Interview with Mark Jansen from Epica

Original interview on https://www.wingsofdeath.net/Epica-The-Holographic-Principle-interview-met-Mark-Jansen

It’s Saturday July the second, and in the heart of a rainy and windy Amsterdam I’m meeting with Epica’s guitar player Mark Jansen in the Amsterdam Tower. We’re going to talk about their new album that is due to be released on September 30^th: “The Holographic Principle”, and about where Epica stands in life, after all those years of success.

What’s the general idea behind the new album, “The Holographic Principle”, when it comes to theme?

Mark: Well, if you look at the theme, it’s mainly about virtual reality. When you put on that mask and enter yourself in a totally different world. That technology is not perfected yet, but in near future, when you put on your VR mask, you don’t know if you are in this world or the other. You can make what you want of it, once the technology becomes good enough. And then you realize when you feel the same in that world as in this one, that this isn’t real either. This is also all an illusion. And that was the main point from which we started writing the lyrics.

 It reminds me of the Anime series Sword Art Online. That’s about the same principle, that people are getting stuck in this virtual reality game, of which there is no escape.

Mark: Yeah, I was wondering that myself. Once the technology for that is here, that you get stuck in it and you don’t know how to get out. That would be something!

You used a real time orchestra while recording this album, instead of audio samples. But that’s not entirely a first timer for you, because you also re-recorded “The Phantom Agony” with an orchestra in real time for the “We Will Take You With Us” DVD?

Mark: “That was just a small orchestra, with some violins and such. But this time we have the whole shebang, with horns, woodworks, percussions, sitar and all that. At the “We Will Take You With Us” DVD we also had just a small choir.”

Yeah, that’s right. I did find it impressive, that even with the small choir and orchestra that you had, you still produced quite a sound. When you listen to that CD you really think, am I listening to the whole London Symphony Orchestra or something or is it just a few musicians? And then you see the DVD where just a few people make up the orchestra, you think, all right! That’s nicely done!

Mark: Yeah even with just a few people you can create beautiful things.

Epica always had a thing with big sounding titles, like “The Quantum Enigma”, “Victims of Contingincy”, “Requiem for the Indifferent”, etc. I frequently had to grab my dictionary to figure those out. How has this become a thing for you? Is Epica’s motto: the bigger the name, the bigger the music?

Mark: “Well, no it just happens. I like messing around with words, also in Dutch. And sometimes you find a nice word in Dutch and then you look it up in English. Because sometimes you can’t remember what the English word for something is. I have quite a vocabulary in Dutch, and also in English, but the difficult words in Dutch, people often don’t know the English words for them, because Dutch people simply don’t know the difficult words in one language or another. But I like playing with difficult words. I like language. I like writing. And with uncommon words you often can describe things in a much more beautiful way. A lot of writers work that way, and I try that in English as well. But it becomes a bit harder because it’s not my mother tongue. Sometimes I also forget, when I finished a lyric, I look at it and think: what’s that word again? (laughs)

I found there was quite a difference between “Requiem for the Indifferent” and “The Quantum Enigma”. The first one was pretty dark, gloomy and heavy and – in my perspective – not too easy to digest, but the latter was a lot lighter and merrier. What is the biggest change between “The Quantum Enigma” and “The Holographic Principle” when it comes to the music?

Mark: I see them as brother and sister. This is a continuation of the previous one. Between “Requiem” and “Quantum” was indeed a big difference. But now the difference became smaller. I think the differences now are more in the details, and that is also because we made use of a live orchestra during the recordings. The guitars are also a bit more prominent in the overall mixing. We worked even harder to make all details fit. We delved in deeper to perfect it this time. It’s more in harmony this time than with the previous two you just mentioned.

I noticed that. I have just listened to a little snippet and I was wondering if you tried a whole new approach this time. But indeed, I hear some of the lighthearted spirit that you had with “The Quantum Enigma” back in this album. And I was already hoping for that, so I am pleased! (laughs)

In the past you did a lot of collaborations with other bands. For example, Simone sings on albums for Kamelot and Sons of Seasons, and you had guest vocals from Roy Khan and Tony Kakko. Are there more of this kind of collaborations awaiting, both in Epica as for you personally?

Mark:  I did quite some guest appearances here and there lately. I try to keep it on an even level so you don’t hear me everywhere though. Don’t want to spoil people too much! But I do pick out the interesting stuff. For example, you hear me on the latest album by 3^rd Machine. Because I knew those guys for a long time already, and I really enjoy their music. Then I also want to seize the opportunity to recommend this album, because a lot of people don’t know this band.

I have to admit, I never heard of them myself.

Mark: I was really impressed by their latest album!  And I also contributed something to Universal Mind Project. These are the two that I am most proud of that I have participated, because I really love their stuff. And well, we have not asked someone for guest vocals ourselves for quite a time. We think it has to contribute something. If a song asks for a duet, we’ll do it, but if we don’t have the feeling that we are missing something, we won’t ask anyone. So now we have left it the way it is.

There are a lot of bands these days that remake their older albums. Were there songs or albums in the past, that you would do completely different now? And can we ever expect a remake of “The Phantom Agony”, for example?

Mark: “The Phantom Agony” has actually been re-released by Transmission two years ago. They still have the rights to that record. So we can do all we want, but we can’t mess with that one. The only good thing is that the albums are available again. This also counts for  “Consign to Oblivion”. But because our current management has kind of a feud going on with Transmission, we didn’t back it up too much. But anyways, those albums are available again. Not that anyone realizes, but I think at least Lords of Metal made a review about it.

Yeah, I was already thinking, I haven’t heard anything about a re-release.

Mark: “And then to think we put quite some work in it! We made all new orchestral versions from songs from “Consign to Oblivion”, as well as “The Phantom Agony”. that appear on the second CD. It became very nice but we don’t really make money out of it.

So more of a fan service?

Mark: Yeah, indeed fan service.

You are a pretty heavy metal band with a lot of classical influences. That’s why I found it quite hilarious when you were announced on the radio for City Rock festival as “Dutch Rock band Eepica.” Now I hear people alternately call you Eepica and Epica (so with short and long E), so which of the two is it? And If you had to describe your music without really mentioning genres, what would it be?

Mark: “Well, it’s Epica with a short E, to begin with. But we are used to being called Eepica in the Netherlands that we don’t even mention it anymore. We know they have good intentions. But how we would call it ourselves – I think symphonic metal. But I don’t think it covers the whole of what we are. I don’t even think there is a word that does.

I hear people calling you gothic metal, or even symphonic death metal, to name a few.

Mark: Yeah, that’s also a possibility. We indeed have a lot of death metal influences. But I wouldn’t call it gothic metal. Gothic used to be a very different thing. Think of bands like Bauhaus or The Cult. And that is something that we don’t relate to at all. At some point people started calling female fronted bands gothic metal, so that became a thing, but I think that has passed. I don’t hear people calling us that anymore.

When you first started I did find quite some Goth influences in your image though. Simone performed in those bat sleeved dresses and all that.

Mark: Yeah! And Coen had these black tapes strapped over his chest and wore mesh shirts. As a band, you are trying things out, and at some point you find your own thing. We were also invited to a lot of gothic festivals, like Wave Gothic Treffen and M’era Luna. On the latter even three times! But for some reason we are not invited there anymore… But I think this is one of Epica’s advantages. We can play almost anywhere. We have a bit of everything in our music so we fit in wherever. If we play on metal festivals with louder bands, we play our heavier songs, and when we play on mainstream festivals, we select our ‘catchy’ songs. And so we always manage to present ourselves well without making too many compromises.

Epica is known as one of the major bands in this genre. You have done gigs with entire orchestras and choirs, have your own festival, Epic Metal Fest, to mention something. Your releases even make the local papers! Can Epica become even bigger, and how do you envision that?

Mark: Apparently it can, but we don’t know how things turn out. But with each album we notice that we become larger, so apparently things are still growing. I have no idea how big a band like us can become here in the Netherlands, because we hardly make any compromises, we create the music that we want, and it becomes even louder rather than softer. So I don’t know how much there is to add. Lots of people said years ago we have reached our top, but we just kept on growing. So apparently we still haven’t reached our peak.

Sky’s the limit, so to speak.

Mark: Yeah, it appears to be!

When you just started, you were strongly influenced by bands like Kamelot and Nightwish, but in the meantime you have grown to be your own thing. What are your influences now, and which aspect of yourselves you would like to see in bands that follow you as an influence?

Mark: What we like to see in bands who follow our work is that you do it with passion. And it doesn’t matter what kind of music you play, but when you take us as an inspiration, this is something you must do. Follow your heart, make the music you want to make, and do so with full determination, because then you will surely make it somewhere. But what are influences are now… I still listen to metal a lot, the bands that I listened to in the past also, like Amorphis and Opeth. Also music that is not metal at all, like Clannad, when I’m in to something mellower. It could be anything, really. There is hardly a genre where everything is bad music. Maybe R&B and hip-hop as an exception there...

Most metalheads don’t seem to like those genres anyway.

Mark: But apart from that I can find something worth listening to in almost every genre. Even Dutch music, like Boudewijn de Groot. He has some great stuff in his music. Each genre has something nice to offer, that I can enjoy. I’m very open-minded for that matter.

Now I’m getting curious, because music wise you seem to like just about anything. You see sometimes that a band takes a side step to a completely different genre. Will this be a thing for Epica one day? That you suddenly write a song with – just to say something – a touch of bluegrass?

Mark: I don’t see that happen very soon. We limit our side steps to the bonus cd’s where we have some fun with acoustic stuff. We can go wild on that. But Epica has to remain Epica. There can’t be all kinds of weird stuff happening all of the sudden that scares people. Honestly, I wouldn’t like it one bit.

I have to express my compliments for that matter. I have learned to know you when “Consign to Oblivion” was just released. But I’ve heard “The Phantom Agony” before that, so I followed you in the correct order, so to speak. But I have to say you always maintained your own thing in all those years. There are so many bands that loose their core a bit as time passes, by trying to please the fans too much, but I don’t see Epica doing that. You just pound your way trough the genre.

Mark: And that’s why I think we still exist. There are so many bands that think that what the fans want will mean their breakthrough. Then suddenly no one wants them anymore, and then they return to their older styles. We just do what we love to do, and that doesn’t mean you have to make entirely different music, because the people still notice that we make music that we back up for the full 100%. When you make music that you don’t agree on, sooner or later you fall flat on your face.

There was indeed sort of a curve going on with Epica’s music. The first album, “The Phantom Agony” had a medieval touch, and then with “Consign to Oblivion” you suddenly involved the whole Mayan culture, and from there on it has been a nice, upward curve, where everything continued naturally. You never lingered in what you originally made, but you keep on hearing that this is Epica.

Mark: We also don’t want to create one “Phantom Agony” after the other. We’ve grown over that phase. But the beauty of it is that our older songs still fit in our setlist without sounding misplaced. It always fits, like a puzzle. And that is a good sign. We can play both old and new songs, and not one song will sound strange. It continues to have a nice flow to it.

Still when you place your first and your last album side by side, you notice a contrast. You hear the progress, but the core has always remained.

Mark: That core will always stay. And we develop ourselves as good as possible with everything else.  

By all means, continue to do so!