WITHIN TEMPTATION guitarist Ruud Jolie has released a book, “In Spotlight And Shadow: My Road Trip With Within Temptation”, featuring a foreword by IRON MAIDEN‘s Steve Harris and a heartfelt afterword by WITHIN TEMPTATION singer Sharon Den Adel.

WITHIN TEMPTATION states: “For over two decades, Ruud has been on the road with us, experiencing the highs, the lows, and the downright bizarre moments that only a life in a rock band can bring. Now, for the first time, he’s pulling back the curtain on those untold stories in his book, ‘In Spotlight And Shadow’.

“Let’s be clear: this isn’t your typical autobiography! This is Ruud sharing a collection of his most personal, awkward, and hilarious adventures — the kind of stories that never make it into interviews or press releases. Expect tales told with brutal honesty, sharp humor, and a generous dose of self-mockery. The book is also packed with exclusive, behind-the-scenes photos from the weird, wonderful, and chaotic life he leads in music. If you’ve ever wondered what really goes on behind the stage, on the bus, or in the studio when the cameras are off, this is your chance to find out.”

Regarding how the idea for the book came about, Ruud told Backstage Explorers:  ”I always like to read biographies. I like to read in general, but I like to read biographies and Stephen King books and ‘Star Wars’ books and Dutch literature, but biographies is a huge category in that. And I always had to dream to release my own book. But biography, in my case — I lead a very normal, simple life. I always give the examples that my parents are still happily married after 54 years, I don’t come from a broken family, I never almost died from a drug overdose, I never lived on the streets, so a book, if it would be about my life, would be very small and just a few pages, I guess. But nevertheless writing a book has always been a dream of mine, and Scott Ian (ANTHRAX) has once released a book called ‘Access All Areas’, which was a collection of anecdotes. And I thought, ‘Hmm, I can do that as well,’ in the sense that I can come up with a lot of stories from… I’ve been playing in within temptation for 24 years. I didn’t know if I could write. So in October of 2023, I penned down my first two stories. And the guy I was working with who was booking some Ronnie James Dio tribute shows in the Netherlands, he asked me to send him some stuff so he could read it. And the next week when I talked to him, he was really enthusiastic and he said, ‘Wow, it’s not perfect. It’s not good at all yet, but there is something in it.’ So he really urged me to continue writing. Well, so I did. And long story short, long story boring, here’s the book. It’s been out since September 1st. And I had a blast writing it. And from the comments that I get online, people have a blast reading it. So, in that sense, I consider it a huge success.”

On the topic of how he got Harris to write the foreword for “In Spotlight And Shadow: My Road Trip With Within Temptation”, Ruud said: “Well, I’ve known Steve Harris for 20 years now, something like that, and he’s always been very supportive of us as a band. We supported IRON MAIDEN a few times over the years. And I remember it was COVID time, 2021, and my agenda was wiped clean — no tours, nothing was happening. The ‘Worlds Collide’ tour that we were doing with EVANESCENCE, which finally took place in November ’22, that got postponed for the third time, so I was feeling down. And then I got a phone call from our manager, and he said, ‘Okay, I didn’t want to give you this information over e-mail, but I want to talk to you on the phone because we’re gonna be touring with IRON MAIDEN in the United States next year.’ So I was, like, ah, ‘Whoa.’ A dream, absolutely. But even though that I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy, I was thinking, ‘Okay, it’s more than a year, COVID, and those guys are reaching their seventies. Will they all still be alive?’ Because I remember watching ‘The Force Awakens’, ‘Star Wars’ episode seven, the first of a new trilogy with old cast members from the ’70s and ’80s. And I was thinking the same, like, ‘Whoa, I hope that all these actors stay alive to finish the trilogy.’ And, unfortunately, Carrie Fisher didn’t make it. So I had to think about that, and I was, like, ‘Oh, man, is COVID done? Are we allowed to travel again?’ I didn’t think that I would die, but I was a little bit concerned. And I learned to think in the way, like, okay, a tour or a gig is happening when we finally do the show, when I take my guitar and I play the first chord, because before that anything can go wrong. Then again, it seems that I’m a very negative person, which I’m absolutely not. Anyways, long story boring. We did the tour and we had some drinks with Steve and his assistant/security guy in Manhattan for an evening, which was really fun. And one of the reasons why it was so much fun was that we hardly talked about music. We almost didn’t talk about music, and we didn’t talk MAIDEN at all, which was refreshing for us, but can you imagine for a guy like Steve Harris to talk with… He knows that I’m a huge fan, yet I didn’t talk about MAIDEN. We talked about all kinds of other stuff. He tried to talk about football with me, but I know shit about football, so that didn’t work. And then a few days later we did our final show of the tour in Tampa, Florida, and I heard my name. And he invited me and the rest of the band to visit him, to rebook my flight, so to not fly back to Amsterdam the next day, but to fly to the Bahamas, to Nassau, where he lives, and to hang out with him for a few days. And he said, ‘Ah, I have a few guest houses, so you don’t need to hang out with his old geezer the whole time.’ I said, ‘Oh, man, that would be so great. I would’ve accepted it in a heartbeat. But we fly home, we have three days off, and then we start production rehearsals for the EVANESCENCE tour. So it’s not gonna happen.’ ‘Think about it,’ he said. So the next morning we were sitting on the tour bus and I was sitting in the other lounge — we were on the way to the airport — and all of a sudden Stefan (Helleblad, WITHIN TEMPTATION guitarist) said, ‘Ruud, don’t forget to text Steve that you can make it to the Bahamas.’ And then there was this silence, and we looked at each other and everyone started laughing, because who would’ve thought that… If you would’ve told 12-year-old me, like, ‘Hey, one day you’re gonna text Steve Harris that you can’t make it to the Bahamas,’ I would’ve thought you were insane. Anyways, long story even more longer, in the end, Stefan, Mike (Coolen, WITHIN TEMPTATION drummer), Carl Casagrande, the tour manager that we had, and me, we traveled to the Bahamas last January and hung out with Steve for about four days, which was awesome.