• The Gathering is John's most beloved band and he never imagined that there would come a day that he would actually have the chance,luck, privilege to have an interview with Anneke. But then what do dreams worth, if we can't make them real one day...?

• It's been a while since we released our previous album and we were very happy to do so. We were composing and recording for almost a year now.

2.NICK: MAY I ASK YOU SOMETHING? WILL THE SONGS IN THE MINI CD ALSO BE IN YOUR UPCOMING FULL LENGTH ALBUM?

• No! There is one song,of course. "Broken Glass" that will be in our upcoming album in a different version. In the mini cd the song is played with a piano but in the full length cd it will be played with guitars and drums, it will be heavier.

3.JOHN: THE LYRICS ARE YOURS AGAIN. CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO US THE DEEPER MEANING OF THE NEW SONGS?

• This albums contains a big song, where we have a few vocal parts and it's theme is about society and the problems the contemprorary world has to face. There are also lyrics referring to the collision bewteen good and bad. Besides these there are some "feeling good" songs...

4.JOHN: YOU HAVE A GUEST MUSICIAN IN "BLACK LIGHT DISTRICT", SARAH JEZEBEL. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE HER IN SPECIFIC?

• She is a good friend of mine and I liked what she did in the CRADLE OF FILTH albums. She has a great voice.

5.JOHN: YOU OWN PSYCHONAUT RECORDS. ARE THERE ANY OTHER BANDS IN THIS LABEL BESIDES THE GATHERING?

• No, not yet! Our upcoming album will be released from Psychonaut records.

6.JOHN: IN THE AYREON'S "ELECTRIC CASTLE" YOU PLAY A SMALL ROLE AS THE EGYPTIAN...

• Indeed! I really loved working with AYREON, cause it's something different from what we do with THE GATHERING. I really liked it a lot!!!

7.JOHN: IS THERE A CHANCE YOU MIGHT WORK WITH LUCASSEN AGAIN?

• Not really.

8.JOHN: WHEN YOU FIRSTLY APPEARED IN THE BAND DID YOU LISTEN TO ANY BAD COMMENTS FROM FANS THAT DIDN'T WANT FEMALE VOCALS?

• No. There will always be people that won't like it. They can listen to something else.

9.JOHN: DID YOU SING IN ANY OTHER BANDS BEFORE THE GATHERING?

• Yes, I used to have some bands. But then I went to THE GATHERING, which was really a great thing to do.

10.JOHN: WHICH IS YOUR OPINION ABOUT DUTCH METAL BANDS. DO YOU LIKE ANY OF THEM?

• Yes, though I don't have much time to listen to many new things. Here in the Netherlands the atmospheric, gothic metal becomes stronger.

11.JOHN: NOW LET'S GO TO WITHIN TEMPTATION, A BAND ACCUSED BY MANY THAT IS COPYING YOU. WHAT CAN YOU TELL ABOUT THAT?

• No, I can't say anything like that. They never copied us. they may have got influenced by us but they also have some other influences as well. I am very satsfied that our music is an influence to other people, but they never copied us.

12.JOHN: WILL YOU PERFORM LIVE? CAN YOU TELL US WHERE?

• Yes, we will play in some erman and Dutch festivals. We will also come to Greece to Chania (Note:Unfortunately this live was canceled), in Budapest, in Moscow and Italy (Note:theses ones too) and to many other places as well. Later on we will do a mini tour in the Netherlands. We will enter the studio to record our upcoming release. After the recordings are over we will tour for the rest of the year and we will go everywhere.

13.NICK: WILL YOU RELEASE A LIVE DVD MAYBE?

• Yes, we might do something like that. It would be nice to have shots fromvarious cities and live audiences from the tour we are about to do.

14.JOHN: I HAVE ANOTHER QUESTION REGARDING YOUR NEW MINI CD. YOU HAVE THE NUMBER 36 ON THE COVER. DOES IT HAVE A SPECIAL MEANING?

• Not really. We just liked and wanted to put it in the cover artwork. The cover artwork is a photo of a movie (Note: Here the line is bad and I can't understand which movie from this photo is).

15.NICK: YOU MEET THE CREATURE THAT CREATED THE UNIVERSE. WHAT WOULD YOU ASK?

• Oohhhh...that's difficult, let me think about it... I would ask him why he created humans. You know, like why we are there...?

16.NICK: WHEN YOU COMPOSE MUSIC DO YOU FEEL SOMEHOW AS A "GOD"?

• I think so...Yes! When you have inspiration you feel different. You feel like there is something in the air...

17.JOHN: WHAT INSPIRES YOU TO COMPOSE MUSIC?

• Everything! Music itself, humans, books, movies...

18.NICK: THANKS FOR THE INTERVIEW. LEAVE A MESSAGE...

• I am very anxious and enthralled to come to Greece, cause we truly have a huge feed back there. We'd love to come there and get in touch with our fans!
John  "Dutch"  Volkas
Nick  "William_Kidd"  Parastatidis