Rock My Monkey: Hello, you are listening to the Rock My Monkey netcast on RockMyMonkey.com. Today we are speaking with Simone of the band Epica. How are you doing today, Simone?
Simone Simons: I’m doing great.
Rock My Monkey: You guys played Seattle last night, but I wasn’t able to make it. How did the show go?
Simone Simons: It was great. There were a lot of people, I think about three hundred and fifty people. The mosh pit started already during the first song. That’s something we’re not used to, so we were very happy with that.
Rock My Monkey: Cool. Now, I heard that the band had to spend some time in the hospital yesterday. Is everyone okay?
Simone Simons: No, that was me. I had an infection on my leg, and I had to have a checkup to see if it was healing okay.
Rock My Monkey: Okay. So you’re okay, though?
Simone Simons: Yeah, yeah. It’s getting better. It was really nasty. I had to do one show sitting on a chair, and one with crutches. But now I’m doing much better.
Rock My Monkey: Cool. Now, the individual songs seem to have rather diverse subject matters lyrically. How do all these separate topics come together as one cohesive concept album?
Simone Simons: Well, the whole album is actually about humanity, and the many sides to humanity. The first part of the album is about the negative side of the human psyche. It’s about greed, addiction. Then you have the second part of the album that deals about religion. Then the third part of the album which deals about nature. So it’s kind of a wide topic covering a lot of aspects about the world.
Rock My Monkey: Do you at all worry about any backlash from the Muslim community because of the song Death Of A Dream?
Simone Simons: Well, I don’t think so. Everybody is entitled to have their own opinion as long as you don’t talk bad about others. For me the song is just about the true story about a woman who is Muslim who fell in love with a guy who was a Christian. Or he was at least not a Muslim. She got pregnant, and her brother killed her for that. That is just a true story that I got inspired by. So it’s not that I’m making things up.
Rock My Monkey: What inspired the band to do a Fear Factory cover, and why was that chosen as the bonus track for Europe?
Simone Simons: Well, some of the band members really like the band Fear Factory, especially the song “Replica”. And second, a funny story to it is when we started off as Epica before when Mark was in After Forever some of the After Forever fans were calling us Replica. So it’s first of all we like the song, and second of all it’s a bit of a joke.
Rock My Monkey: Will American fans have the chance to buy that expanded edition with the DVD and everything?
Simone Simons: I think so. You should be able to order it online if it’s not in stores.
Rock My Monkey: Okay. But I mean, do you think Nuclear Blast America will release it as a domestic release, or is this something that’s always going to be an import?
Simone Simons: I’m not sure. I can ask Mark who’s with me. One second. (speaks native language) Yes, I want to say that it’s available by the internet, so it’s probably not in stores here. You got to do an effort to get it.
Rock My Monkey: Are there any plans to find a permanent replacement to your past drummer?
Simone Simons: Well, at the moment we are very happy with Koen Herfst and Ariën Weesenbeek. Ariën is at the moment with us on tour, and he’s also the guy who recorded the album. We are working with both of them. They are working in shifts. We had already had some auditions for drummers, but none were as good as Koen or Ariën. So we decided to do it like this until we find a drummer. We are not in a hurry. It’s going okay like this.
Rock My Monkey: Jeroen Simmons is he any relation to you? Is he a brother or anything?
Simone Simons: No. He’s not related to me. It’s a very common name, Simmons.
Rock My Monkey: Oh, okay. Now, what comes first for the band. Would it be lyrics or music?
Simone Simons: You mean as a priority?
Rock My Monkey: Yeah, during the writing process.
Simone Simons: It’s fifty/fifty, I guess. Sometimes we have already topics we want to write about. We start to scramble some sentences together. Sometimes the music is inspiring you to write more, but sometimes the lyrics are inspiring the music. So it’s fifty/fifty. Sometimes lyrics are done really fast. Mark is very good in writing lyrics. The music, when he has the chorus, he writes fitting lyrics. I guess I’m more of the one who writes lyrics before, and then I have to adapt them to my vocal lines to make them flow nicely.
Rock My Monkey: I heard that you were going to be, or you have recently, recorded some tracks for the Ayreon Project. How many songs will fans be able to hear you on?
Simone Simons: I just did one song, but a whole song. I’m one of the few singers who can sing a whole song instead of parts on many songs. So the song is kind of slow. It’s very easy to listen to. It’s a very nice melody. There’s also a male guest singer who sings one verse in it. The song is about internet and the title is called “Web Of Life”. It’s about a young girl who gets involved with a guy by the internet and who falls in love quite fast with somebody she does not even know. That is the song. I really like it.
Rock My Monkey: What do you think Sasha brought to the cd as a producer that would not have been there otherwise?
Simone Simons: Sorry. Could you repeat that?
Rock My Monkey: Your producer, Sascha? What do you think he brought to the cd as a producer that would not have been there otherwise?
Simone Simons: Well, I have no idea how the album would have sounded like without him, because the other two albums were recorded with Sascha, as well. And we are so familiar with the whole studio and Sascha that we did not want to change our working methods, so we decided to continue working with him, but he definitely has a big influence on our sound, although we asked on this album for him to make a little bit more rough mix. A little bit harder than the usual Epica album. So you could say he’s a little bit part of the band, as well, but what would be missing if he’s not there is something I can’t really say.
Rock My Monkey: Many bands that have been around for a while, especially a band that’s as young as Epica is, will have a signature song. They’ll end up creating a signature song early on in the career. Like Motorhead has Ace Of Spades. It’s a song that’s followed them around for their entire career. What song off of this album do you think is going to be your Ace Of Spades, a song that Epica fans demand for decades to come?
Simone Simons: Well, so far all the fans who listened to the new album have said they really liked Chasing The Dragon. And they said “La‘petach Chatat Rovetz” is a favorite, I believe. Let me see, I also think that the ballad, “Sancta Terra” are the favorites of our fans so far. And from our other albums you can relate to the reaction you get from the crowd when you play it. Crash Of The Moon, Facade Of Reality, and Consign to Oblivion, the most popular song is definitely Consign to Oblivion, which we almost play as the last song on the set, or the audience will go crazy. We haven’t play all new songs yet, but when we come back to Holland, we will have a presentation where we will play all the songs. And I guess it will have to grow for them to see which is their favorite songs, and which is going to bring us up to the next level.
Rock My Monkey: Cool. Now, what makes, what do you think makes Epica unique in the symphonic power metal scene, and what do you think you guys offer that no other symphonic power metal band does today?
Simone Simons: Good question. Every band is different. For some people who are not really into the music, the differences are hard to tell. But I definitely think that with the first two albums we were still searching for our sound. The band was still young. Now with the third album, new record label, different drummer, I think we have found the style that fits Epica. So it’s very powerful, with a lot of energy, alsothe live shows. I have improved my singing. I am more versatile than I was before. So yeah, that’s how I would describe it. For me every singer is still different, but for people who are not into the music, it’s kind of hard for them to see the differences. Like for me, with R&B and hip hop, for me it’s also all the same.
Rock My Monkey: Who came up with the concept on the “Never Enough” video? Was that more the band, or the director?
Simone Simons: It was the director. It was not our choice. Yeah, we didn’t say that would be the story, but we just gave them all the freedom, to see what they would come up with. And it’s the best video that we’ve ever done so far.
Rock My Monkey: Do you think that it correctly describes what the lyrical content of the song is?
Simone Simons: Well, the lyrics can be interpreted in many ways. First of all, it’s just kind of a topic of greed that people are so greedy nowadays. They only value the material things of life. That’s also how certain relationships are built upon, that they don’t give and take as much in a relationship. That’s the side we made the video of.
Rock My Monkey: Especially with you guys being called Epica, and when you listen to your music, it is obviously very epic. When people see you guys live, what can people expect from your live show? Is it more of a stripped down kind of thing, or do you add anything to make the visual theatrics to go along with the dynamic music that you play?
Simone Simons: Well, we have new backdrops, really nice ones. So for the fans they have something nice to look at, besides the guys in the band, of course. But yeah, everybody has always said that we have a very energetic live show. The thing is, when we play music live, we have to bring it back to life. I think we succeed in doing that. We always interact with the fans. I think that’s very important, because the fans, they give you energy, but then you give energy back to them, so you have to interact. That’s very important for the fans to have the feeling that they are really in the whole music making at that moment.
Rock My Monkey: Before I ask my final question, is there anything you’d like to say to the fans of Epica, or the readers of RockMyMonkey.com?
Simone Simons: Yeah, of course I want to say thank you for the support. And I hope they already bought the new album. We are still touring in the U.S. for about two weeks. You can check on our website, Epica.nl, which shows we are playing. And I hope to see you then.
Rock My Monkey: I do have one final question. Every year we do choose one final question that we ask every single band, from classic rock legends to the most extreme death metal bands at the end of every interview, partially to stump people, but also to see who wimps out and won’t answer. This year I’m asking people to look into their crystal ball and predict what political figure, world leader, musician, celebrity, anybody well known, anybody world wide famous, who do you think might die before the end of the year?
Simone Simons: You mean in Holland?
Rock My Monkey: Anybody world wide famous.
Simone Simons: I’m sorry. I kind of lost your whole thing, what you were talking about. I’m sorry. Could you repeat it one more time?
Rock My Monkey: Anybody world famous. It could be a celebrity, it could be a political figure. It could be anyone from somebody who plays music, an actor, a president of some country, anything. Who do you think might die before the end of the year?
Simone Simons: Might die?
Rock My Monkey: Yes.
Simone Simons: Oh, god. That’s sad. I have no idea. I’m usually not so good in predicting things. Well, I’m also not up to date, I must say. When you travel in a tour bus, you don’t really see the news or read the newspaper. But for me, already what happens, is Pavaratti died, and I was very sad about that. I knew that he was very ill, so I had already some feelings that he would die soon. So I guess that would be my answer, but that is already in the past.
Rock My Monkey: Right, right.
Simone Simons: I think it’s kind of bad karma to say, ‘Oh, that person is going to die.’
Rock My Monkey: Okay. Alright. Well, I thank you very much for doing the interview.
Simone Simons: No problem.
Rock My Monkey: Anybody that is listening to the audio version can go to RockMyMonkey.com for the full featured version with clickable links, readable text, and many more wonderful features. I’m asking for readers to click on the album cover above and below this interview to purchase The Divine Conspiracy by Epica, and I do hope to maybe see you guys up in the Northwest, maybe when you spin back around next time.
Simone Simons: That would be very cool.
Rock My Monkey: Thank you very much for your time.
