How did Epica came together?
Mark: In the spring of 2002 I left After Forever. But I didn’t want to stop making music, so I imediately started another band. The first one I contacted was Ad, who had already performed with AF and with whom I had already started a project during the AF period. It was actually this project that was later developed into a full band. Transmission Records brought us in contact with our first female singer Helena Iren Michaelsen. And after a few months the lineup was complete and Sahara Dust was born. Unfortunately Helena left to Norway and she took our drummer with her. So we started looking for another drummer and singer. After a lot of auditions we found Jeroen as the best drummer and Simone. Because she is also my girlfriend, we initially thought it wasn’t such a good idea to recruit her–I had some bad experiences with relationships in a band. But in the end she turned out to be just what we were looking for, so we took the chance. With the new lineup complete again, we decided to c
