After Forever: These cowboy boots are made for rockin'

What’s very cool about Floor Jansen (besides the looks, ehem) is her naturalness and ability to approach any subject in a perfectly honest manner and a very very good English. Although we were last on a quite long list of interviews, she was as attentive and as involved as she had been at the beginning of the press conference. And we can tell you she was as focused and as involved on the stage one hour after the interview. Enjoy!

Metalfan: Opening, warm-up, boring question: since you’ve been here, what was your schedule?
Floor: Not much, really, because yesterday we played in Holland in a festival and then we traveled here, and we came into the hotel at 2 or 2.30 at night, last night. Then at 9 in the morning we traveled […] by bus to here and then at 2 in the afternoon we checked the stage, ate a little, did the sound check; and then I started doing interviews and that’s where I’ve ended, hehe. Tonight we’re going to do the show and tomorrow we’re going back. I’m afraid I cannot see to much of the city or anything else, haha.

Metalfan: For some of the bands, it’s ok to look trashed and wasted; but for you… [not]. It’s kind of hard – how do you manage to maintain the looks?
Floor: As a female singer, it’s different situation than with a male singer. Within our band the trashy/non-trashy looks are already divided: our guitarists and our drummer, for instance, they usually look pretty trashed; they are also our party animals, so they are usually look more trashed than the others. Our keyboard player is not that kind of type, he likes to look a little fresher…
Metalfan: Yes, we could see…
Floor: And so does our bass player, and of course I do. So we have a band image that looks both good and a little trashy; and the, of course, we have our individual image, and I do not like to look trashed. For a girl it’s different, you know, hehe…
Metalfan: No problem, you have a whole life ahead of you to look trashy, haha!
Floor: Hahaha! Oh, thanks a lot, now I can really enjoy being young!

Metalfan: Let’s talk about the latest album. How did it go so far?
Floor: Well, very good. This album is released by Nuclear Blast, it’s our first time with a major label, our first four albums were released by a small independent label from Holland and by working with an international group, better organised, we got to reach way more people already. It’s a bigger machinery, you step into promotion right away – internationally. […] Records sales went up and there are possibilities to come and play show are better, like today here, in Romania [for instance].

Metalfan: You’ve been fortunate. I’ve been talking to the guys in Tarot previously and they experienced the downside of the thing. They were very happy with Spinefarm, which was bought by Universal, and they got stuck in the international mechanism… basically, things went wrong for them. Why do you thing everything went well for you?
Floor: I think we are in the luxurious position of being part of a growing scene, we’re part of the creation of it. We’re one of the first bands which started doing that kind of music. I think that makes a difference, too; and we’ve been a band who has always been “almost there”. We were growing, but we had reached our maximum level of possibilities with the record company that we were with. I think lots of label saw this, and from the moment they knew that we were going to make our last album with that record company we had interest from many parts. So maybe we had a chance to choose which team would fit best with After Forever today, with what are our goals, how we are going to get there and what we expect from a team that will release our album or sublicense it. Cause we’ve released and recorded the album in a whole new form, it’s not that we have an artist deal with Nuclear Blast. […] Of course, you know, when our sales will not be good or when they put a lot of effort and things don’t work we might run into the same problem. But for now things go well.

Metalfan: So you think that the “beauty singer and the beastie guitars” phenomenon is growing?
Floor: Definitely yes.
Metalfan: So people want tough, rough and beautiful in the same time?
Floor: I think so. I don’t know what they really see in it, I don’t know if it’s “the beauty and the beast” thing, but female-fronted metal is growing, expanding and being more varied, fortunately.

Metalfan: In the press conference, you talked a bit about Doro Pesch and Jeff Waters, the guests on your latest album. I’d like to know more about your interaction as artists. Were you submissive to them, like “Ok, Jeff, you can do as you please” or “Doro, I wish you were my grandma, I love you” or…
Floor: Well, I think that because of that good interaction they are on our album, it’s not like our management phoned their management and they said ok, and then we sent the music, and they sent it back etc. Jeff Waters was at one of our concerts in Berlin […] and we didn’t know he was there – he was at a popcom, an international music convention. And he was there with a guy from the Dutch magazine Aardschok, a guy which we knew. And after the concert the guy told us: “Well, you’re never gonna guess who was at your show and liked it: Jeff Waters”. And Sander, who’s a huge Annihilator fan, was like “Oh, my God, was he really here and I didn’t get to meet him?!”.  So Sanders, the guy at the magazine and Jeff got in contact and […] when we were writing the album, we asked him. And he said “Great!” straight away. With Doro, our other guitar player – Bas – was in touch with a couple of her band members (and with her, after a while), and it was the same thing. While writing, we were thinking about her and… it was actually Sander’s idea also, to make this combination, this crossover. She also knew the band, she knew Bas and that’s how it happened.

Metalfan: You said in the press conference that After Forever [album] is self-titled because it is quintessential for your work…
Floor: Yes, it’s like a musical overview of everything we’ve done, it’s like all the elements from the other albums come back into a new mold.
Metalfan: Will a new chapter follow? Because usually after an overview…
Floor: Yes, something completely different comes. I don’t know, I have no idea and I don’t’ want to predict anything. Because with this album, when we started writing we were like “we want this and we want this, and we don’t want this and we don’t want that” and it only blocked the possibilities. And when we got rid of all those ideas about what we wanted and didn’t want the inspiration came automatically […] So it’s the same thing for the next album, although I cannot imagine it being something completely different, unrecognizable. […]

Metalfan: Let’s talk about Sharon [den Adel from Within Temptation – editor’s note]. You share the stage; you’ve shared part of the album. Friendly competition?
Floor: Yes, definitely.
Metalfan: Well, you couldn’t have said otherwise, haha!
Floor: No, no… I definitely admire her band and what they do. They started off small, too, and look where they are today. That’s definitely because of what they do and how they do it. Not all their music is my thing and not all her vocals are my thing, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t respect her.
Metalfan: So you won’t be barefoot on stage tonight, as she was last night…
Floor: She was barefoot on stage?! Really??!!
Metalfan: She forgot her boots.
Floor: Noooo!!!!
Metalfan: Yes, and I wanted to ask you how often does this happen…
Floor: Really?? That never happened to me. Though, I can imagine being barefoot, because those shoes [of hers] are so awful to wear. For me, I’ll be wearing my cowboy boots, I think.
Metalfan: Why cowboy boots? Why not army boots?
Floor (showing her boots): Cowboy boots are my favourite. I can walk miles in these and I love them.
Metalfan: You kick ass literally, then.
Floor: Yes! I have some other New Rock shoes with very high heels, but they’re killing my feet and my legs and my knees, so I think I’ll stick to my cowboy boots. Rock’n’roll, huh? Hahaha!

Metalfan: I think you’ve heard that you are going to open for a local rock legend [Iris – editor’s note]. Regardless of the genre, how is it to open for a local legend. [a band which is] Irrelevant for you, but very relevant for the people…
Floor: Well, people have never seen us before and we’re not sure how the Romanian fans know us, how much they know about us and about the music. For 9 out of 10 people it’s going to be the first After Forever experience. I see it as a challenge to please all those people and to get them totally ready for their national hero. […]

Metalfan: This is not your first contact with Romania – you toured with the guys from Magica before, right? How was it? When they told you that you were going to tour with a Romanian band, did you ask “Are they black or white?”, hahaha? Did you know anything about Romania before Magica?
Floor: Not too much. I knew, of course where it is in the map, hehe.
Metalfan: Who are our neighbours, then? If you say you knew where it is on the map, name one country that we are neighbours with, hehe!
Floor: Turkey, right?
Metalfan: No!
Floor: Hungary, then?
Metalfan: Yes, now you are right. It wasn’t fair from my part anyway; it was a trick question, hehe.
Floor: I thought it was next to Turkey and Hungary! So I knew APPROXIMATELY where it was on the map, haha!
Metalfan: It’s still ok, still ok.
Floor: So, yes, the thing is I didn’t know much about its history, language or types of people. So they were the first people we ever saw from Romania, I guess… I find it funny to come here today and see a mixture of cultures; at least in the language I hear different influences, and in the way things are built, and even its music. In the bus they were listening to (I guess) some folk music…
Metalfan: Manele?... I hope not. Well, roughly it’s mixture between our Latin heritage and the Balkanic culture...
Floor: I can hear it, it’s very mixed, that’s why it’s all very charming. I love being in a new country and having to learn all the important things, all the important words that I’m going to say tonight. First of all: “Noroc!” as you say when you drink a beer in Romania, then “Multumesc!” and so on. So I’m going to practice a little my Romanian.

Metalfan: What kind of show do you prefer? Do you like to focus on performance, movement and energy or you’d rather pay very much attention to the notes and correctness?
Floor: Both...
Metalfan: Of course, hehe, but let’s put one of them first.
Floor: I think [in concerts] you have to be able to do what you do on the CD, but with the live energy. So I’ve trained my ass off to be able to do both: to be able to focus on my singing tunes, but also not to stay like this (she takes a rigid posture) the whole song. So I guess it’s both energetic and tight. Both are important to us, especially the energetic part, because it allows an interaction with the audience; otherwise they can just put on a CD.
Metalfan: Time’s up for us, that was it, thanks a lot.
Floor: Thanks.