WITHIN TEMPTATION's SHARON DEN ADEL Has 'Always Felt Very Welcome' As A Female In Metal Scene

Vocalist Sharon Den Adel and guitarist Stefan Helleblad of Dutch heavy rockers WITHIN TEMPTATION took part in a press conference at this year's Hellfest, which was held June 21-23 in Clisson, France. You can watch the entire chat below (courtesy of Loud TV). A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On whether Den Adel's MY INDIGO solo project influenced the writing of WITHIN TEMPTATION's latest studio album, "Resist".

Sharon: "Yes, it did, especially the way we were recorded MY INDIGO, was helpful for the 'Resist' album because we worked with different sounds and a different way of producing the album. That really helped. It became a little bit more of a modern way of how new bands are working in the studio."

On whether Den Adel feels WITHIN TEMPTATION succeeded in giving "Resist" a "fresh" and "futuristic" sound:

Sharon: "I think we did make a step forward toward a more modern sound. We've been around for almost 25 years, and then it's difficult to go through evolution every time. We try, but I think we succeeded with 'Resist' with the first step, but hopefully with the next album, which we're going to work on soon, we're going to try to expand our development. We know how to do it now, more or less, and hopefully we can make a bigger change with the next album."

Stefan: "Take it one step further."

On whether Den Adel has experienced difficulty being a part of the metal scene as a female:

Sharon: "I never experienced it as being difficult being in metal. I've always felt very welcome because we did something new and people appreciated that. So, I've always felt a lot of respect from everybody. But sometimes people who are not in the metal scene, don't understand that you can't say certain things. If you're an English magazine saying something like that, then it's somehow cool, but when a Dutch magazine says the same thing, it doesn't have the same ring to it because it's in a different language, it's being explained in a different way. It was a bit degrading, especially because it was a TV magazine who doesn't understand the scene at all, should think a little bit about what kind of phrases they use. I think, especially nowadays. Personally, our music and also myself have felt very respected by everyone in the metal scene so far."

On what originally inspired WITHIN TEMPTATION to become a metal band:

Stefan: "Because we just love metal, probably."

Sharon: "The thing is that where we came from originally, we were actually growing up with the death metal scene. There wasn't a lot of melody at the time when we grew up in metal music. Eventually we heard PARADISE LOST, and they were one of the first using female vocals with the album 'Gothic', they had this opera singer. We were just blown away by that combination because they were experimenting a lot with normal vocals, still having this death metal kind of vibe to it, with the growling voices, and they had this girl singer. It was like 'wow!' But they never continued that. In combination with DEAD CAN DANCE, who we love, and the folk kind of thing, that combination made for us the outlets to make WITHIN TEMPTATION kind of music that we know nowadays, but with the heavy guitars."

"Resist" came out this past February. It marked the band's first release since 2014's "Hydra".