I have to congratulate you with your album first, it has become a real success after a year. It must have opened a lot of doors for you?
It sure has, we have the opportunity now to spread our work through a label with which we can reach a large audience. It opened door to ourselves as well as for the band in a musical sense. We have grown and we’re proud of it. We’re more than ready for the future!

Facing History and Ourselves. The title is somewhat philosophical, is there an idea behind it?
When you look at the cover, you see a house burning and 5 shadows of people. The shadow are from the band-photo on the back. Facing History and Ourselves is about ourselves. We looked at who we are and what we have become, everybody had his own tale and learned a lot from it. At that point Encorion became a band and we all took our own stories to it and worked at one goal. This goal will result in the next album.

What does Encorion mean, actually?
The word itself has no meaning, for us it means a lot.

Why did you chose to play folk-metal at some point? Did you always had interests in history of did you have any particular bands as a example?
We didn’t chose folk-metal in particular, it’s the music which comes out of our instruments when we play, it’s natural and pure. In certain ways it’s based on our own history, this is one of our sources of inspiration. Encorion tries to transfer a feeling, this is a feeling how we feel it, it comes from everywhere.
What do you think of the developments in the folk-metal scene? It’s growing enormously with festivals like Paganfest and Heidenfest. Would you like to join in?
The folk-metal scene is growing fast and it has it advantages and disadvantages. Of course we would like to tour with festivals like Paganfest and Heidenfest. But we reject the raise of the ripp-offs, but that’s part of a growing style.

Folk metal and Pagan metal even more have a bad name sometimes. Old historical symbols are disabused and trigger (often negative) reactions with people. Does you suffer from this?
We don’t suffer from these things at all, because we don’t use these old symbols in what we express.

How do you make an album, is there a special allocation of tasks?
Most of the songs at “Facing History and Ourselves” were written before Jark and Tessa joined the band. Danny (guitar) starts often with a riff or the feel for a song and works this out on guitar and after this he makes an basic arrangement of guitar, bass and drums. With this arrangement we work on it in the rehearsal room and it’s worked out to become a song as you can hear it on the CD. For the songs which are written after “FHaO” the step with Mike is often skipped and Danny plays his riffs for the band so the balance between all instruments can evolve more natural when the band works on it as a collective.

How about this next album? Busy already?
In fact we just have made some test-recordings for our next album. These recordings are used to put a finishing touch to the songs for the individual pieces and arrangements. It gives us the opportunity to listen to it closely and think about what should be added in the form of extra instruments.

Can we expect it to be something like the last album, of are you going to turn in a different direction?
We think the new songs will show a much more mature band, the individuals as well as the band have grown since FHaO, which was recorded way back in 2008. It won’t be a copy of FHaO but it isn’t we have become a totally different band. More will be clear when the title of the new album will be revealed.

Shall the tiny piece of Dutch in “Val der Nacht” get a follow up?
We haven’t made a definitive selection of tracks for the second album, so we can’t answer that, but it we’re not totally against it.

Are there plans for gigs in the near future? (Amsterdam?)
There aren’t playing a lot of nice folk-metal bands playing in our capital city. In January the first edition of the Wolfstijd festival is scheduled in Vlaardingen and there would be a follow up of “Into the Forest” of last January in ‘de Baroeg’ soon in Terneuzen. And we’re busy planning a tour in The Netherlands and Belgium together with the Frysian Baldrs Draumar and the Belgian band Lemuria. And we hope to be on stage in spring 2012 with our friends of Chain of Dogs and others

What are your dreams for the future?
Play a lot and meeting a much inspiring people as possible!

And as a last question: Is there something you like to say to our readers?
We hope to see you at one of our gigs.

By: Dorien