Anneke van Giersbergen _______
The Dutch musician details how her sensitive new album helped exorcise her dark personal times.
“There’s so much bullshit in the world, and now I’m thinking, ‘Oh, I’m releasing an album about love and I’m not sure that people will give a shit, to be honest!”
Anneke van Giersbergen’s back catalogue is rich and varied. She’s recorded pop and metal albums, even sung with John Wetton, Devin Townsend and Arjen Lucassen, but until now, she’d never made an acoustic record. Her latest, The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest, is an intimate recording that explores love and heartbreak. She gives Prog the lowdown on it and tackles those rumours about a new VUUR album.
The life of a professional musician can seem pretty rosy from the outside. When the musician in question is Anneke van Giersbergen – voice of an angel, smile that would light up a windowless tomb – one could assume that the Dutch singer has been having the time of her life for more than two decades. With numerous solo albums and collaborative projects to her name, not least an enduring creative partnership with Devin Townsend, she’s become a much-loved and respected figure in the prog, alt-rock and metal worlds.
Unfortunately, real life has a tendency to interfere with just about everything, and van Giersbergen’s new album, The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest tells the rather more complicated and heartrending story of perhaps the toughest period in her career to date. Primarily acoustic, wonderfully delicate and full of songs of love and its highs and lows, it’s the most honest and intimate record she has ever made.
Of course, van Giersbergen’s last project was utterly different from the soft, thoughtful and elegant songs on The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest. Launched in 2016, VUUR was a fullbore prog metal band, steeped in technicality and bombast, but as fiercely melodic as one might expect from the singer. They released their debut album, In This Moment We Are Free – Cities, in the autumn of 2017, receiving widespread positive reviews. Unfortunately, as van Giersbergen recalls to Prog, the overall response from her fanbase was somewhat less enthusiastic, with many complaining that the new music didn’t “sound like The Gathering!” (the Dutch prog veterans, with whom she released six albums between 1995 and 2006). Meanwhile, a more personal storm was brewing.
“I said, ‘I’m forming my own metal band’, and I showed people little excerpts of the songs online, and still everyone was thinking, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be like The Gathering!’” she says with a sigh. “I never compared it to The Gathering openly, it just didn’t occur to me. So a lot of people were displeased when VUUR came out! I was so surprised, but I put everything into it, my time and energy, my love, my money… more than all my money! So when we did the first tour, I knew that this wasn’t going to be an overnight sensation and I had to work super-hard to get it going. The thing is, we’d been working super-hard for the last 20 years. We were just so tired.”
With typical honesty, van Giersbergen has made no bones about the fact that The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest was partly inspired by a rocky period in her marriage to musician Rob Snijders. Again, the widespread perception that professional artists are living the dream makes no allowances for the fact that touring, recording, creating and the unerring need for them to be seen and heard can hardly fail to put a strain on any relationship. As she fought to achieve her goals with VUUR, something had to give.
“I remember being on the tourbus and talking to the head of our label. He says, ‘How’s it going?’ and I just started crying!” she grins. “I mean, he sees me crying every year! [Laughs.] But I’d put everything into it,
and it just wasn’t falling the right way with the crowds. I realised I had to come up with the second album immediately and keep pushing, because I believed in it so much. The band was fantastic, the best metal players in all of Holland, you know? So I was exhausted from all of that, and that all led to a point where everything started to fall apart around me, and us, and in our marriage. It kind of surprised me because we’d been together for so long and we’re each other’s big loves. Oh, and we were moving house at the same time…”
That probably didn’t help… “Exactly. It’s on the top three most stressful things ever! And then Rob’s parents got ill. I was gone all the time, touring…”
Is the nature of what you do always going to cause problems like that? Did it cause those problems before?
“That’s a good question. I think that’s why it took us by surprise, because we’d been together for more than 24 years, I think. I was in The Gathering and he was in bands and we were both touring and it was a natural thing for us. We don’t mind, because we like to be together and we like to be alone. But we were running in different directions a little bit, and we kind of lost each other. It took us by surprise and then it was a bit too late, like, ‘Holy shit, what’s going on?’ After that realisation and all the hard work, we had to come up with a plan to fight for the marriage, right?”
The good news for all concerned is that van Giersbergen and Snijders have worked through their problems and are firmly united once more. The other good news is that the resultant album is an absolute stunner. Composed in isolation and recorded in collaboration with producer
Gijs Coolen, The Darkest Skies
Are The Brightest is a warm, organic and beautiful record that is, at times, unbearably bittersweet and poignant. Frankly, it’s exactly the album van Giersbergen needed to make at this point in her career, not least due to its emotional backdrop. Unfortunately, as she fought to save her marriage, it was generally expected that she would be writing a new VUUR album instead.
“Jord [Otto], VUUR’s guitar player, started writing for the album and he came up with amazing riffs and songs and structures and ideas,” she recalls. “I had all these lyrics pouring out of me, but none of them fitted with a heavy metal song. So I started writing with an acoustic guitar and different kinds of songs started coming out. After a few weeks I had to tell the band that I don’t think I can do another VUUR album. It was really strange, things were coming out of me and I couldn’t control it. Obviously they weren’t pleased! I guess I could’ve put it all aside and made a VUUR album but it wouldn’t have been an honest one. So I put the whole thing on the back burner.”
Of course, even the most devoted fans can be fickle. Just as soon as she had made the decision to put VUUR on ice, van Giersbergen noticed a sudden change in people’s opinions on her latest endeavour.
“In the process of me writing this album, people started saying, ‘So when’s the new VUUR album coming?’ They have faith in what I do, so they gave VUUR another chance. In the meantime, I’m in this whole other process in my music and my life. I rented a little cabin in the woods, in my hometown. I was totally alone. I was not eating, not sleeping, only writing, for days on end. I saw online, ‘We can’t wait for a new VUUR album!’
It was so weird, but
I couldn’t stop, so you’re going to get a really quiet, acoustic album now. Sorry!”
With wonderfully subtle but rich arrangements and the unbeatable sound of van Giersbergen harmonising with herself, The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest is arguably the album fans have wanted her to make for a long time. Renowned for her intimate acoustic shows, she has always had a strong and visible relationship with acoustic music, and it’s clearly something that’s very close to her heart.
“I played a lot of acoustic shows during the time I was doing the VUUR stuff, partly to make money to help the band. It’s a good way to make the bread! But I love it. I always do the acoustic stuff in between everything I do, I’ve just never had an acoustic album. Everywhere I go and I play acoustic shows everywhere, and people ask ‘I loved the show, where can I buy your album?’ Well, I’ve got a metal album and I have a pop album and a rock album, so I thought it was just time to put out some quiet, introspective stuff.”
Prog wonders if it feels a little exposing for van Giersbergen to be writing so honestly about her own life?
“To be honest, yeah, it’s about the search and love and the whole thing, and therefore it’s very personal. But then we came into the coronavirus crisis, and then there’s Black Lives Matter and conspiracy theories everywhere and there’s so much bullshit in the world, and now I’m thinking, ‘Oh, I’m releasing an album about love and I’m not sure that people will give a shit, to be honest!’.
But I did one new song on the livestream, and then there was a huge reaction, like ‘Ah, I feel the same!’ and ‘Me and my husband have been going through the same thing!’”
A particularly sparkly gem of a song, on an album full of such things, The Soul Knows stands out as a key moment on The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest. With faint echoes of Robert Plant’s recent explorations and a melody that will scalp listeners from 100 yards away, it’s almost painfully raw and vulnerable, with van Giersbergen’s cry of ‘I don’t believe in silence any more’ its spine-tingling apex.
“That’s one of the key songs, indeed. Rob and I came to this conclusion that our marriage was going the wrong way. You can put everything under a blanket of love and press on, act like nothing is wrong. But you can also sit down, across from each other and talk. You know when you’re going to do that and you’re really superhonest with each other, you’re going to hear some stuff that you’re not going to like. You’re confronted with your good things but also your weaknesses. So that line is saying that we should take this head on, otherwise we will be totally damned.”
The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest is an album borne of turmoil and matters of the heart. It’s a deeply personal statement that reaffirms the determination that’s propelled van Giersbergen to this point. Whether in music or love, she continues to fight for what she believes in. Even if circumstances continue to be a pain.
“The love was still there, so
Rob and I decided to fight,” she reveals. “We did the whole thing, the couples therapy, we read the books, did all the talking sessions. We watched documentaries, we went on dates together. We did the whole thing, and then we knew there was way more than enough there to hold us together. Then Covid came and we were stuck together in one house! I know a lot of couples split up in lockdown. But we’re okay, so phew!”
The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest is out now via InsideOut. See www.annekevangiersbergen.com for more information.
“I never compared my own metal band to The Gathering openly, it just didn’t occur to me. So a lot of people were displeased when VUUR came out! I was so surprised.”