Out of nowhere, Xandria have seen an astronomical rise in popularity. Perhaps it is owed in part to a line-up change that saw popular Dianne van Giersbergen take charge on vocals, and a subsequent album that took Europe by storm. We speak to Marco Heubaum about Xandria’s future plans to revel in this found popularity!
Whatever the case the band are riding this electric storm, putting out a new ambitious ‘Fire & Ashes‘ EP representing the brilliance of Xandria’s symphonic career, and finding themselves at the top of the billing in a trek through Europe.
We catch up with the man who has been at the helm of Xandria’s career, Marco Heubaum, to have a chat about the ‘Fire & Ashes‘ EP, symphonic songwriting, and of course that fabulous Meat Loaf cover!
Read an extract from the interview and listen to the full audio interview below:
With the ‘Fire & Ashes’ EP, are the original songs a prelude to the next album?
Well we wrote 3 songs for the EP. It was just a statement for us. We had big changes after the ‘Neverworld’s End album with a new singer…it is to assure people and say, ‘OK, now we’re going on this way’.
…and Diane only joined the band in 2014? So now you have done an album and an EP with here it’s a reassurance that [Xandria] you have quite a solid line up.
Yes that’s true. She joined in 2013 though! She joined in the fall of that year.
Ah yes sorry! 2014 is when the album [Sacrificium] came out. Did she actually have any part in the writing process at all?
Not that much as it was already written. She wrote lyrics to it though.
So did the whole band write the new EP this time around?
Not the whole band sitting together in the sense that we all sit around, and everyone has an equal part. It’s still myself having the main ideas for the songs. Most of the time I am working them out with our producer who’s a little bit like our 6th band member right now. I think if we had a keyboarder in the band he would be the person to be it [the producer]. But he’s the guy, he doesn’t come out on tour with us but he’s there in the studio producing the album. I found a very good partner in songwriting with him – he’s having the same vision – and it’s very good.
In the past I have mostly written the stuff on my own, with maybe a little input coming from the members when I had already written 90% of every song. It’s also very needed though, because every member had put an input since ‘Neverworld’s End’, it’s very important [that they take part]…you can never do it alone!
Listen to the rest of the interview below!
