[avatar user=”James” size=”50″ align=”left” /]Before Delain’s set at Bloodstock festival last week, I had the opportunity to chat to keyboardist and founding member Martijn from Delain. We chatted about the response to the latest album, the gear the band uses live and any bands he was hoping to watch at the Festival.
Thanks to Andy at Napalm for organising and Martijn for his time.
MT: You’re headlining the Sophie Lancaster stage today at the festival. Are you excited for it?
Martijn: Absolutely. It’s kind of special for us as we have the song “We are the Others”, which is about Sophie and we have been involved in the foundation for a long time. When we got offered to play we actually asked to play on the Sophie stage as it makes sense.
MT: Your most recent album, The Human Contradiction, came out around a year ago. What’s the fan response like when you play the songs live?
Martijn: Fantastic. For us it’s kind of a new chapter and we actually made the album really fast. We really went with our gut feeling when writing it and not thinking too much. It worked out fine according to the crowd, they are the boss so they decide if it’s good or not. But no, we’re really happy with the response.
MT: Was the production any different to the previous?
Martijn: Yes, the mix is totally different. The album before was a sort of rock mix but the new album is really metal. It’s also different in how much time we spent on it. I think we made the whole album in 6 months. The album before we made in 18 months or something.
MT: You are going to be touring the US and Canada with Nightwish…?
Maritjn: That’s correct yes. It’s the second time we’re touring with Nightwish and we’ll be touring with Sonata Artica as well. We’ve toured with Sonata before in the US and Europe and a good time. It should be good fun and I’m looking forward to it. We’re quite good friends with Nightwish. Marko is a personal friend of mine and we’ve known each other for quite a while. He’s played on some Delain songs and done a few guest vocals as well.
MT: What gear do you use when you play live?
Martijn: I personally use a Korg TR with some software as well as I only have two hands. We use Kempers on stage and we also don’t use wedge monitors on stage, we use in-ears for everyone. We like to use props though. We’ve got confetti streamers and smoke guns.
MT: If you have time, which bands are hoping to watch?
Martijn: I don’t think we’ll have a lot of time to watch any bands due to promo times and the signing session. I would like to watch a bit of Sabaton though, they’ve been our touring buddies this year and I enjoy watching them. I want to get a bit of the vibe of Bloodstock as well.
MT: Thank you for your time!
