Worlds Beyond (Belgium)

Interview with Tijmen (songwriter ) & Valerie (vocals)

https://www.facebook.com/worldsbeyondofficial/

Worlds Beyond is the symphonic metal sextet from Belgium. The band is currently promoting their second album entitled Rhapsody of Life, on which they continue to create dreamy and emotional songs that are mostly about dreams, escapism, beauty, marvel etc. Recently, I had unique opportunity to talk to band’s songwriter Tijmen and to band’s frontwoman Valerie. Other band members participated only on two questions. All in all an interesting interview with the band that appeals for fans of e.g. Nightwish, Within Temptation, Evanescence as I’m sure they’ll certainly take the music in their heart.

Metal Revolution: Hello from Denmark. How are you guys? How are things over in Belgium?
Worlds Beyond: Really good, except for the lack of sunshine in this gray country of Belgium. We’re very excited about the next few months considering the band though. The release of our second album is coming up, we’ve planned three big shows with a symphonic orchestra and we are excited to share it with the world! Thank you for asking, we hope all is good in Denmark as well?

MR: Very similar to Belgium, gray and rainy weather… What have you been up to lately? Working on a new project with your band?
WB: We’re currently very busy with the release of our second album: it’s a celebration of human existence with the title Rhapsody of Life. The first single “Unwind Our Story” is already out, with an action-packed video clip showcasing the meaning of the song. The second one is an emotional ballad featuring a single-shot video of Valerie singing. The full album will be released on Jan. 31, on all streaming platforms, but also in physical form as a CD or on vinyl. To celebrate the album, we’ll perform three release concerts on Feb. 28, Mar. 1 and Mar. 2. These concerts feature a live symphonic orchestra, which will be quite unique for a rather small band in this genre. We have already had our first rehearsal with the orchestra, and are so excited about it! There will be an art gallery connected to the shows as well, as we want to blend different forms of art in a unique experience.

MR: You were founded in 2017, right? Can you tell us about the very beginning of your career? What was idea behind formation of this band?
Tijmen: During the summer of 2016 I had discovered the joy of songwriting, and after writing an album’s worth of music I just couldn’t not do something with it. It took us half a year to get started and another half year to complete the line-up. It was an amazing adventure to discover & learn all the things required to be an active music band. And we’ve kept on growing ever since.

MR: Did you had any lineup changes during the last eight years?
WB: Not really. We started out briefly with a different drummer, but she had to stop due to time constraints. Wout has been our drummer ever since. He was with us for the first gig and every recording so we don’t really consider this a lineup change. We can honestly say that Wout’s dedication to the band is one of the reasons we’ve come this far. We’re very happy our paths crossed all these years ago.

MR: How did you get your name?
WB: Finding a fitting band name for a symphonic metal band is not an easy task. It took us almost a year to come up with a name that immediately felt good for all of us! We had endless lists of words and combinations on the discard pile before that.
We wanted it to describe the vibes of our music without being too cringy or stereotypical. For us, “Worlds Beyond” invites us to think further: to imagine realities just out of our reach, to be welcoming the diversity of experiences every one of us can encounter along this path of the human condition.

MR: Your sound has been described as ‘female fronted symphonic metal’. Do you agree with this description or do you think your sound is more diverse and varied than just a symphonic metal?
WB: Let’s put it this way: symphonic metal is the least insufficient way to describe our sound. We’re often categorized that way because of the metal influences in the guitar and drum sections, combined with the symphonic aspects brought by the keys and violin. However, a lot of people have mentioned they find this classification too limiting, to which we completely agree. Our sound is really a blend of genres: they switch between soft, intimate, powerful, lyrical, or even groovy. We have influences from film music, opera, classical music, pop, rock, folk, musicals, and even hip-hop. This means our music can be appreciated by people from all walks of life, including those who dislike metal. And we’ve also heard from multiple metalheads that they fell in love with the soft side of our songs.

MR: Where do you get inspiration from when creating a new song, and how does your creative process work – do all members contribute equally or is there one main songwriter? What’s the creative process like when you make a new song?
Tijmen: Initially I write the rough strokes of the music in my head, after that I go to the computer and play everything in on keyboard in order to lay out the song. Then we take the exported scores to the band rehearsals and refine them with the whole group. Valerie & I co-write the lyrics: about half of the texts are written by each of us, and we improve each other by exchanging feedback.
On the first album it was very much a music first approach, the lyrics being written afterwards. On our newest album however I already had the full lyrical concept of the songs in mind while writing the music, for a more holistic approach.

MR: About the lyrical content, your songs are mostly about dreams, escapism, beauty, marvel etc. but I could read that you also find an inspiration regularly in stories and nature walks. Sounds easy to me (Laughing).
Valerie: (Laughing) I understand! When I get inspiration through other stories it’s not my intention to copy the narrative. After all, the story already exists. When writing lyrics, I start from a feeling and see where it takes me. For example “Fallen Star” is based on the girl with the matchsticks (as a Dane you should be familiar with the fairytale!). It was never my intention to ‘make a song about that story’ but rather to capture how incredibly sad this fairytale leaves me everytime. When I first heard the music, I felt the same thing as when I read or heard the story, with “Fallen Star” as the result.
The new album is less about fantasy & nature, but instead focuses on the human condition. Therefore I mainly used past experiences and life-events to write the lyrics of our concept-album. In Rhapsody of Life, each song explores a specific facet of the human experience that we are all bound to encounter in some form or another. We hope our fans can see themselves reflected in these themes, and that our music might empower them or provide them with solace and strength.

MR: Now, what can you tell us about your debut album Symphony of Dawn, released on December 2020?
WB: Symphony of Dawn was the first album we released and we put a lot of love and effort in this. Even though we’ve grown as a band, we think that the music of the album still represents who we are and what music we like. It’s definitely worth listening to if you haven’t already.

MR: What is your favorite track on the new album?
Valerie: I find it hard to choose between “Sleepless Dreams” and “Rhapsody of Life”!
Robbe: Either “The Calling” or “Sleepless Dreams”.
Ewoud: For me it has to be “Familiar Skies” with its majestic bass intro. Really fun to play that live!
Tijmen: I adore songs that are full of depth, both musically and lyrically: that would be “The Moment”, “Rhapsody of Life”, and” Sleepless Dreams”. Oh, and “Enchantment” is also kinda cute.
Wout: I really like “The Spark”. It’s up-tempo, danceable, happy and a bit folksy. Right up my alley.
Jakob: My favorite is by far “The Moment”, I think it magnificently captures the spiritual experience of suddenly standing still in this tumultuous world and appreciating how precious this life is in the light of eternity. Uncoincidentally, it is also the hardest song to get right in my opinion.

MR: Are you pleased with the support you got from Mike & Hard Life Promotions? You received some positive feedback for Symphony of Dawn from the media & fans?
WB: Absolutely, we were very grateful that our first album Symphony of Dawn was so well-received. It felt very rewarding to get all this recognition knowing that we had put our heart and soul into this first album. Let’s hope that we can repeat this with this second album. We have definitely gone above and beyond to make this album even more impactful!

MR: What about your musical inspirations? Am I wrong if I say that I can hear influences from the likes of Nightwish, Within Temptation and Evanescence? Are these some of the artists you listen to?
WB: Our music is obviously inspired by these well-known symphonic metal bands! However, that’s not even half of the picture. We are very much influenced by a plethora of other music styles and don’t want to define our music as just one more band in that genre.
Even though we share the love for ‘our’ music, every single band member is different when it comes to personal taste. We see this as an enrichment of what we bring as individual artists to the process. Some of us are fans of e.g. Nightwish, some like it rougher, some like it softer. We often talk about all kinds of music like other rock bands, indie artists, classical music, etc. And we have a nice playlist of party music when sharing a car. Never a dull moment while travelling together!

MR: Speaking of the role-models; do you think that people make those comparisons because you’re a female-fronted band, or because they can hear some similarities in your music?
WB: We understand why the comparison is made but we also disagree that ‘symphonic metal’ or ‘female fronted metal’ covers entirely what we do. Of course there are many similar elements but our music is so much more than just an extension of possible role-models.

Every time we are asked to put a genre on our music we find it incredibly difficult because there is no ‘absolute’ genre to cover what we do: we have elements of rock, metal, classical music, acoustic music, there will be folky and disney vibes, You can dance, headbang or sway to our music…

You could say our genre is eclecticism. On one hand this makes our music very versatile and therefore accessible to people who aren’t rock- or metalfans, as stated earlier. On the other hand it’s in people’s nature wanting to know where you fit in as a band, which makes it very challenging to get booked for gigs. We are often found “too soft or epic” for metal events but on the other hand it’s also difficult to find a spot on stage for rock and other events because it’s “too heavy”. The metalworld doesn’t always consider us as a metalband but ‘outsiders’ do.

MR: Where and what was your first performance together like?
WB: Our very first performance was a try-out event for everyone aware of our music. It was organised in the Bandcave in Tielt (Belgium). There were about 50 people and we were very nervous. We were focused on our individual parts, glued to the ground and had very little interaction with each other on stage BUT we didn’t mess up musically so that was a pass. We started to build a little more confidence with every live-event since that very first time. Now you can tell we really enjoy performing on stage and we don’t need to stress about our parts anymore: we know we will put things to a good end.

MR: If you could go open a show for any artist who would it be?
WB: We’d love to open for Blackbriar!

MR: Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview! Would you like to add anything to the readers of Metal Revolution?
WB: A big thank you to all who’ve come this far reading (Laughing)! We appreciate the time we got from Metal Revolution for this interview and hope readers will give our music a chance after this. We believe in our project, more than anything, and are very proud of the outcome of the second album.

Also; keep headbanging and support the smaller or local bands. Behind every band there’s a group of inspired, dedicated people investing a lot of talent, time and money to bring their music into the world for others to enjoy. We hope you’ll enjoy our second album and if you do, give us a like or follow on the internet!

We appreciate it and wish Metal Revolution all the best for the future!