Floor Jansen

AM : Hi to Floor and all @ After Forever, we are pleased to welcome you again on Ars Metallia and congratulations for this fantastic new album, definitely one of the best metal albums of the year ! Good to see that André is back in the band !!!

Floor : Thanks !!!

AM : Only one year after the release of “Invisible circles”, and already an excellent new album, even if you have toured a lot, it seems the inspiration was really good and came very easily...

Floor : Indeed, the songs were written very fast. Our main songwriter has always been Sander Gommans. Now he worked together with our new keyboard player Joost van de Broek. They had this special chemistry going on that made them write song after song. They made the basic instrumental parts. Then they introduced the songs to the rest of the band (I already knew them because I always joined them or followed the process). They added their parts and I made the vocal lines, choir and gruntparts. We knew what we wanted and it was there before we knew it!

AM : How would you define your evolution from Decipher and Invisible Circles to Remagine ? I think “Remagine” is some “best of” of your previous albums, with the heaviness and progressive touch of Invisible circles and the bombastic touch of Decipher with the choirs and the strings...

Floor : I think we learned more about structures of songs and become to find it important to create a solid and not to complicated base for the songs. During Decipher we where not paying attention to that in that way and therefore the songs have a lot of parts and several tempo´s. At IC we wanted to make the structures better and easier. So that happened but we had a lot of progressive things in mind that fitted in the concept and the time. After we made such a progressive and complicated album we wanted to make something more down to the base with the idea in mind : Less is More.
That became Remagine.

AM : Floor, your performance on Remagine is mindblowing, you extended your spectre from soprano to near pop singing do you still follow singing lessons ? I think your voice is more powerfull but also more emotionnal, did you work on those aspects ?

Floor : I study and studies music and singing so yes, I have had lessons and I work on all these aspects. I want to be a singer that can sing whatever I want, from opera to pop and back to heavy metal. Remagine was perfect to use all the different styles of singing.
During my lessons I work on technique but also on interpretation and when I write lyrics I make sure I write about something that really interests me so I can put a lot of emotion and a lot from myself it in. Then it´s the art to get that emotion on cd :)

AM : You have a new keyboard player, Joost, who has done a part of the production. I think he has brought many ideas to the album (the arrangements and the sounds), is it the case ? How did he join you ?

Floor : I asked Joost if he knew any good keyboard players after Lando announced he wanted to leave the band. I never expected him to be interested himself because he played in a very progressive band. After 2 days he called me back and asked if we would be interested in him. I knew Joost from the tour with Arjen Lucassen´ Star One and knew how talented he is and what a nice guy he is as well. We said yes immediately ! Soon after his entrance in the band we started writting songs and Sander and Joost started working together, soon finding out how great they can work together. Joost is a keyboard player with many talents and interests, he cannot only play like hell, he also makes his own sounds, recorded his own keyboards, wrote the arrangments for the strings and choir and guided the writing- , recording- and mixing process together with Sander. Sander´s influence on this is very big too. He has, like I told, always been the one who had a clear view of how the end product has to become. Now he had a soulmate to work with and that made everything go very fast with better results than ever!!!

AM : There is a DVD with the first edition of Remagine, we can see there that you are a great team and good friends with great complicity. It seems this friendship is an important element of After Forever ?

Floor : One of the biggest!!! We spend so much time together, we work together, are depended on each other that it´s vital to get along well. We work on that and know each other for so long now that we know what we are worth and where we stand for. That makes us a very powerful team!

AM : You have done many gigs and tours, so what are your best memories ? Any funny anecdote maybe ?

Floor : Hmm, there are many great memories, funny and hilarious thing that happened (which is most funny if you know the people and if you where there J)
This summer we have done a tour through South America. It was really an amazing trip, AF is very popular there and the people crazy to see us. Many great, funny and amazing thing happened there. One of the great habits we took over is drinking a cocktail called Caipirihna, very nice :)

AM : The cover is a bit uncommon for a symphonic metal band, this is more a pop/rock band cover. Why this choice ? On this one you are more than ever the figurehead of the band ;-)

Floor : We chose this because it´s uncommon and because we wanted to show the face behind the music and the band. The cover doesn´t look pop to me, more rock or metal. We want to show we´re a heavy and honest band that dares to do something different. Nowadays every band in our genre is making covers sort of like we always did and we wanted to stick out again (we were on of the first bands and starters of this whole female fronted bands thing) , renew the scene.

AM : Will we get a fifth album in such a short period ?

Floor : I am not a fortuneteller but we already feel like writting songs. I wish we could release another album in the beginning of 2007 :)

AM : Last question: our ritual one : ask yourself a question you’d like and give the answer...

Floor : What do I like to do besides singing?

Well, Horsebackriding!!! And reading as well