After Forever interview from January 2008

With only a few more hours until I leave for another metal music weekend in Portland, OR, I bypassed the horror film review in favor of reprinting an old interview I did for a webzine called Living For Metal. Even though the webzine, and the band I interviewed here After Forever, are no longer around, both things provided an opportunity for me that I am grateful for having. The following After Forever interview with vocalist Floor Janssen was conducted in late December 2007 and was published in January 2008 on Living For Metal.

Peter Santellan: For those who are just getting into After Forever, would you say a few things about the band that they should know?

Floor Janssen: We are a melodic female fronted metal band from The Netherlands, started in 1995, and released 5 full length albums, a mini album and quite some singles. We are one of the heaviest female fronted bands, have a very energetic live show and a cool website (www.afterforever.com) with all info you can think of, cool pictures, videos, etc.

PS: This year, the band released the self-titled album on Nuclear Blast. In what ways does the band benefit from having a relatively large record label compared to your former label, Transmission Records?

FJ: Our music is suitable for a very international market and with that smaller label, we noticed we couldn’t grow any bigger across the border (or in our own country).

With a better promotion and especially distribution, we can take that step forward. Next to that, NB is very experienced in metal and also female fronted metal; and we found that important as well.

PS: In addition to the album, the band made a video for the first single “Energize Me.” Would you give some of the details about the making of the video?

FJ: First of all, that it was an awesome experience! Especially for me in that water tank. I had to learn to dive in 30 minutes. It was 4 meters down which causes quite some pressure on your ears if you don’t know what you’re doing and it still had to look good.

Also the fire takes where fun, fire and cameras all around me. The take in the wind with the band was great to do as well, and also where we lie down in a layer of soil, we were freezing! But the results were so amazing that I look back to two amazing days (and one of them was my 26^th birthday!).

PS: One of the strongest points on the album, at least according to me, are the ballads, particularly Cry With a Smile and Dreamflight. How do you think they fit in with the style of music that the band is striving for and what are some of your favorite songs off the album?

FJ: I can’t say Dreamflight is a ballad though. This 10 minute epos shows all facets of the bands music, from small and ballad like to heavy, to symphonic and classical, to progressive… this very song contains all AF ingredients and that kind off answers the question, we write music with many faces, very diverse to keep it interesting and because we can and we like it!

PS: First impressions are often the hardest things to make, particularly when it comes to a new label. Having said that, the choral and orchestral arrangements on the album are well done and amplify the band’s sound. What thought processes go into making such arrangements work?

FJ: A lot. We didn’t start writing with the knowledge we would be able to work with an entire symphonic orchestra. We always have had more orchestral things, but now we had the chance to really work out complete scores for an orchestra. Joost, our keyboard player, also wrote the arrangements so we have someone within our own band that can do this (which makes us special again because most bands need to hire people for this).

Being able to do this ourselves has lots of advantages because we, as band members, always know best what we want and we got the maximum out of it!

PS: Along with a new album comes a tour. The United States tour kicked off with ProgPower USA. How did that experience go for the band as a whole?

FJ: Great! We had never toured the US before and we kicked off as headliner of the ProgPower festival, a huge honor! After that, we did some club shows as headliner and in support of several bands (Overkill, Sonata Arctica, and Finntroll). We noticed the differences in club tours between Europe and the US in many ways and felt how it is to go back to playing in front of an entirely new audience. But we were so surprised to see how many people already knew us, how many older albums we have been signing, great!

And as you all know, the US is kind of big, so we want to come back ASAP to discover more about it and to meet more people!!!

PS: During the band’s set, there were some technical problems, yet the band managed to keep it going. Has there been anything similar that has happened in previous shows that you can recall?

FJ: You mean at ProgPower, yep, we had them before, many times. Every band is dependent on electric machines. Hired stuff is always a risk (your own equipment, you know better and is more reliable) but it’s impossible to take an entire backline with you as a band who flies overseas. So we had some trouble, but I sang with the audience, which was fun and it soon was ok again.

PS: The evening ended with the All-Star Jam, which included some musicians from the bands that played over the three days. What were some of the memories that you take from the event?

FJ: It was, to start with, great to be on stage with the band that played all the songs, which was mostly singers from other bands as guests and the Norwegian band Pagan’s Mind played all the stuff. They were amazing and had an awesome sound and we had a great connection from the first moment off at the rehearsal already. I was very excited and nervous even, but it all went great. I started the jam with Europe’s Final Countdown. Unfortunately my microphone didn’t work on the PA (but did on my in-ear monitor and all other monitors on stage). So on stage, we had no idea we did an entire song without my voice on the PA. They made us do the entire song and at the moment we stopped someone came running on the stage to give me another mic, that was the moment I realized no one heard a single note, but the audience really wanted a second chance so we did the song again, with my voice hearable for the audience as well.

After that, I sang Alone from Heart (my personal highlight of the evening!) and I sang the Ayreon/After Forever version of the Queen song ‘Who wants to live forever’ together with Ralf Scheepers from Primal Fear. It was great to be amongst such a talented musicians that day, a wonderful experience!

PS: Are there goals that the band would like to achieve in the near future?

FJ: Many J Our world became bigger with more opportunities in more countries, the US is one of them (and the biggest of course) so we want to keep on touring as much as possible to keep spreading the word! We also have had the desire for many years to make a live DVD. Hopefully we can finally make one coming year, we are depended on our previous label who has been the reason its still not there yet. We work really hard to get it done though!!!

PS: Are there any words of wisdom that you would like to give the readers?

FJ: Stay metal and keep on buying albums and keep coming to concerts!!!

This music industry is dying because everybody seems to think music is for free on the internet. Well, it’s not and the more cd’s you download, the less chance there is for a new one to be recorded. Think about that and I hope to see you all very soon at one of our concerts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-xxx-

Floor