BiB: Simone Simons - From High School Dropout to Metal Legend: The Untold Story of Epica

0:00 What is going on? It is Adam. Welcome back to Bringing It Backwards, a podcast where both legendary and rising artists tell their own personal stories of how they achieve stardom. On this episode, we had a chance to hang out with Simone of the band Epica over Zoom Video. Simone was born in the Netherlands and talks about how she got into music. She started off on the flute at a very early age, I guess in elementary school in the Netherlands. Flute is one of the requirements. She eventually wanted to progress in the flute, but wasn't really getting along with her teacher. So Simone decided to start taking singing lessons. We hear about how she ended up meeting Mark and joining epica at age 17. The band started doing well. She was 18 years old, still in high school, and decided to just risk it all, drop out of high school and pursue a life as a touring musician. And obviously that's worked out for her.

0:58 They're about to put out their ninth studio album, but Simone talks about the early days of the band getting signed to their first record deal, eventually signing with Nuclear Blast. We hear about her solo album that she put out last year, and all about this new album called A Spiral. You can watch the interview with Simone on our Facebook page and YouTube channel at bringing it Backwards. It would be amazing if you subscribe to our channel, like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok at bringing back pod. And if you're listening to this on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Podcasts, please rate and review the podcast. It helps us out tremendously. We'd appreciate your support if you follow and subscribe to our podcasts. Wherever you listen to podcasts, we're bringing. It backwards with Epica.

1:51 Bringing it backward. Bringing it backwards. Bringing it back. Hello. Hi, Simone. How are you? I'm great. Can you hear me all right? Yeah, I can hear you just fine. Thank you so much for doing this. Yeah. How are you doing? I am fantastic. Well, my name is Adam and this is about you and your journey in music. And obviously we'll talk about the new album that's coming out next month. And yeah, and I always kind of start off with, like, your backstory, your origin story.

2:33 So first off, where were you born and raised? I was born in a city in the south of the Netherlands called Hairline, and I was raised the neighboring town and 40 years ago. Exactly. Wow. What was it like growing up there? And that's pretty close from what I was researching, like, to the Germany border. Is that right? Yeah, it's actually. Yeah, it's quite close to Germany and Belgium. Also, wow. So were you able to go? Would you go into those countries as a kid or no. Or wasn't it not that close? No, but the Germans would always come to the Netherlands when they had like some kind of holiday. But I didn't start traveling abroad up until I was 14 was the first time I went to. To Germany, like on a school exchange. And that felt like traveling the world. It was only one and a half hours by bus. Little. Little did I know that I would be traveling the world many times a couple years later for the rest of my life. Living out of a suitcase.

3:40 That's wild. So when it comes to music, do you come from a musical family or like a creative household at all? Well, I would say my father is kind of creative, talented, but not like musically, but more with crafts. You know, he was like a wood worker or. I mean, originally he is a nurse. But he built half the furniture in the house. You know, it's very handy and loved to listen to music. The radio was always running and can play a little piano. And there was. There were some flutes in the closet, but. And he sang in a choir as a little boy in the church. But other than that, none of them are professional musicians. But the great music admirers. Okay, and how do you. You ended up playing flute, didn't you, at an early age? Yeah, yeah, it's. It's mandatory in primary school and to play an instrument.

4:40 Or was it flute, man? The flute? Yeah, like the normal, you know, the normal flute for one year. And after that my dream was to play the piccolo, which is this very small flute which has a very high frequency. And in order to do that, I had to learn the, you know, the standard bigger metal flute before I could do the piccolo. But I kind of quit because my teacher was. Yeah, not the nicest and I switched. Yeah, it is, you know, like you have a teacher that just, you know, I've heard this before with people taking piano lessons and stuff. It's like, well, I just want to learn how to play whatever pop songs on the radio or whatever. And it's like, no, you will learn how to play the, you know, this, these scales and this. Which I understand for if you're down the line, but if you're a kid and you just want to learn, like, who really cares?

5:35 No, it's. I think it's very important that the teachers have a good chemistry with. With the children. And she was definitely very strict and I just didn't look forward to go to lessons at all. So it kind of took away the fun of it. And with my singing teachers, you know, I had such a. A good connection and it's very important. And not everybody that is a teacher has actually the. The human tools to teach, you know what I mean? Like, it's a lot of psychology. It's a lot of how to, you know, be around people. And the energy that you speak give off, it needs to, you know, it needs to click, I guess. And we were not a match, so. Okay, but sure. And so you decided to start singing lessons? Yeah, from 14 on, I started with singing lessons first, just normal pop singing lessons. And simultaneously I was listening to rock bands. Then I got into metal. And then I thought, you know, the combination of metal and classical female voice is nice. Maybe I should try the classical vocal lessons. And then I switched vocal teachers as well, and I found a really nice guy who tried to kind of prepare me to go to the conservatory.

7:03 But then I ended up in a metal band and took my things and traveled the world. Wow. What drew, like, were you listening? Like, what kind of drew you as far as music goes to metal? Like, or like, how did you get to eventually liking that style of music? Was it people you're hanging out with that were in a metal. Yeah, it was my first boyfriend. I already loved rock music and I was into alternative lifestyle, flare pants and all of that. Loved to listen to Deftones, Radiohead, Silver Chair. Always had a weakness for men with long hair.

7:45 And then my. My first boyfriend, he was the tallest guy in high school and he was wearing Cradle of Filth T shirts and he looks cool. And I considered myself already back then a little bit more like an outcast and wanted to connect with the other alternative kids. And yeah, then I got into black metal and a friend of his borrowed me CD from Nightwish, the first Nightwish album, Angels Fall First. And then I heard this classical voice and I thought, this is amazing. And then the whole new world opened for me. And eventually I got in touch with Mark, who was back then and after forever. I was 16, and I boldly told him that I sing as well. And then I sang for him on the phone and he fell in love with my voice.

8:40 We fell in love with each other. So we had also, during the early days of Epica, we were also in a relationship which lasted around four years. And then we split. But we stacked, stuck together as colleagues and friends for. For the sake of Epica. Wow. I mean, that must have been tough to do to stick to, you know, you're in a relationship with someone and then to stay in a band. And yeah, we had a transition phase, but it didn't take that long. And we both realized, you know, the relationship, if we're not a good fit romantically, we are a good fit musically and we shouldn't give up on that. So we, we fought very hard on. On to maintain that and knew that we had something very special. And we were both professional enough as well.

9:25 Sure. With, with Epica, how do you. You said you met Mark, like how do you meet him? And then you sang to him on the phone, like, did you guys just meet? Like where do you meet? And then how does that build? And then it's, he's leaving his band. Let's start this project. Yeah. I don't even know when where we met for the first time. I think we first just chatted for a while and we had a phone call and then we started meeting up in person. And he was still an after forever back then. And then when that ended, he wanted to start a new band and he wanted me to be the vocalist. But back then I was still in high school and I said no, I need to finish high school. And I couldn't find the fitting singer. Nothing worked out.

10:15 And then he kind of asked me again and I was very shy and very, you know, teenager. Sure. And I thought, okay, you know what, maybe I should just give it a go. And I did. And then things started rolling. We started doing gigs and I started noticing that I was so tired that I couldn't really finish high school or I chose to not finish high school to go for one project only. I thought if the music doesn't work out, I can always go back and study. But this feels like this is the path I gotta take. Did you ever go back or. No, no, no. Epica's my school, my university, everything together. Yeah. That's cool. Were you in a band prior to Epica or no. Or this is your first band?

11:04 My Epica is my first band. Yeah. Yeah. I, I joined a band bands rehearsal back in the day, which I was also think when I was 14 or something. They were also a black metal band, but I never actually sang a note for them. But yeah, when it came to like. So when you joined Epica, were you involved in like the songwriting process? Like how did that work? Like, I mean to be never been in a band and obviously Mark had a band that was successful for a while and it's okay, let's start this band. So there's are going to be attention on the band. I would Imagine a little bit right away. Not only that, but you're 17 and you're never played before. Was that scary or like, how did you kind of fight through that? Yeah, I had to kind of overcome a little bit of a mental block to sing in front of people. I only had one concert in my life before that and was 12, it was a primary school.

12:06 I sang a song from Whitney Houston and I really felt short before the performance that I was gonna die of a heart attack. I was so nervous. So after that I thought performing is probably not something for me. But if you think about it, a 12 year old shy teenager. And then we started with Epica. We started rehearsing, but the guys were very patient and they, they made me feel comfortable and overcome certain blockades, whatever it was that I, I didn't feel safe opening up and, and seeing for them. But eventually, you know, the ice broke and I could practice with them in the rehearsal room in the basement of Mark's grandmother. And we, since Mark already had kind of a lot of experience, he invested in a great in ear monitor for me so that he knew already how incredibly fragile the voice is and that with those rehearsing rooms, things can get loud, your hearing can get damaged, you can lose your voice. So we bought from the little money we had, we bought a first in ear monitor for me so I could hear myself really well. And that was a great help. And then we just started jamming, you know, singing along to the compositions that he made, coming up with vocal lines, writing lyrics.

13:38 I remember back in the day I was reading dictionaries literally to enhance my English because I could speak English really well. But of course writing lyrics is something else. And I became obsessed with expensive words. And I made these huge documents on my computer with a list of cool words before there was thesaurus, of course. It's really like 23 years ago. And that's, that's a little bit how it started. The early days of Epica. Yeah. Wow. What were those first shows like? Like, was it. Do you remember your first show? I mean from 12 being. I do nervous and then going into like, okay, now we've got this band, we've been rehearsing. I've got to do this again. And what was that like? Yeah, I remember we. I think we had a show scheduled, but then Mark called and he said we have the opportunity to support Anathema in one of their Dutch shows. And we would be in front of around 800 people and we didn't even have enough songs to fill up A support set list. But Mark bluffed his way through that and then we just had to come up with more songs. You know, we had to work even harder. And at that time, it was the 15th of December 2002,

15:09 I was singing in a choir, a Christmas choir organized by my singing teacher. And I was double booked because I had a show with my choir. And I also by that time never told my parents I was in a metal band. They just thought I had classical singing lessons and that I was singing in a choir. And then I kind of had to come clean to my parents and I told them, you know what, I actually am also singing in the band with Mark and I can't do the whole choir show because I have to leave after the first part to go to Tilburg where we had our very first show. And I was also very nervous back then and I was standing on stage like a sack of potatoes, didn't know what to do yet, felt very exposed on the stage.

15:58 And I remember afterwards thinking, oh no, I'm gonna have to do this. More and more and more shows were coming in, but we started, we also recorded a video shoot where I learned a lot, how to move and, you know, go wild on stage. And that was basically the only time that I was nervous when I was 12 and with the first Epica show. And after that I felt like, you know, this is my place to be. On stage with telling your parents, hey, you know, I'm actually in this metal band and we're playing tonight. Like I've got to, I'm only going to do the first half of that. What was their reaction? I think they were like, okay, well, you know, if that's what you want to do, do that. But of course, a little, a little later after that, then I told them, I want to quit high school because I was 18, I was, you know, an adult officially.

16:57 Definitely not mentally yet, but I could make the decision to quit high school and to go full time all in for the music. And there they were, not so happy because they thought, first of all they didn't know anything about metal music and the, they kind of know the music business is hard. And I think every parent wants the best for their child. They want them to first finish high school, study. And that was not the path that I was taking and they just had to kind of deal with it because I was an adult on paper. Sure. And yeah, I just, I did my own thing. And now, many years later, they're super proud and supportive and they're always shocked with all the traveling, all the tours and the jet lags and they're always a little worried. But I guess as a parent that's one of the things you do. Yeah, 100%. I mean to. Was the band doing like fairly well at that point when you decided or you just kind of had this feeling like this is going to do something. I mean that's a big risk to take, right? To be like, I'm going to stop going to school. I'm just going to do this all the time. Yeah.

18:09 I didn't make. We didn't make any money in the beginning with Epica, but of course some of the band members were studying. I was still living with my parents, which meant I did not have to pay many bills yet, so I could invest all that time into Epica and tour a lot so that we could grow and eventually earn money. And I remember the first paycheck also that I got. It was then for me, so much money and I. I bought some makeup for that money, which if I think of it now was not so much money. But back then it was a lot and I was so excited. I even invested my weekly allowance and buying batteries for my in ear pack, you know, so. Wow. We started. We started small but we toured a lot and I guess that contributed to the growth of Epica and then started to go on tour with other bands. We did a lot support tours and. Yeah, yeah. What was like kind of an early milestone for the band? Was it like getting your first record deal or putting out your first album? Yeah, we were very lucky that we got the a record deal immediately because Mark was on very good terms with the record company he worked with with after forever and that gave us that push and financial support to already

19:40 record first demo. We recorded two songs and after that we recorded a full length cd. Professional production with Sasha Pass in Wolf's book the north of Germany and back then the support of record companies is different compared to now. You know, the. The amount of money that a record company puts in a new band has become less now I think it's harder for new artists to get a good record deal in order to have that starting budget to do a good production. And I think that really helped us as well that we could immediately record a cd. Great. Yeah. Great start. Kickstart for Epica. Yeah. Wow. And then for. You were also. I mean you got to tour the world, you got to do everything. I mean from that first album you. They put you on tour and you're supporting other artists. Like when does your first like headlining shows come around. Was that a few years later or like, what was kind of like the next jump up? That's a good question.

20:52 I actually have no idea from if we already did headline tours with. I know. With the Phantom Agony. We went to Mexico and we did a headline tour in Mexico. I was 18 back then, and I had bad luck because I had appendicitis and I had to have surgery in Mexico. Oh, my gosh. And I was in hospital for a week, but I still managed to finish the tour. And that was a headline tour. Yeah, we started to. To travel abroad very quickly, but in. I think in Europe and North America, we mainly did support tourists for the first couple of years. Okay, wow. And then you ended up signing with Nuclear Blaster, you're currently still with. Right. On your. On the third album. Yes. What was the.

21:41 Why'd you decide to go with them? Or like, what. What. I don't know if you mind talking about that. Well, we. We had a couple contenders, but Nuclear Blast just had the best offer. You know, it's plain business. And of course, their. Their catalog, you know, it's crazy. Having a lot of main artists in the scene, of course, is the best business card you can have. So we had a good feeling with Nuclear Blast. And now you're at what album? Nine coming out. Yes. Oh, my gosh. I mean, to think of that. You've been doing this since you were 17 years old. Like, that's so wild. And then put nine albums out. And nowadays not even a lot of bands are doing albums, really. Right. It's more like, let's do a few singles and then lump it together into an ep.

22:30 But. But Epic has always been like an album band. Yeah. We. We have nine now, almost nine full studio albums. We have a couple of EPs. We even have an album called the Score, which was music that was written for a Dutch movie. Yeah. Which is very different than Epica stuff. Yeah, it's. It's more like the. This. Yeah. Orchestral part of Epica instrumental. No vocals on there. And then we have a couple of eps and. Yeah, we've been busy a little bit. Yeah.

23:11 Well, talk to me about going into this ninth. The ninth album, I think I was reading interview about the record prior Omega, where you were talking about doing more live instruments on. On that album. Did that continue into this new one? Yeah, definitely. We. We recorded with the Prague Orchestra on Omega and we loved it so much that we asked them again. We hired them again for this album. And besides that, we have a couple of really great Musicians from Holland, Ben, who is the violinist, and then we have Jeroen, who plays the flute.

23:53 Then there is one day where the guys are recording percussion instruments and they take everything they can find in the studio. So it's. Of course we use samples when we're doing demo recordings. And on this album we wanted to have a little bit more modern touch to certain songs and we used many different synthesizers. So it's cool that, you know, our producer Yost, he also thinks big and he's very open minded and he lets us experiment, which is great. Yeah. Is it hard to, you know, continue to kind of like when you have nine, you're on your ninth album, do you feel like it's hard to keep pushing the, you know, the barrier, so to speak, or, you know, trying to continue to be creative and kind of come up with new stuff? Is that hard? It's not really hard. It's because we have five people in the band. All the guys write songs. Yeah.

24:56 So we have quite a big selection to choose from. And after Omega, you know, then the world shut down with the Pandemics. And then we wanted to do something fun, a studio project, which is then the Alchemy project ep, where we worked with other artists in the music industry. And there we started to experiment a little more because we felt, okay, we are not so much confined by our name, Epica, because we're working with other artists. Let's push, push the boundaries and see where we can take it. And the response to that was amazing. And that kind of gave us the push and the. The freedom to think more outside of the box and that we can expand our horizon musically. And that's what we continue then on the Spiral. Okay, so, yeah, so tell me about that going into this album, was it. Did you know you're writing an album and how does the like. When do you start working on the album? Because the other one came out. Yeah, you did all the production stuff in 2020 and then it came out in 21 because of the Pandemic, obviously, but. And yet all these other projects, you even put out a record yourself, right?

26:09 Last year? Yes. 2024 was crazy. It was a musical year. It was sometimes very challenging. But I do like a challenge and I, I think it's good as a, as an artist to sometimes get out of your comfort zone. And for. For a Spiral, we had three writing camps where we rented a house and we could get together and really focus on the music. No shows, no tours planned and really, you know, everybody in the same house music from morning till evening, everybody working together under the supervision of her producer, Yoast. So that was very beneficiary for the music for us to really come together as a group. And yeah, I look back with warm feelings on that time. But I'm also happy that I don't have to write or record another album this year. I bet. Was it hard to jump between your album and the Epica album?

27:12 Well, it was literally coming off the train after recording with Aryan Lucas, who wrote the songs for A Vermilion, and then going to the Epica writing camp. Oh my gosh. So just non stop. It wasn't not much overlap, but just a bunch. No. And I even did a collaboration with Charlotte for her album. I sang on one of her songs, Dopamine, and I did a video for that as well. I don't know how I did it all in 2024, but I'm. I'm here, I'm still alive. That's good. That is good. Did you guys have a lot of music to. To pick through when it came to the. The track listing for the new album?

27:54 Yeah, we had a. A big selection of songs and that's how we started the writing camp. Everybody, you know, sat down at the big table and we started going through all the demo tracks and then we made a selection of those songs where everybody would simultaneously work on and. And then like a little bit later in the demo stages, then we made a smaller selection because we learned from the past, for example, the holographic principle. We had so many songs and we worked on all the songs that it was a little too much for us. So we learned from that that we need to make a smaller selection in order to give every song all the time and energy that it needs in order to, you know, reach its full potential.

28:44 And then. Yeah, and then you could. So from there, then you start dwindling it down to whatever. Yeah. Narrowing it down to these 11 songs that are now on the album. And we also did the Ghost in Me, which was a. Another project for a Dutch amusement park. And we also worked and recorded that at the same time as a spiral. Oh my gosh. You all are very, very busy. Yes, very busy. And then you're doing some shows in the United States coming up as well. That's amazing. Yeah, we have three shows. We couldn't, on short notice, really set up a whole tour, but we're working on that as well. And since we're going to Mexico anyway, we thought maybe we can touch, touch down in North America and do a couple shows, so I'm very happy for that. Yeah. New York, LA and Atlanta. That's awesome. Yes. So I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Are you going to do a do you think once the album comes out you'll do another big run of the the States or you don't know yet for sure? Yeah, we don't know if we can manage to do it this year, but definitely next year we're going to come back full force for a full length tour.

29:56 Love it. Well, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for doing this. I have one more question. I want to know if you have any advice for aspiring artists. Always believe in yourself. Don't listen too much to other people's opinions and just stay true to your art world. Bringing it backward.