Symphonic Metal legends Epica made their first ever stop off in Dublin, Ireland to perform at the Tivoli Theatre on Tuesday night. Before the show, the mastermind behind the band, guitarist Mark Jansen took the time out to sit down and talk with Metal Wani’s Carl O’Rourke, covering a range of topics including the bands upcoming 1000th show, the future of Symphonic Metal and being the creator of spam mail, to name just a few.
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On what fans can expect from their 1000th show, Mark said:
“Yeah, we’re gonna play one song that we’ve never played live before, so that’s already a nice surprise, and we’re going to play a longer set list than we usually do. So it’s going to be a long evening as their are quite some bands playing, I’m also playing there with my other band Mayan. It’s gonna be a long day for me [Laughs] , three hours on stage, yeah!”
On what Mark sees for the future of Symphonic Metal, he added:
“That’s hard to tell. There were many people back in 2000 who said that this style was gonna last maximum, 6-7 years, and look at it now! So it’s hard to tell, sometimes you think something is going really well and suddenly it drops, sometimes people say it’s never gonna take long and fifty years later people are still enjoying this album. So that’s the way I hope it will go, that it will be timeless, that in one-hundred years people will still enjoy this music.”
When asked if he could share any insight to the future of Epica, Mark indulged with:
“We’re going to keep touring ’til September and then we’re going to take a little time off.” He added that after this, during the break “We will probably start composing for the next album.” Referring to selected members side projects Mark said “Everyone will fill in that break in a different way, but I’m already feeling like I’m wanting to write new music, so that won’t take long.”