Dutch Symphonic Metal gods Within Temptation embark on the United States once again. First stop is Baltimore Maryland, where the Metal never sleeps.

Empire Extreme got to sit down and talk to singer Sharon den Adel about being on tour again and all things throughout a 20 year plus career.

EE: How was the flight here, I seen that you posted on Facebook that you flew out yesterday.

SA: Yeah we got here around 7am or so, to the hotel. A little jet lag so we will see how that goes.

EE: Have you guys ever had any issues with getting your visas to get into the states?

SA: It’s really tough, it’s a lot of work to get them. It’s different for every country, but we never had any problems with getting them.

EE: Are you excited about playing with In Flames?

SA: Yeah, I’m really happy they are on tour with us.

EE: You just dropped your new album recently, how’s the response been from that?

SA: It went very well, even better than the Hydra album. We had a little bad luck with releasing the album, but it turned out very well. We had to release more singles and fans have been able to listen to those, we had 5 songs released and they knew them when we played live. We had the same thing happen when we did Mother Earth, but it let’s the fans more excited and get to know the songs better.

EE: You did a song with Anders from In Flames, are you planning on playing that since you’re on tour with them?

SA: I asked him, we will play it, maybe not every night but we will for sure during the tour.

EE: Do you think there is a reason why especially with Europeans that they just love the symphonic goth metal?

SA: I think because we had a lot of success that it allowed other bands that go into the genre. Then a bunch of bands started it and it got some attention and inspired many more to do the genre. It became more female fronted Metal, but there were many other bands doing the same thing with only a guy singer. How we decided to do this type of music, we had a lot of influences, we came from the death metal period and then everyone was getting a little bored with that, so they started to do more melodic type metal. Bands like Paradise Lost. They were a huge influence on us, and bands like Enya and Marillion, if you put that all ina blender you get what Within Temptation was doing.

EE: Is there a band that you would like to tour with, like a dream tour?

SA: ohh, there are so many. When we first started we got to play with Paradise Lost, we saw them as these gods and they were all the same age as we were.(Laughs) They were always like a trendsetter for me, but always just a little to early then when they were doing it. I love still love that band.

EE: Any new bands that you have been into lately?

SA: I try to stay away from bands doing similar music as us, but I’ve been living In This Moment, we did a tour with them once with Lacuna Coil and that was really cool and they became huge after that. Her presence on stage is magic.

EE: You also mentioned the female fronted bands, and here in america it always makes me laugh that most Americans think of this as being a new thing, but was huge in Europe way before.

SA: Yeah since the 90s the bands have been a lot of female fronted. It’s strange because even with Evanescence, it would have been more easy for women to be in metal and played on the radio. They opened the door for everyone, and then it was closed again.

Within Temptation played a bad ass set. Coming right out the gate with Raise Your Banner, the band just kicked so much ass, and the fans were in full force singing every word to every song. At one point during the encore song, Sharon handed the mic to a guy in the audience and started to sing the song and did an excellent job that the band were even super surprised. This was my first time to see Within Temptation live and they didn’t disappoint one bit. If you get a chance to need to see them. I can’t wait to get a chance to watch them again in the future.

About Author

Ron

Ron has keen eye for new talent, a love for the underground, and a tremendous passion for music of any genera. You’ll probably bump into him at a horror convention or some seedy club checking out the next need-to-know band.

See author's posts