys heared that from Walter they felt sorry for me and gave me a chance to audition anyway. After a lot of bad auditions with other singers they decided that I should get a shot at it as well, not knowing that they would actually really like my voice. They hired me right away and here I am! After four years I’m still singing in Magion.

 

Arjen: Together with some friends I formed my first band in the nineties called: Edsattic. We had a lot of fun jammin’ around, learning to write our own songs and doing a handful of local gigs. After a few years I quit Edsattic because I wanted to grow as a guitar player and as a musician, so I started looking for a new challenge. That’s when I met Chris Vrij and joined his band Spheres in April 1999. Spheres was a pretty heavy and extreme band in the vein of Machine Head, Fear Factory, Pantera, etc. For the next 5 years we played together and I really learned a lot about every aspect of playing in a serious band. Eventually Spheres fell apart and I started my own band called: Pyroclastic. We were heading for a more progressive direction, strongly inspired by Symphony X, but unfortunately this band wasn’t meant to last very long. There I was, searching for new opportunities, when my former band mate Chris called and asked me if I wanted to join his new band called: Magion. I thought this would be a nice chance to do something a little bit different, so I joined the band in June 2007.

For those who have not heard your promo yet, what makes Magion's music unique?

Arjen: The powerful, gripping and dark yet accessible music matches perfectly with Myrthe's moving, partly autobiographical lyrics. The combination of our influences is what makes Magion's music unique. We all love melodic metal with female vocals but we’re also into other, more extreme stuff like thrash, death and black metal as well as progressive, neo-classical and avant-garde metal. So, metal in general is without a doubt the basis of our music. The up-tempo drum rhythms with lots of double bass accents are typically (heavy/power)metal. The rhythm guitars have a thrashy character and in every song there’s at least one guitar solo (many played by Chris; some by me). Multiple layers of keyboards add a symphonic, bombastic touch to the music and Myrthe’s intense, dramatic vocals give the songs that sense of gothic. While writing songs we like to be creative and sometimes give the music an original twist; add a little progressive edge if you will, while trying to remain accessible/catchy at the same time.There you have my analysis of the Magion-sound but actually I think everyone should listen and judge for themselves.

I was beginning to think high-resolution color screens on MP3 players were a waste of time, since so many albums have monochromatic covers. But the cover art for Magion's promo blew me away with its lush color palette and beautifully disturbing imagery. Is there a story behind the artwork?

Myrthe: Thanks for the compliment! I wrote all the lyrics for the album, so I wanted the artwork to match as well. That was quite a challenge because we have some strong-willed personalities in the band, but in the end it worked out quite well. Luckily the cover artist (Jobert Mello) was very patient with us. The main theme in "Close to Eternity" is: having dreams you can never reach. It is about setting unreachable goals (especially in love) and then thinking that, when you reach them, everything will be ok. The word "eternity" symbolizes that goal. The girl in the picture is moving towards "eternity", but is being held back by evil cupids. With this I wanted to illustrate that false love can work as a shackle and when you hold on to it too tight you will never reach your perfect goal.

It sounds like your full-length album "Close to Eternity" is well underway. How far along are you in the process?

Myrthe: Everything is done. The album is ready for manufacturing. It was recorded and mixed in Excess Studios in Rotterdam and at Chris' home-studio. It was mastered in Sweden by Dan Swanö. The artwork is done by Jobert Mello from www.sledgehammergraphix.com. The whole package is finished. We are only waiting for a label to pick it up and help us with the manufacturing, distributing and promotion of the album. At this moment we’re doing our best to find a suitable label. Hopefully 2010 will be our lucky year. We don’t want to keep the fans waiting for much longer!

 

In what ways will the full-length album be similar to or different than your promo album?

Myrthe: Well, for starters it is going to be much longer. Three out of the ten songs are on the promo album, so people will recognize those immediately. You could say that the promo is an appetizer for the full-length album. The album features every side of Magion. The more poppy side; but we also have a couple of very long and epic songs on it.

Myrthe, you cite musical influences ranging from Peter Gabriel to Tarja Turunen, and for you Arjen, Akira Takasaki to Yngwie Malmsteen. If each of you could perform alongside anyone in the world, who would it be?

Myrthe: It is very hard for me to pick one. Peter Gabriel is a childhood hero and Tarja’s voice made me want to learn to sing classically. I also would love to do a duet with Tori Amos or Kate Bush, who are also rolemodels for me. But if I have to pick one, I would sing a duet with Mikael Åkerfeldt. He has the most beautiful male voice ever. He can sing me to sleep any night of the week haha.

Arjen: My admiration for players like Eddie van Halen, Michael Schenker, Akira Takasaki, Yngwie Malmsteen and many others, inspired me to pick up the guitar when I was 10 years old and I never let go ever since. Performing with the guys of Symphony X; that would be awesome! Or jamming with Richard Andersson (Majestic, Time Requiem, Space Odyssey); a true keyboard wizard from Sweden with an amazing neo-classical style. It’s pretty hard to pick one specifically, but if I may choose I’d say it will be my all-time favorite Yngwie Malmsteen although he doesn’t play with other guitarists with the exception of the contemporary masters Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. Yngwie has a very recognizable, beautiful sound. The sheer intensity of his classically influenced style with lots of drama, flawless technique and jaw-dropping speed captivated me from the first moment I heard him play.

Speaking of performances, how was your recent gig with A New Dawn?

Myrthe: We had a lot of fun with A New Dawn, even though I had a bad case of the flu and I lost my voice and my temper that night. We got a good vibe from the crowd and nobody even heard that I had problems with singing. People kept shouting for more songs and we gave them almost every song we have. The venue was quite fun too. It looked like some kind of Mexican restaurant, but it had a really nice and big stage. There were quite some people even though there was a blizzard raging outside. They had all come to celebrate A New Dawn’s 100th gig with us and we had a really good time.

Which experiences as musicians stand out in your minds as the high point and low point of your careers so far?

Myrthe: We have had some awesome gigs over the past few years. For instance, our gig at the Summer Darkness Festival a few years ago was a really good one and when we got to open for Delain at "De Groene Engel" in Oss. That must have been our biggest venue. But of course we also had some dreadful experiences. There are always those gigs when there is almost no audience, or sometimes the stages aren’t big enough for the six of us to stand on, and sometimes you get the occasional drunken stagehands. But you learn to live with these things. We’ve also had some bad experiences with small band competitions, where there is no time to set our equipment up properly and where it doesn’t matter if you are good musicians at all. You’ll be more likely to win it, if you are related to the organisation in some way. Sometimes stuff like that sucks. But we always try to make the best of it and sometimes you have the best gigs when you don’t expect it.

Arjen: I agree! Besides the experience of recording our debut-album in a famous studio, playing live is always exciting! Summer Darkness 2007 was absolutely great, the first edition of the Phantasium Fair in Eindhoven (we played both days!) was outstanding and the shows we did recently as support for Trail of Tears and Amberian Dawn (although AD had to cancel unfortunately) were excellent too! Once in a while the sound is screwed up somehow and you just can’t get into that vibe; that’s when you leave the stage with a very unsatisfied feeling. I’m glad to say there are only a few gigs that I would like to forget for that reason, hahaha!!

Myrthe, the articles you have written for Speaker magazine are irreverent and hilarious, yet your lyrics are dark and quite heavy. Which is closer to the "real" you -- fun-loving or serious?

Myrthe: That really is a hard question. First of all I’d like to say that I am surprised you found out about the "Miss Dramaqueen Column". I thought she was long forgotten by now hahaha. To answer the question; I think people have more than one side. People show those different sides on different occasions. In real life I can be very shy and quiet at first. But when you get to know me, I will start talking and I will show my more goofy side. Writing for me is a way to express the things that go around in my head. Due to Magion’s dark and atmospheric nature it is logical that I ventilate my more dark feelings and views on the world in those lyrics. It is my way of saying everything that I can’t say in real life. With my columns it is another story. Because it was written under another name (Miss Dramaqueen), I got to say everything that bothered me and everything that came to mind without getting into trouble. That felt very liberating actually and sometimes I went a bit too far. I even got into trouble when someone I wrote a column about, found out that it was actually me who wrote it. He was not very pleased with me. But luckily in the end we made friends again and we could both laugh about it. To cut it short. I think I am both fun-loving and serious. I am very serious about my lyrics and my music. But I am also the girl who makes silly jokes on stage when things go wrong and the girl who sings "kittie songs" for her cats at home. Of course I have a darker side, otherwise I wouldn’t be into this kind of music. I can be very critical of myself and very sarcastic and I’ll never be a bouncy chearleader type of girl, but I think that’s for the best. Where else would I get inspiration for my lyrics from ?

What plans does Magion have for 2010?

Myrthe: The biggest goal for 2010 is of course releasing our first full-length "Close to Eternity". We think the fans have been waiting long enough for that. We are also going to work on our new material, which sounds very promising already. Besides that we also hope for a lot of nice gigs.

Arjen: We anxiously look forward to finding the label that's able and willing to release our debut-album in 2010! In the mean time we're very proud to be included in the upcoming "Beauty and Brutality" compilation CD from Femme Metal Records. It feels good to support cancer research together with so many other great bands! Working on new songs and presenting them live will be exciting too. Getting gigs has high priority and we're happy to confirm the first one for next year and it’s gonna be a blast for sure; we'll be supporting the mighty Epica on March 19th at De Kade, Zaandam! Furthermore we have plans for some nice merchandise and maybe even shooting a video-clip; who knows?

Any last words for your fans?

Myrthe: Hello fans if you’re out there. We hope to give you our long promised album next year and we hope to see you at one of our gigs. Thank you very much for your support, stay magionated! X Myrthe

Arjen: Please check out our band on the Internet, order our promo (or our debut-album when it’s available!) and come to see one of our shows; we promise you won’t regret it. And don’t hesitate to approach us and have a chat; we appreciate all the support and attention we get! We like to thank Tony Cannella for his wonderful review and we like to thank Robin Stryker and Femme Metal for this opportunity to present Magion to the female fronted metal fans all over the world! See you soon! Thanks again and stay Magionated! Arjen.

Thank you so much, Myrthe and Arjen. Can’t wait to hear your full-length release!

 

Links

Myrthe Van Beest Official Profile 

Magion Official MySpace

Magion Official Site

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