Dutch symphonic metal giants Epica return with a new album ““Omega“, out on February 26th 2021 via Nuclear Blast. “Omega” is the bands first studio album in five years and the final part in the Quantum trilogy, following from the previous “The Holographic Principle “. We catch up with guitarist Mark Jansen to discuss the album as well as get into a bit of Quantum Physics and more.
Andrew: I guess everyone is pretty excited about the new album and I assume you guys must be as well.
Mark: Yeah very excited and we had to wait a bit longer than usual because the album was finished already in May the previous year but due to the pandemic we had to push [it] a bit back. But now that it’s finally getting released we’re very excited about it.
Andrew: Well I do want to get the obligatory covid question out of the way and I guess the first thing is, how did covid affect you and the band and your personal lives as well?
Mark: Yeah first of all the band luckily due to that we were almost finished recording it didn’t affect the recordings itself that much, just the vocal recordings. Simone [Simons] and me we had to do it in different studios due to the lockdowns and also to add on the band level of course it also affects all the touring plans having to be rescheduled during this situation but all bands are in the same boat so everybody’s in the same situation. And on a personal level I must say I’m making the best out of it, of course some days are hard when you think about all the things that could have been different if the covid didn’t exist but on the other hand it’s beyond our control so I try to stay as optimistic as I can and do all the things in life that bring me joy. Like I love to ride my bike, I love to do running, I love to play with my dogs and spend time with my girlfriend so this spirit also brings a lot of joy so it’s not only sadness due to covid but it’s also a lot of happiness due to a lot of extra free time and I can do a lot of things that I normally never have the time to do. So on a personal level I’m doing fine, nobody has to worry about me and I hope also that other people find joyful things in their lives to get rid of the negative feelings that is surrounded by this covid.
Andrew: Yeah sure I think that’s something we’re all striving to do is be more positive. Obviously one of the things that has come out of all this, and I’m sure you’ve probably noticed it as well, there’s been more focus on the music and album releases. Are you kind of promoting it differently or are you still promoting it the same way as you normally would? Has it been affected in any way in that respect?
Mark: Yeah normally we would be doing press in Europe so like Paris, Milan in Italy, one in Spain in Madrid, Germany, Netherlands, UK, America even and all this press is not happening now so it’s all digital but I’m not sad about this because to be able to do that from home also has advantages like you don’t have to travel all the way to all these cities and fly. I’ve seen Paris already 20 times so I can do without seeing Paris one time! For me it’s all fine to do it this way and with Australia and New Zealand the interviews are anyway always by skype like already before so that didn’t change at all [laughs].
Andrew: I had a chance to listen to the new album just the other day and I have to say it’s very impressive but also very cinematic and grand, that’s kind of the words that I think of when I am trying to describe the album and I guess that was probably something you were trying to achieve with this?
Mark: Yeah there was two things we were trying to achieve – one, to have a mix which is a bit more open, more dynamic compared to “The Holographic Principle”. Because of “The Holographic Principle”, all the elements that we haven’t had can get easily lost a bit in the wall of sound and that happens if you want to put everything full force. So now we took a little step back and sometimes have the guitars the main role, sometimes the orchestra but not all the time, everything at the same time full force open, this creates a sound with more dynamic like I said. The other thing we tried to achieve is to write a couple more songs that in our imagination do really well on a festival setting in front of a big crowd full of people, part of the people don’t know the band yet and these people would already like these songs when we play them for the first time. So we tried to make a really well balanced album.
Andrew: It’s interesting you say that as it is a question I sometimes pose to various musicians is, do you ever think about the live aspect when you are writing a song? Do you think it would translate to the stage and how the crowd would maybe react to the song?
Mark: Yeah and sometimes we do and especially on this album we did it a lot, that’s a big difference. Sometimes we write songs and it’s just for the album itself and when we start rehearsing, then we will see what songs work live well and which don’t. For this album we tried to write basically all the songs that in mind would work well live and that’s also how we rehearse them, how they’re written and so now we’re ready for sure many of these songs are going to do well in a live setting.
Andrew: That brings me to my other question then because in some of the info that was sent to me by your publicist, it was stated by yourself actually that this was the first time in quite some time where you guys were all working together in the same room with different ideas. Was it very collaborative because that’s where the live aspect must of come from then?
Mark: Yes because this way of working together lifted the songs up to the next level but also need them for sure that these songs work well in a live setting because these songs have been rehearsed, these songs have been discussed. So every kind of doubt that you usually can have when you record a song has been taken away already because every step has been taken to be sure that this song would work well live, because in the past sometimes it happened that there was some songs that worked really well on an album but when you tried to play them live they simply didn’t work and that’s something we avoided with this one.
Andrew: The other thing as well is this album is I guess, officially or unofficially the end of a trilogy so to speak. Is that the right thing to say with this album?
Mark: Yeah unofficially but when we started thinking about that ourselves, it makes sense because three albums recorded with Joost van den Broek as producer, three albums dealing about scientific topics and three albums that feel for us have a strong connection with each other, also due to that they are three Joost van den Broek albums as producer but they feel like all three are connected very well.
Andrew: Yeah and I wanted to ask about that because I know that you yourself have a bit of a scientific background and it is a subject, quantum physics or quantum mechanics especially which is something I’ve slowly started to jump into a little bit as far as reading articles and listening to podcasts and stuff. It’s a very interesting subject, what made you decide to incorporate some of those elements into these albums?
Mark: Yeah I always love when I read about something that I think, ‘Wow this is what many people have to know’, then I integrate these topics in my lyrics. I always also try to avoid wanting to say to people like, ‘This is the way it is’. I write it in a way that people can dive themselves into such a topic and form their own opinion about it, and that is always what I try, to motivate and challenge people and they also then challenge me often in return by asking me questions that I haven’t thought about before. So it’s like an interaction then what occurs with many people and that’s very fascinating and the thing about quantum physics is that I believe one of the most famous experiments in quantum physics is the Dual Slit experiment where it’s proven that when you observe something, you influence what you observe so you can never observe without influencing it which is the paradox. I love that subject because if it’s truly the case also in the world as we know it, so not only in a quantum physics world but also in the big world, the big universe, that everything we observe we might influence the same way and that would make our whole view of the universe upside down.
Andrew: Yeah it’s very interesting and obviously a very difficult topic to understand as well at the same time. But that very point that you mentioned where you observe a particle and it changes based on your observation is very interesting and I kind of feel it’s sort of intertwined with music in that you can hear a piece of music and it will change maybe your viewpoint on a certain something or it might change your mood so it sort of has that similar kind of concept.
Mark: Yeah it has that affect on people. If I take myself as an example, if I feel sad and I listen to music that makes me feel better and literally the music makes my state of sadness towards happiness and that’s fascinating how a thing like music which is like these vibrations in the air, how such a thing can influence your state of being so much. It’s a very fascinating and beautiful concept.
Andrew: Yeah definitely. Do you get much into the whole quantum mechanics stuff, have you sort of jumped further into that world at all?
Mark: Yeah on “The Quantum Enigma” album when we came to “The Holographic Principle”, that’s taken even one step further that we might be living in a big hologram after all. This might sound far fetched but more and more scientists start believing that we are living in a kind of hologram because all the questions of life they never get completely solved with the old theories but if you put in the new theories and take into consideration that we might be living in a sort of hologram, things start making sense. So scientists still always have to go and step back and go three forward and back again, it’s always a matter of trial and error until you find maybe in the future the theory of everything so to speak. It’s a quest, I really love that quest of finding the theory of everything.
Andrew: It’s certainly something to look forward to if we ever get to that point, very interesting subject. You also were talking a bit about how the live aspect was part of this album as well and I’m guessing it’s a bit unfortunate because of the covid stuff that you can’t go out and play these songs now.
Mark: Yeah that’s also a bit of a contradiction that we wrote all these songs to be great live songs and then not be able to play them live! So it’s a bit of a pity but something that is not under our control and something that we cannot influence at this point so we have to sit and wait until things are possible again and hopefully it’s not going to all take too long. But first of all let’s hope that everybody gets through this without too much problems, that’s of course the first concern.
Andrew: Yeah definitely, obviously important to handle that first. Have you been told by anyone or seen any reports at all as to when it might be possible to go back and play shows again?
Mark: Yeah but every time they come with these reports and then something happens and it all changes again so I’m not too optimistic about it because first they said, ‘Yeah for sure, next summer’, this upcoming summer during the months of July and August there would be festivals again but now there’s a British corona mutation which puts everything upside down again. So it’s a matter of waiting and see what happens because maybe when certain groups are being vaccinated that also things change and more things get possible but it’s all a matter of, let’s see what happens, and then from there on you can make new plans.
Andrew: This must be the longest period of time you’ve never played a live show right?
Mark: Yeah I think so, yeah because the last time was February 2020.
Andrew: Which is the same for many bands I suppose. I guess we must have last seen you in Australia about 4 or 5 years ago, something like that?
Mark: Yeah and there were already plans made to come over again for 2020 but then the covid situation happened and all the plans were off the table. Without the covid we would of been back already but now it will be somewhere in the near future.
Andrew: Hopefully sooner than later but congratulations on the new album, as I said it’s fantastic and very cinematic and grand and probably one of the biggest pieces of work you guys have put out so far so you must be pretty happy with it. Hopefully we get to see some of those songs live in the future so good luck with everything and hope everything is all well at your end.
Mark: Thank you very much, I had a good time chatting to you.
