In a new interview with Panama’s Café Rock, EPICA guitarist/vocalist Mark Jansen was asked if writing the material for the group’s ninth studio album, “Aspiral”, in a series of camps with his bandmates and producer changed the way they create and connect as a band. He responded: “Yeah, definitely because we used to work more on our own, creating songs in our own home studios, and now we, in a much earlier stage, we sit together, work on each other’s tracks, and that way you get more of a bond together, and it makes it all more personal. And also the way we recorded in the studio, so we had already these writing camps where we were working together, but also in the studio we recorded drums, bass and guitar in a live setting. So not every instrument differently, like we used to do, but more like in a live setting. And that’s way you also catch this live vibe on the album. That’s also pretty cool. It makes you tighter as a band and also, because we know each other already pretty well, but then you start to know each other even better.”

Jansen also talked about the artwork for “Aspiral”, which does include the EPICA band name or album title on it. Asked why EPICA chose to let the artwork speak for itself this time around, Mark said: “Yeah, there are several reasons, and one of the reasons is that the lyrics, they’re dealing about the destruction of the ego. And so in a way we already worked also like that as a band, when we work on the music and no ego whatsoever, just let the music speak and let the music do its work. And then it doesn’t matter who comes with which idea. It’s just an EPICA idea instead of an individual idea. So in that way, already the whole ego is gone. And also the way we split the rights, it’s all equal splits between the band members. So not one guy earning a lot because he wrote many songs and somebody else earning nothing. Everybody gets the same. And then we thought also for the album cover, let also the name out of it, because the big name on the album covers is usually also related to the ego thing. And that fit well in the story about letting the whole ego out, let the artwork speak for itself. And to have an in-between solution, we still have plastic with a sticker so that people in the shops still see which band it is, because for record companies, they want still to sell albums, of course. So we had to make an in-between solution. But then once people are at home, they have the album itself and just the cover. And, yeah, it works really well like that.”

Asked about the musical diversity of “Aspiral”, Jansen said: “It basically just happens because we are from six different backgrounds as musicians. So five musicians, one singer, Simone (Simons). And when we write music, it also comes from six different backgrounds. Then when we start putting it together, it always sounds in the end like EPICA, but you still have this very different backgrounds you can hear in the music. That’s what makes it so diverse, but also so interesting to listen to because it’s all clearly EPICA, but goes in very different directions.”