Interviews

Interview with Sharon den Adel of Within Temptation

Published

5 years ago

March 9, 2019

Ron

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.

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Interviews

INTERVIEW WITH MERCURY OF PRIEST

Published

1 week ago

April 23, 2024

Ron

Empire Extreme got to sit down and talk to Mercury of Priest when the band came into PA at LoveDrafts.

The show was amazing all the bands that we seen put on a great show for the fans. Vampires Everywhere killed it once again. Last time we seen Priest we only got to see them open for Powerman5000 and got like 6 songs, this time Priest was headlining and we got to see much more which I was excited to see.

Priest played a good mix of old and new and even a few songs off the album “Dark Pulse” which is out in May. We got to see 13 songs played and even Mercury come out into the crowd a few times and when they played “Obey” even blessed some of the crowd. It was great hearing songs like “BlackListed”, “Signal in the Noise”, “History in Black” and “Vaudeville”. It was such a great night of music and a great conversation with Mercury. If you get a chance to see this band play in ur town, it’s a must

About Author

Ron

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Interviews

INTERVIEW WITH OF VIRTUE

Published

2 months ago

March 4, 2024

Ron

Where does the band name come from? Wanting to be the best version of yourself at all times. The name is a reminder to hold ourselves accountable.

How is the music scene in Michigan? The Michigan music scene has always been vibrant and in my opinion, important. Do we get the credit we deserve? Absolutely not. But for the state that brought you Motown, Eminem, Lizzo, The White Stripes, I Prevail and so many other incredible artists – it’s kind of hard to believe that Michigan remains a hidden gem.

How’s the reception from the fans of the latest album “Omen”? It’s been incredible. From seeing people singing along at shows to us seeing new supporters of all different ages, colors, and creeds joining the journey. Omen has been a pivotal album in our career and we’re proud of it!

If you could tour with 2 bands, which bands would you want to tour with? Spiritbox and Bad Omens. They’re both making waves, changing who the metal audience is, and surely they’d be fun to hang around with.

Where do you draw inspiration for the lyrics? Honestly, the lyrics are our stories. The stories of our struggles, our trials and our tribulations.

What’s been your favorite tour or show? We just got off of a tour with our labelmates, Any Given Day. They treated us to a handful of sold out shows over in Europe, which at this point we call our second home. Those were great shows, but any show we’ve done in Europe is typically one for the books!

If you could bring back a dead musician, who would it be? Prince for sure. An incredible musician I would love an opportunity to chat or make music with!

About Author

Ron

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Interviews

INTERVIEW WITH TWIN TEMPLE

Published

3 months ago

February 16, 2024

Ron

Being Married and being in a band together. Do you feel that makes it easier or harder?

We love to do the Devil’s work together so for us its a match made in hell.

What’s your favorite horror movie?

That’s hard to narrow down but the first few that come to mind are Rosemary’s Baby, The Devil Rides Out, Wickerman, The Devils Reign featuring Anton Lavey, Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, anything starring Vincent Price. We also got to see an advance screen of “Late Night with the Devil” featuring a very evil performance from our friend Dave Dastmalchian. We’re also looking forward to Bryan Fuller’s “Dust Bunny” and are positive it will be a new favorite. The list goes on…..we are huge horror fans.

Favorite Non Horror Movie?

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (which is horror/noir adjacent) and The Burbs (also horror adjacent…haha.)

All of Quentin Tarantino’s films- our latest favorite is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, because 1960’s LA…

What misconception of Satanists would you like to educate people on?

We’re not here to proselytize, force our beliefs on people, or educate people on them Selves, Satanism or anything else. If people are interested in exploring Satanism, we encourage them to do their research and question everything.

If you could bring back any dead musician, who would you pick and why?

We would have loved to do a song with Ronnie Spector who recently passed. Also would have been amazing to collaborate with Jack Nitzsche who arranged so many amazing songs.

If you could tour with any 2 bands, who would you want to tour with?

The Ronnettes & The Shangri-Las.

What has been your Favorite Tour so far?

The God is Dead Tour that we’re currently on is definitely the most evil and blasphemous tour yet. We find it very pleasurable to be able to continue expanding the rituals and seeing our nightmares come true on stage.

You were on “Dragula” with the Boulet Brothers, how was that experience?

It was a fiendish delight to collaborate with some of our fav monsters.

What was it like Touring with Danzig?

Another nightmare come true! We’ve both been fans for a long time and we’re obviously inspired by the wicked world Glenn has conjured. So to get to spend time with him and watch him live every night and to now call him a friend is completely surreal. He’s a legend— but was also one of the coolest, kindest, most unholy people we’ve had the carnal pleasure of touring with.

How’s the reception of the last album “God is Dead”?

Personally, we love the record and are very proud of what we’ve accomplished. As far as other peoples’ reactions…. we don’t know and don’t care! We pleasured ourselves and that’s what matters most.

What got you interested in the style of music you play? And how would describe your music?

We’ve always loved classic American music from jazz to blues to country to rock and roll and so on. We also love the pageantry of heavy metal and theatre. So for us it was a very organic culmination of our obsessions. Rock and roll has always been the devils music.

Have you visited the Satanic Temple in Massachusetts?

No we have not but Lucien did attend one of our rituals so we had a chance to share where we get our babies blood and all things Satan.

Have you had any bad encounters at shows because of the misconception of satanism?

No! We purposefully foster a live show environment where all are welcome, all should come being the most important person in the world which is themselves, whatever that may be. Even Christians! We believe music is meant to bring joy, transcendence… We just want to share the things we love; pink, rhinestones, big hair, great rock ’n’ roll, Satanic ritual, you know… but we have had churches assemble outside our shows, screaming through distorted PA speakers that God is not dead & wishing us all a “terrible time”. Why would their God not want us to have fun? This kind of behavior is only makes us more proud to be who we are and do what we love.