Mark's new band - MaYaN

Read this:
http://www.bravewords.com/news/124456

Oh My Gosh,I'm so looking forward to this! I hope this time will work better than how it was on After Forever.But it says it will be diffrent so we can have high hopes

I love Mark's colaboration on the first two After Forever albums and also Sander's guest apperance on 'Death Of A Dream',so I think it will sound awesome!

Mark's statement about his solo work from the official forum:

Quote :

I am working on this Death Metal project indeed.
Jack Driessen (first keyboardplayer After Forever and co writer Resign to Surrender) and me started the project. Sander wrote 4 songs with us (they realy kick ass) and recently we started working with Frank Schiphorst (guitarplayer) on some other songs.
The project is gonna be quite heavy but very melodic. As Jack has a unique style it will sound different from my work with Epica. It's also my intention to do something different. All the material we write for this project is music which wouldn't fitt in Epica.
So far we took it a but easy indeed but the songs are popping up one by one and I hope we'll have the material finished by the end of this year to record it and release it.
That would be perfect as in 2011 there should be a new Epica album and it's best that Epica and this project do not interfere.

Amazing news, I can't wait to hear their work!

Yes,I read that on the official forum not too long ago

I'm really excited about this. .It's the same story all over again.I mean when Mark and Sander founded Apocalypse(After Forever's former name) in 1995 it was a death and black metal project at that time.And now after all of those years the story repeats

^ Didn't knew about the original name, thanks Cris!

And yeah that's really cool they can be friends again and make some more epic music together.

I'm really looking forward to this, I think it will be pretty interesting for anyone.

magnoly wrote:

^ Didn't knew about the original name, thanks Cris!

And yeah that's really cool they can be friends again and make some more epic music together.

Really?Then I can tell you lots of stuff about some unrealeased songs and demos(that I haven't heard actually ) if you want of course

^ I'd love to!

Okay,even thought this has nothing to do with Epica,I'd post it here anyway.

I'll quote Sander of what did he wrote on the official AF Forum:

The tracklisting of the very first unrealeased demo songs of Apocalypse:

Quote :

From the re-release booklet from Prison of Desire

01 - False
02 - Ermine
03 - Awaken in Delerium
04 - Broken Skull
05 - Immortality
06 - Prison of Desire
07 - Apocalypse
08 - Legends of the Black Lake
09 - Intermediate Station Earth
10 - The Abdication

And Sander talking about these songs:

Quote :

some of the songs were pretty cool , some extra info for you:

02 - Ermine
Quealitywise this song just didnt make it for POD, but it was the first song that had a really devopped AF style, the midpart was the clean part we later used in Pledge Two!

03 - Awaken in Delerium
Had some very promosing (Iced Eath) riffs and some black metal elements, but somehow we couldnt finish it the right way.

04 - Broken Skull
had some clean parts of what later would be Intrinsic , and a pretty cool chorus, a simple song, but would have been a cool ballad.

05 - Immortality
Some clean male singing parts, beginning of style.

06 - Prison of Desire
A black metal song:-)

07 - Apocalypse
Our first real song, I think it was around 8/9 minutes, it existed out of various parts, at that time we still had to learn to write real songs, but I know I was really proud when we recorded it on tape!!!!!!!!!!!!!

08 - Legends of the Black Lake
One of the first songs with piano in it, partly sung by Francois (RIP)

09 - Intermediate Station Earth
This one seemed to have a melody in it that cam right out of a porn movie our previous grunter said he's seen...don't know who wrote that melody anymore;-)

10 - The Abdication
One of the very early ones, there are some more songs, of course the info by Transmission isnt complete, but I think I already talked about a few other songs on this board.

The previous grunter that Sander is talking about is obvioulsy Mark

Thanks so much Cris for this

Seems they didn't release any of those?

Out of porn movie? Oh Mark, Mark...

You're welcome

No,they didn't.They recorded some of them on tape,and Sander promised to release them someday..but that didn't happened yet

LOL,they were just teens at that time,they had a sick imagination . They were also,smoking,remeber that interview with Sim and Mark from metal-injection?Bad,bad

And probably won't ever happen...

Yeah But he said he did it only once, so I'm glad because of that.

Well,he said that quite recentl so we can still have hope

Yeah,I'm happy because it was only once.Three smokers in Epica is enousgh,we don't need the fourth one

Sory for DP but Mark wrote a new message on the official forum

Quote :

Grunts and screams will be done by ourselves for sure. Sander doesn't like singing but I hope he'll do one song (at least) as well
Besides the grunts and screams we'll ask a few guests to make a guestappearance.

But first of all the songs need to be finished, if we go on in this pace we'll be done by this summer.
Todat we sat together and wrote one whole song from scratch. I'm not easily satisfied but this material sounds very good.

To answer another question, the music is heavy but still very melodic.
It comes most close to the Epica cover of Crystal Mountain.

Don't underestimate Jack Driessen's role on the first 2 AF albums, he wrote many melodies as well.

Sander doesn't like singing? How,comes that?I mean his grunts have been featured in every single AF album.plus Sander's other project HDK(Hate,Death,Kill).I don't get why he doesn't like it anymore?
By in the vein of Crystal Mountain I thinnk he doesn't mean there will be the low and chuggy guitars,but more heavy me thinks
And I really love Jack's keyboard skills mostly on AF's 'Yield to Tempation',it's sounds totally like black metal keyboard sounds

XxfrozenbutterflyxX wrote:

Yeah,I'm happy because it was only once.Three smokers in Epica is enousgh,we don't need the fourth one

Definately! Yet they were talking about marihuana I guess, not cigarettes.

And thanks for posting Cris the lastest 'news'. I'm so looking forward to this project!
And I saw Mark answered your question about lyrics, cool he will write some!

Oh yeah,I remember now...

You're welcome

And yes I nerly died of happiness,I never thought he would answer so quick,and yes he will write some lyrics for this project.and I'm really curious what subjects he will use

From Mark's Myspace:

Quote :

Create the name of our new band

Hi guys,

As you might know, Frank Schiphorst, Jack Driessen and Mark Jansen have founded a new band. It's a crossover of brutal death and prog metal with symphonic influences.
We'll start recording the debut album in October 2010.
Jack and Mark already worked together previously, during the early stages of After Forever (Prison of Desire and Decipher). Sander Gommans (also ex-After Forever) contributed to some of the tracks as well. Frank and Mark met at Christmas Metal Symphony where they shared the stage. The beast on drums: Arien van Weesenbeek (Epica) will nail the album.
This unique project is evolving quite fast and the music turns out great, but we don't have a name for the project yet.
We would like to challenge you to create the name of our new band!
If you have any options please mail us at: mark@epica.nl
with the subject: "bandname".
If you come up with the perfect bandname we'll make sure you'll get a VIP treatment at our cd-presentation, which will take place around spring 2011.

Greetings,

Frank Schiphorst

Jack Driessen

Mark Jansen

*drools*
death,prog and symphonic are my fave metal genres! (not in that order )

And I could've bet that Arien was going to be the drummer

And I might think of a band name...

Hmm I am surprised nobody told me, argh I'm gonna dream about a name tonight!

Oh I'm glad our forum served you as the info though.

Sorry for DP, but some news Mark said on official forum:

Quote :

Bassplayer will probably be: Jeroen Thesseling - http://www.jeroenthesseling.com

Sander didn't have enough time for the project in the end anymore.

Sander is interested in the music scene but in a different way. More like producer and songwriter (in which he does a great job!). He never really liked playing live and that's what we really want to do with this new band.
We worked the whole day on new songs again and some final details of some old songs.

We have very good news to be announce soon!

Cant wait,I'm so excited!

Some news from Mark about the sound of the project and the progress:

Quote :

It contains groove, it has power, it is brutal but it will always be different than people expect I guess ;-)
What I heard was that people at the Nuclear Blast office were headbanging when they listened to the demo's
We left room for the guitars there where needed and room for the keys as well.
I cant wait to record this stuff now, I'm really excited about the results so far!

Where did he wrote that?

I'm really excited about the project,even more than before It will be something new,powerful and fresh,I'm sure I will love it

Official forum again.

I'm so excited too! I cannot wait to hear his music beside Epica.

Yeah I should've thought of that.That's weird I havent seen it,I check the Official Forum almost daily...

But yeah it will be defintely amazing.And we will also get live shows in the fuiure which is even more amazing