There is no rest, physically or creatively, for road warriors Delain this spring.The band is currently in the midst of a tour supporting Kamelot. Once that is over in mid-May, the band will start the summer festival season.The band now has its autumn planned as they will play two club shows in Germany and the Netherlands in October to coincide with the release of the just-announced new EP that will bridge the gap between 2016’s “Moonbathers” and the next LP with a release date coming in 2019.The Swerve Magazine caught up with Charlotte Wessels and Martijn Westerholt before they played the Carnegie Library Music Hall on April 26.Wessels was fresh off a running expedition, and Westerholt just finished the touches on his latest endeavor.“Our tour manager, Britt, had a birthday (yesterday), so we had helium balloons and (Martijn) just created his own device that could carry his potato chips,” Wessels said. “It’s important to keep yourself entertained on the road. Especially when you have been on the bus for awhile, you notice how little it takes to entertain yourself. A helium ballon has provided over two days worth of fun.”Westerholt, who appears minutes after Wessels, confirms his latest creation.“Yes, I was on a helium balloon quest. It is very important.”With Wessels and Westerholt settled in, the duo that began Delain over a decade ago in the Netherlands talk life on the road, gender in rock and what comes next.So you did have some rare time off the road before this tour with Kamelot.Actually the last couple of months, we had a few months at home which is rare. I have spent more time at home than I can remember in the last couple of years. It is nice. My cats get to know me again. My husband gets to know me again.You’ve been on the road pretty consistently since releasing “Moonbathers” two years ago.Yes, we released it in August of 2016.So how is this tour?It is nice to be back here. We love to tour the states. We come back here almost every year. A lot of Delain shirts in the audiences, it is really good.I saw Delain here at the Carnegie Music Hall two years ago with the Nightwish tour. It was an interesting show as I’ve not seen people sit through a rock show before. It surprised me, how do you deal with something like that from the stage?It was different.I see it as a challenge. I also see a lot of fans get frustrated when people sit down at shows. There are seats; you have to work with what you have.



Asking people to stand with a certain song is very good. I also know that people pay to see a show and enjoy it in their own way.



MT: It is a little bit weird.





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It is.But it can work.You have to work with what you have.Speaking of working with what you have, with all this time on the road and having a few months off, are you working on new material?Yes. We are writing right now. This (tour) is kind of a break. Of course, it is no break as it is hard work touring. It is completely two different animals.With the last album, the band employed a different process where you broke up the recording process into chunks instead of one, long session. Do you plan on doing that again?Even more extreme. The idea I had was to do it with each track. I don’t think that is going to happen, but the plan is to take time for it.(It is nice) because you can go back to a song that is done. When you record and mix in one go that is it. You can’t capture the soul of the pre-production song, and you don’t always know what it is.Now, you can think about it. There is also the danger of if you do too much, you don’t have an album for 10 years (laughs).We have had good experiences with rewriting in general. We are not scared to go back and fix something if it is not working.So the idea is track by track to record the album, that sounds like an undertaking.Well, maybe two tracks by two tracks. But it won’t be in two or three sessions; I think there will be more parts.In a way, it is not so different, because you don’t actually write 10 or 12 songs at a time anyway. The only difference is if you take all of that and book your studio in one big go.Especially with the mixing. If you mix a song and let it be there for half a year. Then, come back to it, there are endless possibilities.They do it all the time in dance music. They make something, and then they release it. They do it song-by-song. It is really like an old-fashioned way of doing it. Old-fashioned is not wrong; it is just different.Before for “Moonbathers,” you released the “Lunar Prelude” EP, do you see doing that again?Good question!: Very good question.We are announcing (one) on Monday. We are not saying what is on the EP yet. We are just announcing the EP without a title or anything.We are not entirely sure about the title yet.We are still working on the title. We plan to headline shows that will be around the release of the release date. So, we have to plan ahead. We got time.Speaking of time, “Moonbathers” with the time between recording sessions, it seems it allowed for a greater diversity in the sound that is Delain on that album than others.True.You can notice that it was written at different times in different atmospheres. I think that is also the challenge to keep it sounding like an album.I think “Moonbathers” is the most diverse album we’ve made.“Moonbathers” was a heavier sound for the band, do you see that being carried over to what comes next?I always, with every production, think it should be more heavy. It needs to be heavier. More contrast. It is something that we always aim for, so I hope so.If not we failed (laughs).In part, it is a production matter, but it is also a creative matter, like how the riffing is going. How prominent of a role do the guitars versus the keys or orchestra? I would like to see that continue even more.So you are going to try and top that this time out?Of course, you will never hear an artist say, “You know what? Two albums sounding the same is not bad. (laughs)”I know, and that is why I ask that question all the time is I’m waiting for the person to say, “You know, that last album was good, we are just going to do that again.”They want to make it again, just a little less good.That is the thing with creativity, you can not control it. You can stimulate it and steer it, but you can’t control it. You don’t know what is coming.So, yeah, I don’t want to give the politically-correct answer that “This album is going to be far better.” We will aim for that, but it is up to the people to decide if that succeeded or not.Speaking of the political, another question that I’ve been asking especially when I’m doing background on a band that has a woman up front, too often than not their looks or appearance are immediately brought up in the intro to an interview or a review, yet guys’ looks are not mentioned.We just went through a breaking of the levee with regards to harassment and discrimination in the film industry, political, culinary, journalism, etc. Yet music has not had its watershed moment, why is that?It is a work in progress. We are not done.Now that you mention that, I remember, because I’m a very, very old guy, that a female singer in a metal band was quite something.It is a work in progress.I’ve never got it personally.I don’t get it either that is why I ask as it should be a normal thing. There shouldn’t be the differing attention paid to women and men.It is more the little things. The pressure is now how to present yourself a certain way. The way people comment on the way you present yourself shouldn’t be… If you would Googled ‘Martijn Westerholt naked’ or ‘Charlotte Wessels naked.’They are somehow not interested in me naked. I don’t understand it. I’m a very handsome guy and very modest.My breasts have their own Facebook page. And on that same page, people are talking about how I’m a slut. I’ve been with the same man for 13 years. I think it is more the micro-aggressions than the big scandals. It still makes it frustrating at times.I also think that it doesn’t pay to give it too much attention. It is why I say it is a work in progress, because as Martijn said the reaction you got a few years back is already history.You see now that people’s messages change. If people write extremely sexist comments on our platform.They will be lynched.For every one of the sexist comments, there are 60 other people that are calling them out.It comes back to that there is a sexist lens through which professional writers are looking as there are more details about appearance with female-fronted bands than if it is a guy out front.I don’t even like the whole term female-fronted. You never hear male-fronted. I never got that.I think it basically defines a genre by gender of the frontperson. Making a big deal out of gender and defining a band by its front person, itself, is very limiting. We in a band have much more in common with, for example, Kamelot than some of the female-fronted bands that we are compared with. Where the only thing we have in common is what is between our legs. It is a weird term.What bothers me is it automatically takes the focus of the music.It is a term from another time.I think ‘a work in progress’ is a good way to look at it.If we had the first metal band with a cat vocalist, I’m sure we would say in the beginning, I would be cat-fronted.Feline-fronted.Feline-fronted metal. I’m all for that.