Together with her partner Robert Westerholt, Sharon den Adel is one of the founding members of the Dutch band Within Temptation. She has defined their work as epic, and cinematic[8]. Her vocals play a major role in the band's sound despite never having had vocal training.[9]
Before becoming a full-time musician, Sharon worked for a fashion company. After the company's bankruptcy, Sharon had to choose whether to stay in fashion or try something else. Meanwhile Within Temptation became famous for the single Ice Queen and Sharon decided to stick with music. She still designs Within Temptation's merchandising and costumes.[10]
Sharon den Adel and long-term partner Robert Westerholt have a daughter, Eva Luna, who was born on December 7, 2005. She was pregnant with Luna during the band's The Silent Force tour. They currently live near Hilversum, in the Netherlands and they have two cats, Haplo and Lola. On February 22, 2009, Sharon announced that she is pregnant with her second child. The baby is expected to be born sometime in the summer.[11]
Oliver has Diplomas as both a music teacher and a professional musician from Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg-Augsburg. [1] Also, he formed his own band recently, Sons of Seasons.
Sumber : Wikipedia
Simons has had an interest for music since she was ten years old, and after listening to the Nightwish album Oceanborn at the age of fifteen, she began taking classical singing lessons. She sang in a choir for a couple of months in 2002, joining Epica soon after. She was previously in a romantic relationship with Epica guitarist Mark Jansen and co-writes the band's lyrics with him. Her boyfriend is Oliver Palotai,keyboardist of the Americanpower metal band Kamelot[2], a band for which she has provided guest vocals on two occasions, as well as appeared with on stage several times. Her favourite song to perform is "Reprendo mai più" by Emma Shapplin.[3]
In January 2008, it was announced on Epica's website that Simone is suffering from MRSA. This has caused Epica to have to cancel many of their shows. In February, her condition was getting better, but she was not completely recovered. In March, Epica toured with Amanda Somerville, replacing Simons for their US tour[4] until May 11, 2008, when Simone performed again at their show in Bibelot, Dordrecht[4].
Long-term partners Robert Westerholt (on guitar) and Sharon den Adel (Vocals) began the band in 1996, quickly adding Jeroen van Veen on bass guitar, Michiel Papenhove on guitar, Martijn Westerholt at the keyboard and (following a succession of short-liveddrummers) Ivar de Graaf. They were quickly offered a recording contract and signed to DSFA Records[5] later that year, beginning work on their first release.
Enter, the debut album, was released in 1997. The album was well received and the band embarked on a four gig tour across the country, after which they were asked to perform at the Dynamo Open Air[10] festival in Eindhoven, one of the Netherlands' largestheavy metal festivals. The band rounded out 1997 by embarking on their first international tour, of Germany and Austria. Also subsequently Ivar de Graaf left the band and was replaced by Ciro Palma.[3]
The sound of Enter was very melodic and doom paced, influenced by gothic doom metal, heavily relied on fast keyboards and drums and heavy guitar riffs.[11][12] Also prominent on this album are death grunts by Robert Westerholt and members of Orphanage.
In 1998 the band continued to tour actively - their profile had elevated them to the main stage at Dynamo for the 1998 event. However, Within Temptation had released no new material (and did not have plans for a second album at this point), to which end they elected to release an EP, The Dance, with three songs (plus two remixes) that would further mature the sound from Enter.
Finally taking a break from touring, 1999 was largely a sabbatical year for the band. They took the opportunity to construct their own studio, as well as returning to personal pursuits, with plans to return to the fold the next year.
2000 was an eventful year for the band as they returned to touring, playing three Dutch festivals; Waterpop, Bospop and Lowlands. In addition they went to work on their second album, releasing Mother Earth in the Low Countries on December 1. The album was a moderate success in the Dutch charts the first few weeks after its release [13].
The band first released the single "Our Farewell", which never entered the charts. The second single from Mother Earth, "Ice Queen", was regarded as the breakthrough release for the band; in March 2002 it climbed to #2[14] in the Netherlands but was their first #1 single when it climbed to the top in Belgium. The success rebounded to Mother Earth, which continued to climb in the Dutch album chart, ending the year at #3[13].
The band achieved still wider appeal in 2002 with their first concert in France and even a headline gig in Mexico City. They attained their first major award, the Dutch Silver Harp. They bolstered this by embarking on a major international tour supporting Paradise Lost in 2003 and re-releasing Mother Earth on the GUN Records label across more European countries; it was a particularly large success in Germany, where it went platinum and reached #7 in the charts; the re-release of "Ice Queen" also charted well in the top 30. In turn the Benelux regions got a different release, a cover of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill". The band headlined music festivals across the Netherlands, while their Mother Earth tour DVD claimed the prestigiousEdison Award.
Plans for the band's third album came to fruition in 2004, with the release of The Silent Force on November 15, 2004, across Europe. It was produced by Daniel Gibson and an instant #1[15]in The Netherlands and charted well in many European countries. In support of the release they embarked on another large international tour in 2005, with dates across Europe (including their first major UK concert in London) and a one-off show in Dubai. "Stand My Ground" and "Memories", the first singles from the new album, continued the band's run of chart success, culminating in a second Edison Award. The third single was "Angels". "Stand My Ground" was later to be promoted on the trailer for the film Blood and Chocolate. The band also provided some of the sound track to the videogame Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade released in March.[16].
In January 2006, Within Temptation won the Dutch Pop Prize (best Dutch pop contribution) and Dutch Export Prize (best-selling Dutch artist outside The Netherlands); the latter one given to them for the third time in a row. The band also reported that they were busy working on their next album, due to be released during the fall, and that they would start playing at festivals starting in April, in addition to going on an international tour at the end of the year.[17]
On August 5, 2008, the band's albums Mother Earth and The Silent Force were released in the US for the first time through Roadrunner Records.
From left to right: Jeroen van Veen, Stephen van Haestregt, Ruud Adrianus Jolie, Martijn Spierenburg, Sharon den Adel, Robert Westerholt.
The new album The Heart of Everything from Within Temptation was released on March 9, 2007, in the Netherlands, and in the United States on July 24. Two tracks, called "The Howling" and "Sounds of Freedom", were recorded as promotion material for the video game The Chronicles of Spellborn, and the first of these opens the album. The full track listing was revealed on January 10.[18] The band embarked on their first North American tour with Lacuna Coil in May to promote the North American release of the album. Roadrunner Records also released a limited edition EP called The Howling, which was available only at Hot Topic stores, containing the title track plus popular tracks from their former album The Silent Force.
The album debuted at #1 in the Dutch Album 100, making it their second number-one album.It reached top 10 in eight countries and top 100 in eleven countries. As of March 30, 2007, the album has sold 150,000 copies.
The song "What Have You Done" was the first single released from the album. Its initial music video was recorded on the 12, 13 and 14 of December 2006 at the Koko club in London, and a CGI studio in Windsor. It features Keith Caputo of Life of Agony fame on guest vocals. Fans were allowed to participate in the making of the video, although this first version left the band feeling disappointed (comments made by the band at their March show in Lyon). Shortly after, a completely new video for the song was made. The song peaked at #7 in the Netherlands and #4 in Finland.
The second single, released across Europe in June, was "Frozen". The video, filmed in Romania, deals with child abuse, and sales of the single was to raise money for a children's charity, Child Helpline International. "The Howling" was chosen as a digital single release for the UK (not to be confused with the US EP release), and another video was also shot. The extended version of the "Frozen" single features an unreleased b-side, "Sounds of Freedom", as mentioned the second song written for the promotion of the computer game The Chronicles of Spellborn.
The Heart of Everything was released in the U.S. on July 24, and the promotional single of "What Have You Done" shipped to rock stations July 2. This was the band's first album to be released in America followed by the previous albums Mother Earth and The Silent Force a year later.
In support of the new album, Within Temptation decided to kick off their first headlining US tour in Fall 2007. The band played 13 shows, starting on September 5, 2007, in Boston and ended on September 23, 2007, in Tempe, Arizona.
On October 19, 2007, Within Temptation released the video for their third single "All I Need". The single was released in Europe around November 12 and features the single and album versions of the title track plus demo versions of "The Last Time" (previously unreleased track), "Frozen" and "Our Solemn Hour".[19]
In November 2007, the band released info that their concert at Beursgebouw, in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, was filmed for possible inclusion on a new concert dvd (either parts or all of the show). On February 7, 2008, the band performed a 10,000 audience show entitled Black Symphony at the Ahoy in Nederlands together with The Metropole Orchestra, a choir and several guest artists, and it was later revealed that this show would be filmed in its entirety for DVD and Blu-Ray together with a double cd, which was to be released on September 22, 2008, (international) and September 23, 2008 (in the U.S.). The trailer for the DVD (containing the entire live performance of the song "Our Solemn Hour" from the show) was released on the band's Opendisc feature on July 16, 2008. Another single from The Heart of Everything, Forgiven, was released to promote the Black Symphony release.
On November 3rd, 2008, Ruud Jolie stated on his blog, that the members of Within Temptation were going to take a year off.
"After the Theatertour, that will start next week, me and the rest of Within Temptation are gonna take a whole year off. For the last 7 years we've been hopping from studio to tourbus to airplane to boat to studio again to tourbus to bicycle to airplane to an occasional swimmingpool on the top of a hotel to tourbus again. We all really needed a break from the band..."
Their song "What Have You Done" is now on the video game "Guitar Hero: World Tour"
Their song "The Truth Beneath The Rose" is currently featured in the commercials for The Tudors, season 3, on ShowTime
In the fourth quarter of 2007, the band announced that they would begin writing new material for another studio album. The expected release date was said to be 2009/2010. On 22nd February 2009, it was announced on the Within Temptation website that Sharon & Robert are expecting their second child in the summer, with Sharon also saying "Meanwhile, writing new songs is going very well, everything's looking good!"
In an interview with Holland's Face Culture, vocalist Sharon den Adel not only spoke out about the band's thoughts on their studio albums, but at the conclusion, stated that the album was slated for a release in early 2010.[20] In an interview with Metal Ways at Appelpop, guitarist Robert Westerholt stated that the new album was "probably going to be kind of a concept, but it’s so early still that nothing is really sure yet. But we’re trying to look in that direction."[21] In November 2008, the band posted that 2009 would be the year that they begin work on a new album, encouraging fans to check into the website for further updates as time goes by, and that they were playing only a few more shows for The Heart of Everything..[22]
