When does the orchestration come in? The demo tapes are done with programmed drums and keyboards?

Exactly. We all write, except for Simone. So we had five songwriters, and we all made our songs before presenting them to the band. Some of us went into the studio with Joost, our producer, to work on the orchestration.

As a guitar player, I am not that good with orchestration. I hear stuff in my head but actually, don’t know how to do it. I made basic lines in my home studio, explained to Joost (van den Broek) what I want, so we worked on it together. We then presented it to the band, and it was added to this pile of 28 songs. Once we decided which songs we wanted to record, Joost and Cooen started to do all the pre-production on the orchestration and work it out a little more. They made sure that people can score the music and record it in the studio.

It’s a massive and long undertaking, and in between all the recordings we were also on tour a couple of times. We were in the US, sitting in the tour bus checking out arrangements, went to sound check, went back to check out more arrangements and then did the show…

It was quite intense, but it paid off. With samples, you could have never achieved what we have achieved now.

And still, you release albums every two years, like clockwork. Do you have less time with each album because it grows in complexity?

It tends to get busier and busier. I am not sure we can keep up with that pace. But we as a band have a lot of discipline, and if it has to happen, it has to happen. Sometimes it takes years to finish a song, but it can also take two days. It depends on the kind of song you are looking for. Sometimes I go to my home studio, and the next day I have a new song. Sometimes I am sitting there working on stuff that I had on the shelf for years already and still can’t to make it work.

An example is Universal Death Squad. I started writing that song around 2010. It took me a couple of albums; it didn’t make it for Requiem for the Indifferent, not on The Quantum Enigma. It took seven years to finish it until I was happy.

Did it already have the orchestration or just the melody?

Photo: Khanh David To Tuan

The demo has all the riffing and drums, but also basic lines of what you hear now as a huge and epic sound. I just switched some stuff around, added some new riffs to get it right, and it turned out great. That being said, it’s always a gamble. We need a new album, but when you enter the home studio, you never know if you are going to have something to work with or not.

Same with Beyond the Matrix, I got stuck with that song and thought «I am going to need a minute», went out with the dog and the melody popped into my head. I took my phone, sang it while walking, went into the studio and a couple of hours later the song was finished. It sometimes really weird how you get inspiration or how a song builds up. Edge of the Blade was something I wrote in pretty much one day.

Photo: Khanh David To Tuan

All those songs made it into a video. Are you proud of that?

Yeah! It’s cool if the other band members also appreciate the songs I write and they turn out to be catchy enough to be a video.

So is the band’s hit writer?

(laughs) I wouldn’t say that everyone who writes has cool stuff. But usually, it was our keyboard players who wrote the video clip songs. Although I did Unchain Utopia for the last album. It’s nice, but not like I need it.

I am not fighting for it. But for some reason, I always liked the combination of really heavy and very melodic part. All my songs have that kind of stuff. I just like the dynamics between really heavy guitar riffs and then choirs with a huge melody on top of that. That’s how I write my music.

You released four videos now. Did you record them all in one go?

We had a couple of video shoot days; I think three. We had another one on another occasion. We live in four different countries, so that makes it hard to say «Hey, let’s do it this weekend!». Whenever we do a show, photo shoot or video shoot we try to combine it. Then we have like one week of shows, shooting and press days.

Does everyone in the band work on Epica 100% of the time?

Yeah, it’s our job for all of us. Rob van der Loo is also doing some bass lessons. Years ago he started his music academy, but because he is on the road so much, he has to find people to work for him. I guess as long as people keep showing up at his school he will be involved. I’ve done some management in the past, but it was too much work.

Now it would be OK, but if you’re writing, recording and dealing with the bands business that’s too much stuff to be done. If you want to have some spare time and please the girlfriend, then you have to calm down and have some time left. So these days for most of us, this is our job — which is cool!

Photo: Khanh David To Tuan

A lot of people struggle to get to that level. Do you think it gets harder to become a professional musician?

I can’t say because I don’t know the other story! I started playing the electric guitar when I was around 15–16. I started with local death metal bands and worked my way up, went to a college of music, studied music and wrote with God Dethroned — Death Metal. It was not that big, but I learned the tricks, was stuck in a van for a couple of weeks, drove to shows and played for maybe 100 people.

Then I ended up in Epica and with every album, it got bigger than the one before, which is because we work hard for it. You have, to be honest about what could be better, like «This merchandise design wasn’t that good, so we have to work on that» or «The production of that album was not that great, we need something else». You need to do better on every level. If you do that with a lot of passion and hard work, it pays off. It’s still evolving and getting bigger. It’s a combination of how we are all involved in the band. You have to communicate within the band be honest with each other and yourself.

You used to live around here, do I have that correct?

Simone lives around here. I lived in Munich, in Ingolstadt. Now I am back in Belgium to my roots, and that’s actually where I like it best.