Bernice Afriyie | Arts Editor
Featured image courtesy of Epica
In the world of metal, Epica, a Dutch symphonic group, sings to a different tune than most metal groups. They’ve gained international recognition for their sound and topical songs. Epica is currently touring the world and played in Toronto at the Phoenix Concert Theatre on November 6. If you didn’t get a chance to hear them perform live this past Sunday, here’s an interview Excalibur conducted with Mark Jansen, Epica’s founder and lead singer.
Excalibur: How did you all meet and form Epica?
Mark Jansen: I founded the band in 2002. I knew some of the guys already from being on the road with After Forever, and some of the others we found by the internet. Arien van Weesenbeek and Isaac Delahaye, who joined us later, we knew from God Dethroned and Coen Janssen knew them from his years at the conservatory in Rotterdam.
E: What can listeners expect from The Holographic Principle?
MJ: I would encourage everybody to listen to it. Fasten your seatbelt and be prepared for an energetic ride through trash metal riffs, symphonic progressives and death metal.
E: How has your sound and relationship grown into the culmination of The Holographic Principle?
MJ: After we recorded the DVD Retrospect, we started thinking about how we wanted Epica to sound in the future. We started this project, “Epica 2.0”, with producer Joost van den Broek. In the last two albums you can hear what this means. It’s still Epica but the sound is more up to date. We still work with our old producer Sascha Paeth as well. He has been very important for Epica and still is. Sascha and Joost form a great team with us. I cannot leave Jacob Hansen out as well, as he mixed the last two albums and is also responsible for this new sound. Also, within the band we have changed some things, like the writing process. We rehearse more and everybody contributes to the songs. We work more on the smaller details, music-wise, lyric-wise and also sound-wise.
E: What’s the meaning behind the album’s title?
MJ: The Holographic Principle is a theory in quantum physics which states that the universe might be a hologram. Virtual reality plays an important role in this. Within the next decades virtual reality will be so well-developed that we might be able to create universes within our existing universe which look and feel as real as our current reality. That’s the moment we might realize that our own reality is a virtual reality itself, as well: a hologram.
E: What separates you from other metal bands?
MJ: We have a very healthy work attitude, we work hard and never give up on reaching our goals. Besides that, we have always toured a lot to serve our fans and we focused on the whole world and not just on one continent. The quality of the music is up to the fans to judge but we always go for the best possible result and always want to compose a high-quality album. Our singer Simone Simons is also part of our success.
E: How do you challenge stereotypical notions of what metal music can do, sound like and be?
MJ: We do whatever we feel like and no one needs to tell us how to sound or what to change. We have always been like that. When you make music with the right intentions and follow your intuition, it can hardly go wrong. There are many people who enjoy our music and that’s a great compliment for us. It’s great to be able to create some art that is appreciated by so many people in the world.
E: What’s the strangest thing a fan has ever said to you?
MJ: Nothing. What a true fan says can be strange in a way and some things are very personal, [and] people sometimes share their deepest emotions and very private topics with you. When a fan says something, even if it sounds strange at first, I have learned to take such things seriously and try to understand what they mean with strange comments. In the end it usually all makes sense.
E: Lastly, how does performing live differ from recording and practicing in the studio?
MJ: These are two different worlds. Recording means trying to record your music the best possible way and playing it live is to feel the interaction with our fans and see what the music does to them. This interaction is what I like the most about making music.
