On recent albums the Epica guitarist is not even playing guitar on the tracks because he’s too busy with other things. Mark is clearly the mastermind behind Epica’s music and he pays attention to all the details. That’s how it started,” explains Mark about how Amorphis has helped shaping the Epica sound and continues: “With the new singer they were back on track. Then we decided to do some of the grunts ourselves in After Forever. But the grunter didn’t like the idea, so there was some competition going on… He left. This is somebody who has to be the front. We heard, instantly, this is not a background singer. We were also looking for a background singer. Then with my first band, we started as a melodic band with a grunter as a singer because we couldn’t find a clean vocalist. I was listening to it and as soon as the guy started singing: ‘Oh, fuck! It’s grunts, I hate it!’ Still, I bought the album because the music was so amazing and I slowly got into it. When I started to listen to metal music, I ran into an album of Amorphis. One part of the Epica sound that sets it apart from some of the other symphonic metal bands, is that they use death metal-like growling or grunting in addition to clean singing. It’s sometimes different in other countries.” Strictly on time, everything is well organised. I’ve never been so relaxed on a tour in a country like here. “Sold out! To be able to do three shows is already amazing. We can’t wait forever to go to Japan,” says Mark who is very pleased that they managed to come to Japan for a three-city tour and that the band’s first ever Tokyo gig is sold out. We kept trying and then two years ago there was finally one promoter who wanted to get us, but then our management said we should not go yet because if we worked with that promoter we could not play Loud Park, for example. Probably we’re not gonna sell enough tickets’ and that kind of story. It’s not high enough in Japan to bring you over. Every time when we tried to come over, the promoters said ‘Look at your CD sales. So why did it take the band some 15 years to come and play for their Japanese fans? “Several reasons. In 2016 they released their seventh album, the fabulous “The Holographic Principle”.
Photo: Stefan Nilsson, Roppongi RocksĮpica debuted in 2003 with “The Phantom Agony” and rapidly won a loyal fan base globally, including in Japan. Mark Jansen on stage with Epica in Tokyo. I think not many bands who have a band name that fits their music so well as we do,” says Mark while looking very satisfied. They said themselves already that Epica would be a great name for a band. We sent them an email: ‘Are you OK with that?’ and they were fine. We already liked the music of Kamelot a lot. The name we weren’t completely satisfied about and we couldn’t find a better name. “We were recording in the same studio where they were recording the album ‘Epica’. The new band Mark assembled was originally called Sahara Dust, but as they entered the studio to record they stumbled upon a much better name, Epica, which was the name of a Kamelot album. I am not a control freak but I need to have some control of things to feel happy.” Yeah, I like to be a bit more in control. As we sit down backstage before Epica’s Tokyo gig Mark explains: “In After Forever there were two captains on the ship. Mark Jansen founded a new symphonic metal band when he left After Forever in 2002 over “musical and personal differences”. Simone Simons and Mark Jansen on stage with Epica in Tokyo.
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