Hometown: Utrecht, The Netherlands
Album: Tales from Six Feet Under Vol II, out now via Napalm Records
RIYL: Patreon. Self-discovery. Genre-fluidity.
Increasingly, it’s become obvious that musicians aren’t as rigid in genre construction as we expect. Metalheads listen to soul; punks jam R&B, and pop stars wear metal shirts from artists they actually adore. Just because you are good at one thing, that doesn’t preclude your interests in a much wider range of things.
That’s been much more evident with a recent crop of artists whose shuffles could induce whiplash, creating wonderful, breakout records (Spiritbox, The Callous Daoboys, to name a couple) that only care about a great final product, not how to market it. That’s been the north star guiding former Delain vocalist Charlotte Wessels as she’s embarked on a phenomenal solo career.
On her head-spinning second record, Wessels has broadened her horizons even more: symphonic metal, electropop, folk, indie rock, and more. Yet, Tales from Six Feet Under Vol II miraculously never feels scattered; instead, the focus is centered on making the best songs possible in a remarkably cohesive package. It doesn’t hurt that her fantastic voice is put to its best use yet. So how did this project come about?
“Starting out, I wanted a home for my surplus of songs. I wrote a lot more than I knew would ever end up on Delain records, and some of it was very different in genre, too. The thought that all those songs were on a hard drive catching dust somewhere made me kind of sad, and I felt like having another creative outlet aside from Delain could make me a bit more relaxed in the band’s writing sessions, too.
“At that time, having a side project with other people didn’t feel like an option; I had done that before, but it turned out to be very hard to combine with Delain, and I always ended up feeling like I was holding those people back. I wanted to do something that I could do entirely on my own and figure out my own rules. So I wanted a space where I could release my own music on my own terms, and I followed some artists on Patreon, which seemed like the right place for me.”
How has the Patreon experience been for Wessels? Why chose that platform?
“Amanda Palmer was the first artist I followed on Patreon, and I loved the community aspect of her approach to the platform. This was one of the biggest appeals of the platform to me, and it has also turned out to be the most rewarding aspect of my Patreon adventure now. I also like that it is smaller contributions on a monthly level instead of a big one for one big project—It is lower risk for fans because they can opt in and out at any time, and it’s more geared towards a sustainable living for artists instead of just funding one big project.”
Wessels had a goal and commitment of releasing one project a month on her Patreon, eventually in the form of a record. Was this second batch harder than the first?
“Definitely harder. I was already in the ‘one song every month’ rhythm for a year starting out. I had less of a pile of song and song ideas than I had for the first album starting out, so most of these songs were really made from scratch, including writing, recording, mixing, mastering, artwork, etc. within the timeframe of a month. I’m really proud that I haven’t broken my streak, but I do have a growing desire to spend more time on songs, to be able to revise, rearrange, or polish things up, and cut less corners in general when it comes to production and have more of my programmed work replaced by humans playing instruments in a studio, so to speak.”
Photo courtesy of Sandra Ludewig
