WITHIN TEMPTATION To Begin Writing New Material In December

Jeff Maki and Jason Price of Live-Metal.net recently conducted an interview with WITHIN TEMPTATION vocalist Sharon den Adel. A few excerpts from the interview follow:

Live-Metal.net: When you are performing songs on stage does it take you back to when and where you wrote the lyrics? Or at this point in time, having played them repeatedly, is it merely performing the songs?

Sharon: Well, eventually it becomes more performing the songs, but you have certain times when it's better not to always know when to go back to the time you were writing it. Sometimes it's very emotional and if you have that emotional kind of thing, it's sometimes good. It will always be emotional because you will always have emotions attached to it. You have emotions and emotion, of course — heavy emotion. Certain painful memories or beautiful memories. It's like through time, like scars they fade a little bit. So I think on stage sometimes when you are having a certain day, it might come back very heavily. It might be better not to play the song. But most of the times it's just playing the songs and enjoying it. It's also releasing and getting rid of certain negative emotions.

Live-Metal.net: Your lyrics seem pretty personal to me. Are there any songs you just don't want to play live because it does bring you back to those emotions?

Sharon: Yeah, of course, but it's ... "Forgiven" is maybe one of those songs, but I could play them and keep my tears inside. You can restrain it, of course. It depends on the day. Sometimes it's the day when “it” happened like four years ago, so it's better not to play the song because you're gonna be reminded and not be too happy, so yeah, sometimes it's like that.

Live-Metal.net: What's next for you after this tour?

Sharon: Well, we got a lot of shows in Europe. We are going to play on England in the academies, which are lots of nice venues to play in. So we're gonna play there like four or five shows and then we go to Germany. We do a tour in Germany and we have a few big shows, as well. Then in Holland, we do an arena with a real orchestra in February, a classical orchestra. And we're gonna play all our songs with a classical orchestra. Also in November, we're gonna play for 8,000 people in Eindoven, which is also in Holland and we're gonna play this java kind of big show with all kinds of things happening. So they're will be a lot of things, then come back here again.

Live-Metal.net: So you're coming back here soon?

Sharon: I hope so, because we just met our booking agency yesterday and they were like, "Please come back soon again." And we were like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but when?" So we're gonna see. So hopefully we will again. It will be on short notice — that's how it works probably in America, I don't know. It goes differently in Europe. They have ticket sales in Europe and it's like six months ahead of when you're really going to play. And America it's like — we announced this tour a month ago. And we're like, "Nobody's gonna come. Nobody's gonna know. How can I do this?" But there like that's normal in America — "OK, right."

Live-Metal.net: You mentioned playing with the orchestra. How will that transition? How will that work?

Sharon: It's gonna be different, but not that much different because we have an orchestra on tape, because we can't bring the orchestra to events and stuff like that. They're gonna play more or less the real thing, but of course it will be more organic. The sounds are gonna be different, but it's gonna be live. And we'll probably make a little bit different arrangements here and there. It's not the same orchestra we recorded with and we're gonna do some different things also to make it more special, try some things out. Also to give them some more space for their own interpretation.

Live-Metal.net: Could that be released as a live album like what the SCORPIONS or METALLICA did?

Sharon: I'm not sure. It depends on how it works out. And like I said, we're gonna give them some freedom for their own interpretation and if some songs don't work out then we're gonna skip the song probably. [laughter] But we're not sure how things will work out. But it's not the first time working with a real orchestra. We have done it before in Europe. But to do a whole show with a real orchestra, it is our first time, so it depends on how it's going to look and how it is recorded. We're gonna film everything, of course.

Live-Metal.net: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Sharon: Well, we start writing again in December probably. That's the first time we have days off again, so we'll probably start writing new songs again. We'll see where we are and how fast we can write a new album. I want to write a new album very quickly. But sometimes when you're touring there is no time or no space to sit down and relax and try some things.

Read the entire interview at www.live-metal.net.

Watch fan-filmed video footage of WITHIN TEMPTATION performing the song "See Who I Am" on September 21, 2007 at Slim's in San Francisco, California: