Interviews

Sharon Den Adel – Within Temptation ‘The Most Honest Reason For Their Down Under Delay’

Walladmin

Heavy Metal Wordsmith

Feb 21, 2025

7 min read

For close to 30 years, Aussie fans of symphonic metal act Within Temptation have been waiting patiently for the Dutch metallers to make their way down under. Luckily for us, the three decade delay comes to an next weekend when the group make their debut down under at Knotfest, and their already SOLD OUT sideshows (keep up to date via our Rolling Coverage here).

Ahead of the first trip to our shores, we caught up with vocalist Sharon Den Adel who chats with Wall Of Sound about their Knotfest appearance – and the real reason behind the delay in getting here. Plus, what to expect with their set and what they’re looking forward to crossing off their Aussie bucket lists.

‍It’s been close to 30 years but Knotfest will mark your first-ever trip to Australia – what was the holdup getting here and why was the festival the right decision to make your debut down under?

Well, it’s always been difficult to get the right offers to come over. It’s very expensive, of course. That’s the most honest answer I can give. And we also had to combine it then with other tours that was already somewhere down under a bit in the area like Japan or China. But these tours were very difficult to fit in the schedules that we already had. I think now we really want to all go there. We’ve always had so much positive response on every album so far, it’s always been on our wishlist and we’ve always tried to see if we could fit it in somehow, but it never worked out completely because the dates were different with other countries in the area and then it just fell through.

I guess you don’t want to also compromise your live show, you don’t want to strip back too much

Exactly, and it’s a lot traveling. It’s like from one country to the other. Also, a lot of times when you are already on a tour in America, Europe or South America even, it’s already eating away so much time for you to write new music. That was something that’s like every time you do more and more and more and more countries, you go over the world, it takes away more time to write something new again. I must say that’s been the main reason. Those things are main reasons for us to wait so long.

Do you write on the road or do you wait till you’re home?

No, I have to do that at home because there’s so much happening with interviews and stuff like that. So, for us it’s always like it’s best to do it in an environment where you are everything and you feel the sound and everything is to your standards and you’re totally relaxed. If you know you’re going to have a show a few hours later, you’re not that relaxed too. At least I’m not. So, for me it was better to not do that before a show or something.

Also, to see something of the place you are at most of the time. If you’re in a certain city, you want to see something cultural there so you can talk to the people. I’ve been there and I’ve seen it and I’ve met these people and I had this story to tell. You want to tell stories. I think music is a lot about telling stories to people to connect with each other and to try to understand where they’re coming from and where you are coming from to make them get to know you a bit better as well.

You will be curating one of the hardest setlists of your entire career here – how are you planning on delivering the full Within Temptation experience that encapsulates 29 years and eight albums?

That’s going to be very difficult. There’s always going to be someone disappointed that their song wasn’t played, and unfortunately that’s the way it will probably be now as well. Hopefully we’re going to just do our best and try to make a setlist that’s worthy of the festival and I think certain people want to expect certain songs from us, but also want to have, well, I think maybe something that we’ve done lately because it fits better to the festival in a way.

What are three Australian experiences you’ve heard about that you cannot wait to dive into while here?

Oh, good question. Experiences? Well, I love the nature that I’ve seen from the pictures from photographs and from the past when I was in Australia. Nature is one of the things that I want to see, especially the beach. There was like, you have these stones coming from the beach, you know what I mean? I’ve been looking it up, but it’s been wild. I would love to see that with my own eyes and also again, the nature parks, but also the cities. I think there’s a lot of cultural, maybe see some bands maybe play on a day off, maybe in some kind of bar or just see what’s happening over there in music style. I can’t wait to just explore everything. There are so many things to see, and we have such a short time.

There’s something special about the experience of witnessing a symphonic metal band at a music festival – for the fans (both new and old) that may be sitting on the fence, how will you tempt them to say “fuck it” and buy a ticket to Knotfest?

It took us almost 30 years to come. I don’t know how fast we will come again, but of course we have two other shows as well. There’s five opportunities to see us somewhere and it would be lovely to see them. Of course, I know there’s some hardcore fans coming from Australia, always to Europe, and I think, I’m not sure what ticket they bought or will buy, but it’s great to finally come their way instead of that they must come our way.

If there’s metal lovers that haven’t discovered Within Temptation yet, what songs or album should they listen to before checking out your set at Knotfest?

It depends on what they’re into. I think if they’re more rock related then they should check out songs ‘Faster’ and ‘Shot In The Dark‘. If you are more into a little bit more a crossover kind of things, like a little bit metalcore, but also more, because we’re such a mix of so many things. I think the latest album is really good as well to listen to. It’s a little bit more heavy than we’ve done before. And ‘Shed My Skin’ is of course more of a metalcore kind of song and I really like the song ‘We Go To War’. Also ‘Bleed Out’.

There’s so many songs that are very different. If you are more into with the romantic kind of songs, then I think ‘Somewhere’ is a beautiful song. There’s many to pick from and they’re so different from each other.

Want to experience Within Temptation live for the very first time in Australia? Get to a show.