(by Stephanie Cabral)
At first glance someone might look at Holland’s After Forever and think, “ah shit, here’s another female fronted metal band jumping on the Evanescence bandwagon.” Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The band really began a decade ago when the operatic voice of 16-year-old Floor Jansen joined the ensemble. But don’t let Floor’s operatic training fool you, her and guitarist Sander Gommans are pure metal.
Like a speeding freight train racing by you with the blissful song of birds overhead, After Forever, which includes Joost Van Den Broek (keys), Luuk Van Gerven (bass), Bas Maas (guitar) and Andre Borgman (drums) embody multiple dynamics. Metal Maniacs met up with Floor and Sander at the Hollywood Bowl for Beethoven’s 9th Symphony to discuss their first US album release.
Metal Maniacs: Not only did we come to see an orchestra, but you had one play on your album?
Sander Gommans: We re-recorded all of our albums with a string quartet, so we were used to working with classical musicians. When we heard Dimmu Borgir, the album of 2001, I was amazed by their sound because it sounded brutal and still classical. And to get the aggressive sound they have, you need to have an orchestra. I don’t think it’s something unique or something special, but it sure sounds good.
MM: Didn’t Metallica cheese-out the orchestra idea?
SG: That’s why I say it’s nothing special, but when you hear all of our albums you know that this was a combination that was certainly calling. We actually wrote the songs with an orchestra in mind. And Joost, the keyboard player, actually wrote all of the arrangements, so we did everything ourselves and not many bands do that.
MM: How is this album different from your previous records?
SG: Well, first of all this record is a combination of all the styles we did. Normally we focus on a certain style: progressive, melodic, catchy, and this album has all these elements combined. This album is far more groovy and much more aggressive and dynamic.
MM: What inspires your lyrics?
Floor Jansen: I need to write about things that I find interesting. For this album it was energy. There are so many forms of energy and that became a source of inspiration. It’s not like I always write straight from the heart.
MM: For a song like “De-Energized,” you seemed a bit pissed off.
FJ: Yes, oh yes. I mean everyone knows a person that you can’t get along with, that you even hate. Those situations are taking energy. They suck the energy out of you.
MM: It’s hard to imagine you saying the things in that song to a person’s face.
FJ: If I get really upset or really angry, I start to cry. I can’t talk anymore. Indeed, I don’t think I could ever say it like that. I wish I could.
MM: How did the duet with Doro Pesch in “Who I Am” come about?
FJ: The idea came before the song… to find a cool combination with my voice and to show the metal side of us. Sander came up with Doro. There are so many female-fronted bands now, but Doro has been around way longer, and her style is more heavy metal. That song “Who I Am” is about multiple personalities. So we have two personalities in one head, sang by two different voices.
MM: In the States, most of the female-fronted bands in the ‘80s were hair metal bands. What was the music scene in Holland when you grew up?
FJ: Well, I didn’t grow up with Doro, I’m too young for that. I came into the metal scene when I was about 16 and there wasn’t a metal scene at that time so I went back to older bands. If you respect yourself you have to know metal’s history. You can’t say “I don’t know Iron Maiden, or Judas Priest,” or “I never heard of Slayer” That’s not done! You have to embrace it completely.
SG: I started with Europe’s Final Countdown in 1986-87 and since that band I’ve been listening to metal. And now I listen to all kinds of metal styles. And I’m really happy that there are more bands that play guitar solos again. I’m happy that the nü-metal scene that was around for years and years has been concurred by the real metal and that’s how it should be!
MM: You’ve specifically said, “we’re not a goth band.” Do you feel being labeled goth has a negative stigma?
SG: I think certainly the atmosphere in our music is often very metal or even rock, but certainly not gothic. The biggest problem is I don’t want to be seen as a gothic person. Nobody in the band is. We are rock people and metal people.
FJ: And for people who are true metal fans, if they hear we are a gothic band, they are like, “uh oh, no, we are not going to go there.” There is a prejudice with that name and that’s not cool.
Floor was suffering from a little jet-lag and nodded off halfway into the 9th, but Sander was the consummate tourist, camera phone constantly in hand, with the not-so-obvious review of the night, “the orchestra stole everything from Yngwie.”
