Beyond the Boys’ Club: Charlotte Wessels on Her New Album The Obsession

The post Beyond the Boys’ Club: Charlotte Wessels on Her New Album The Obsession appeared first on Consequence .

Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column focusing on women in rock and metal music, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. Journalist, radio host and musician Anne Erickson of Audio Ink Radio and the music outfit Upon Wings , writes the column. This month’s piece features an interview with singer Charlotte Wessels, formerly of Delain.

Charlotte Wessels is known for her time fronting the Dutch symphonic metal band Delain , but she is now carving out a solo career with her recently released album The Obsession ( available here ).

The LP features Wessels working with fellow ex-Delain members Timo Somers (guitars, additional arrangements), Otto Schimmelpenninck van der Oije (bass), and Joey Marin de Boer (drums), along with Sophia Vernikov (piano/Hammond organ).

The songs brim with her passionate vocals amid huge guitars and grandiose atmospheres. Among the standout tracks are “Dopamine” (featuring Simone Simons) and “Ode to the West Wind” (featuring Alissa White-Gluz).

In support of the album, Wessels will embark on a UK/European tour in November.

Wessels spoke with Heavy Consequence for the latest Beyond the Boys’ Club column, discussing her rise on the Patreon platform, her songwriting process, the new album, her experience as a women in the music industry, and more.

Congratulations on your new album, The Obsession . What sets this album apart from your previous solo material?

It’s very different, but it started in a similar way, in that it started with previous records. I put a new song on Patreon every month, so my first solo albums were compilations of me doing that. My first and second years, I put out a number of songs and didn’t intend for those songs to be on a record together when I wrote them, but then, I thought, I didn’t want to be an artist that had all my music behind a paywall. So, I put out compilations of those songs that I released on Patreon. It was all me in the basement, writing and recording.

For The Obsession , it started a similar way. I started writing songs in the basement and recorded and programmed the parts and put them on my Patreon. That’s where the process started. After a year of exploring different genres and teaching myself production, I wanted to work on a traditional album and writing songs with musicians instead of plugins. So, I started writing the songs and putting them on Patreon, and when I thought I had enough tracks to fill the album, the next phase began, and I started to rearrange the tracks for the band recordings.

How did working with the other musicians bring these songs to life?

Timo Somers was very involved, and he played guitars on this album and helped me get the songs ready for recording. We took my programmed, plugin guitars and made actual huge guitar arrangements and made it all ready to go into the studio. So, the beginning was still introspective, and I wrote the songs in the basement. But, going from there became a team effort, where everyone put their imagination into their parts. There was a lot of effort that went into this record. I re-did all the vocal arrangements and had some help from a gospel choir and other singers, so it was a wonderful process.

Tell me about meaning behind the title of the album The Obsession .

In February, I sat down with the songs I thought could be on the record and gave myself a task where I had to write down, in one sentence, what the songs were about, and I discovered that I had an unintended theme, which was escaping fearful and intrusive thoughts. It’s not something I intended to do, but it happens to be something that a lot of my fears are related to. I was diagnosed with OCD two years ago, and I don’t really have the compulsive part strong, but I have the obsessive part strong, and it manifests with repetitive and intrusive thought patterns. I thought, if that’s what it’s about, maybe that’s what I should call it. At the same time, this sounds dark, but obsession can be a positive thing, and music is probably my healthiest obsession. I was also thinking about the band and their contributions to the album and how much they mean to me, so thought it would be fun to call the band “the obsession,” too.

How much has Patreon allowed you to survive as an artist?

I think just the last couple of years, how I’ve been able to remain a full-time musician through a global pandemic and my band splitting up, I don’t think I would have come out of that as relatively smoothy as I did now. I owe so much to Patreon. I stared it just to be a little side project and place where I could let songs live that were not fitting within what we were doing with the band. So, I had that structure, and I liked it so much. Then, when the band split, I think if I didn’t have that already set up, I would have gone into a little bit of a black hole. But, instead, I had this unity that was very supportive. It kept me going through a difficult time.

Do you notice more women in music today than when you first started out in Delain?

I’ve had this conversation with other female artists. When I was 13 and 14, starting in bands in school, I already had a lot of very cool role models of women in metal, like Sharon den Adel and Floor Jansen. They were already rocking. I have spoken to them, and they were like, there really wasn’t such a thing back then, so I think for them it’s even more extreme. But, I’m happy that when I was starting to get that interest, I already had a host of badass women to look up to. I think it’s only getting better.

What kind of unique situations have you faced being a woman in metal music?

I definitely feel like I’ve had to deal with certain things that my male colleagues haven’t had to, like from being pressured to be on covers of albums naked or being photoshopped smaller or just the verbal abuse coming from certain media outlets or your work being credited to other people. Delain was an equal-part writing team, but people had a very hard time getting their head around that. But, at the same time, maybe I’ve also gotten attention that I wouldn’t have gotten if I were man. I don’t know the other side of it. But I do think there’s always a little prejudice.

Outside of music, what are your thoughts on women’s rights in the world today?

There’s so much work to be done. It’s intimidating. I think on all fronts, whether it’s our rights to our bodies and our choices to the basic things as just equal pay or prejudice or when it comes to how much we’re allowed to age, there is so much work to do. Every year around International Women’s Day, people ask, is this really still necessary? Yes, it’s definitely still so necessary.

What advice do you have for women who want to break out in the music industry?

I would say, before you’re in a team, think very deeply about what you want to do. What do you want to be? If you want to be an artist, what kind of artist do you want to be? I don’t think there’s a right or wrong with how much you use your sexuality. I just don’t like when people feel pressure to do that, and chances are, they still will, so think hard about that yourself, so that whatever you do is your choice.

Beyond the Boys’ Club: Charlotte Wessels on Her New Album The Obsession
Anne Erickson