This interview was conducted by Philip A. Wickstrand with guitarist Mark Jansen at the Hawthorne Theatre in Portland, OR on December 4, 2010.

As the sheer number of female fronted Symphonic Metal bands creates an increasingly crowded subgenre, it gets more and more difficult to stand out from the crowd. So many bands, all vying for the same audience, can prove to be difficult for some fans to pick through. Fortunately for EPICA, their talent, passion and excellent live show have given them name recognition above most other bands that attempt to play the same style. Their most recent album, Design Your Universe, was released in October, 2009 by Nuclear Blast.

Phil: First of all, how has the tour been so far?

Mark: So far, so good - we have not had much bad luck yet. Especially in the beginning there were a lot of venues sold out, so it's going very well and hopefully our singer also doesn't get ill 'cause for her… for me, it's no problem when I'm sick; I can still do the same show, but for clean singers, of course, she should prevent to get ill and so far, so good. Everything is going well, so [knocks on wood] hopefully it keeps like that. [laughter]

Phil: What would you say the best shows have been so far on this tour?

Mark: That's always hard to say, what's the best shows, but I think New York was really cool, Montreal in Canada, Vancouver yesterday was a really good show. But also some smaller clubs, that when you're really into it, you have a great time, so for example, Seattle, I had a great time. It was a smaller crowd there, but the crowd was there - they were wild and they're going crazy.

Phil: That's unusual for Seattle.

Mark: Yeah. [laughter] But we always have a good time in Seattle. In the beginning, when we were touring for the first time in America, I was afraid about the stories I'd heard, but for us, Seattle has always been good.

Phil: That's good. A lot of times I'll go see shows in Seattle and then see them in Portland and the crowd reaction is sometimes day and night. Like, the Seattle crowd is always appreciative, but all they do is clap at the end of the song and they don't do anything else.

Mark: Yeah, but with us it's different - there were mosh pit and people going really wild.

Phil: Excellent!

Mark: But maybe it's also we played there in a quite small club. When it's a small club, there's a lot of warmth, literally, and when it's warm, people go more wild than when it's a big theatre. For example, when you play in a big theatre and it's like three hundred people and it looks empty, people are a bit like "Eh." So you can better play in a small club and have three hundred people than in a real big one.

Phil: Studio Seven or El Corazon?

Mark: El Corazon.

Phil: Ah. That's one of those places where they pack 'em in tight. It's one of those places that I'd imagine is really good for bands to play, but being in the audience there can kind of be brutal. [laughs]

Mark: I know, I know. But for us, I like these kinds of stages. [laughter]

Phil: What made you choose the particular opening acts that you have on your tour?

Mark: We always go through the opening possibilities with our booker, Jon Finberg. He asks us first "Which bands would you like to see on your tour?" and then we give him some names and then he starts contacting the bands. SCAR SYMMETRY was one of the bands that was really high on our list, so when they confirmed we were really happy about that even though our former guitarist, who's not in the band anymore, he's a huge fan of SCAR SYMMETRY, so when he heard that we were going to tour with them, he was like "Shit! I stopped too early!" [laughter] And BLACKGUARD, we know these guys already from the previous tour, they are really growing and they are always giving one hundred percent on stage, they are really professional and THE AGONIST, they joined the tour because MUTINY WITHIN, they dropped out because their drummer left, so we were happy that we could find a good replacement for them because last minute is not always that easy to find the right replacement, so that's how we got the package together.

Phil: Do you find that it's hard being away from home, touring like you do, for long stretches of time?

Mark: No, not at all. It's always good to be back home, especially when it's Christmas time and you have some dinners with family, so that's the thing I look always so forward to. But at this moment I don't miss home at all. I'm having a great time, I live to travel and that's why making music is for me an excuse to travel around the world, because that's the thing I love to do most. Of course, I love making music, but traveling was always my biggest dream and now because of the music, I can travel. So when I'm traveling, I have no time to think about home. [laughs]

Phil: What's your favorite thing that you've seen on tour so far, outside of the shows?

Mark: In general, of all the years?

Phil: Yeah, just what you've been able to see so far.

Mark: It's a really general thing, but what I really appreciate is to see other cultures. [the bus shakes] What was that? [pause followed by laughter] That was a really short one. [laughter] What I really appreciate is to meet other cultures and everywhere in the world there are different cultures and you learn a lot from that because there are people that live only in The Netherlands, have their view about other people and they know exactly how these other people are, but they've never visited these countries, so I always say the best thing to get an open mind is to travel because then you have way more respect towards other people. I think once you live in your own country and never move out of it or never try to understand other people, then these kind of ideas can grow, that other cultures can be dangerous, for example, and reality is not that black and white.

Phil: It's never fun when an American travels ever since Bush was president; we have to tell people we're Canadian now, otherwise we get spit on. [laughter]

Mark: Yes, but you cannot also judge a whole continent just because of their president.

Phil: Yeah. Government's not a good representation of the people that live there.

Mark: No, definitely not. We had a guy, he was seven years our president, Jan Peter Balkenende, and he was a complete loser. When I travel around the world and people say "You are like this guy," that would be insane. That's the same with George W. Bush. He is not like the American people in general and I know many people in America itself that hated this guy as well. I don't hate anybody, but he had some weird ideas.

Phil: Yeah. [laughter] Okay, now that you've had some time to step away from it, where do you think Design Your Universe stands amongst the rest of the EPICA catalogue?

Mark: That's still hard to say because Design Your Universe is my favorite album and even though the first album, The Phantom Agony is most dear to me because it was the first album and was a statement, but I think quality-wise Design Your Universe is the best album we ever made and that's why we take quite long now to make the next album because it will be damn hard to top Design Your Universe. But we're going to give it a try. We were writing out music and I don't feel the pressure anymore of… this new album coming up, Isaac Delahaye, the new guitarist, will be involved from the scratch and on Design Your Universe he got in the band while basically all the songs were written already, could only add some guitar riffs here and there and now it's new chances, new lineup with Isaac - let's see how the music is going to be with him.

Phil: How much do you actually have written so far?

Mark: Quite a lot, actually, because every free moment I was also composing and also I wrote music for a side project that I'm doing with also some guys from EPICA, some guys from former bands that I've played in. So that was to put my mind off on something else. But in the meantime, every time I thought this idea doesn't work for the other band, I thought it was more EPICA-like, then I kept on writing and put it on the shelf to wait and see what would happen after awhile when I listen to it again. No now it's like basically ten songs written and also the other guys have some ideas, so when we all have some songs finished we come together and we start working them out, but I think we will go to the studio next summer.

Phil: What do you think fans can expect from the new material, both for EPICA and for your new band?

Mark: From the Mayan band, that will be more heavy because some fans always ask me "Can please do some more grunts on the EPICA albums?" But then I say "Simone is our frontwoman, I would never do way more grunts and then she has a side role," for example and we cannot do that. But I thought it's a pretty cool idea, so I thought I just start another band with another name and then I can do whatever I want. So then I can use all the real heavy stuff for my side band and EPICA can remain EPICA, so I thought that was the best solution and so I think the new EPICA album will be in the vein of Design Your Universe. Of course, we try every time new things and so this time we will try out new elements. But the Mayan band, that will be more like the brutal stuff.

Phil: What kind of lyrics do you have prepared for the next EPICA album or have you even started that process yet?

Mark: No, we always write first the music and then we start with the lyrics. I'm just done then writing the lyrics for the other band, so it will take awhile before I get some new inspiration for the EPICA lyrics. But that will come out after.

Phil: Recommend a book for our readers and then explain why you recommend that particular work.

Mark: There are so many books that I can recommend, but currently I'm reading the book about MOTLEY CRÜE and it was a nice book to read on tour; we're on tour ourselves and to see what these guys have been through, it's quite funny to read that kind of stuff. It's not a really literal work but it's fun, so people who want to have something fun to read can read that. People who want to have something more… I would say more interesting in a science way, I can recommend something like a book I've been reading about quantum physics, but I don't remember the name of the book.

Phil: That's a pretty heavy subject. [laughs]

Mark: Yeah, I love to read about that subject because there's so much going on. And I also read about near death experiences and there's been a Dutch guy, van Lummel is his name, and he wrote a book last year or two years ago about near death experiences and he really had a scientific approach, 'cause most scientists, they have like a tunnel vision and they say it's all non-sense, near death experience, all within the brain, and he has it from a different approach, he's from different view, that it can exist and he takes it seriously and he investigates it. And I think that's really good, a scientist with an open mind who tried to investigate also subjects like death because that's a thing which in society is not done to discuss because people don't like to speak about it. So I would recommend that book about van Lummel to people then.

Phil: Have you read about the coffins they had in the 1800s where people actually had bells that they could ring on them if they in fact turned out to not be dead, which actually did happen on a number of occasions?

Mark: Really? That's funny.

Phil: Yeah. I think that only the rich could afford them 'cause they were pretty expensive and they weren't very common, but I do know that they did exist.

Mark: And really some people rang the bells?

Phil: Yeah. I remember reading about this one guy, he got buried alive, I think on… maybe three separate occasions? Or maybe he was just put in coffins on three separate occasions before he was actually finally dead.

Mark: Whoa. [laughs] Yeah, some weird things happen and sometimes people, they are really dead and the doctors say it's over and then the guy gets alive and then everybody says it's a miracle. It's not a miracle - it exists. You cannot say it's a miracle, come on. These things just happen sometimes - a person is dead and they come back to life. Of course, you cannot be dead for days and then come back to life, but sometimes a person, I really believe, is dead and then two things can happen - for some reason they get back to life or they remain dead. It's a mystical thing.

Phil: Okay, is there anything else you'd like to add?

Mark: That I hope the rest of the tour will go as well as the first half of the tour and we're going now towards California, so finally we're going to be able to wear some short sleeves again. [laughter]

Epica's Mark Jansen

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

December 15, 2010

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PHOTOS BY PHIL A. WICKSTRAND

(Click on Photos to Enlarge)

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

Formed: 2003
Reuver, Limburg  Netherlands
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Genre: Symph. Power/Gothic Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Simone Simons:  Vocals
Mark Jansen:  Guitar & Harsh Vocals
Isaac Delahaye: Guitar
Coen Jansen: Keyboards
Yves Huts: Bass
Ariën Van Weesenbeek:  Drums

DISCOGRAPHY:

The Phantom Agony (2003)
We Will Take You with Us DVD (2004)
Consign to Oblivion (2005)
The Score - An Epic Journey (2005)
The Road to Paradiso:
                Best of/Compilation (2006)
The Divine Conspiracy (2007)
The Classical Conspiracy -
                               Live album (2009)
Epica & Jägermeister EP (2009)
Design Your Universe (2009)