official biografie
Biography
Within Temptation got founded in 1996. Robert Westerholt, who had already found a singer (his girlfriend Sharon den Adel), started the band. In less than two months, they had been offered various contracts for a record deal. WT decided to sign with DSFA Records and things got started.
After signing to DSFA, things got rolling. The first album, "Enter", was released in April 1997 and soon after that, WT already played Dynamo 1997. It was their fifth gig ever... After playing on Dynamo they got asked for quite a lot of other gigs and at the end of 1997 (November) they even did a two-week tour through Germany and Austria. Some other pretty big gigs followed, including Noorderslag. And Dynamo 1998 of course, where WT played the main stage, after playing the campsite in 1997. Around the time that they played this gig at Dynamo, they also released an EP called "The Dance". This was supposed to serve as a small treat to span the gap between Enter and a new record.

In 1999 WT decided to take things slow. After two years of performing and far too less breaks, they needed some time for themselves. So nothing really exciting happened except they finished their studies and their own studio became reality.

2000 turned out to be the year of major changes. The band received invitations to play at the major festivals in the Benelux countries. In december of this year the 'break-through'-cd Mother Earth was released. Many Dutch professional music magazines voted this cd as their cd-of-the-month. Various album charts were topped and the number of fans increased heavily.

In 2001 Within Temptation did a lot of touring, both inside- and outside of The Netherlands. Besides a clubtour of 40 'sold-out'concert halls, many festivals concerts were done. One of the highlights was a concert at the famous Pinkpop festival (100.000 visitors). Also concerts in Paris, Mexico-City and at Belgium Festivals were given. 2 cd-singles were released, Our Farewell and Ice Queen, and many live performances were done on radio as well as television.

Apart from Robert Westerholt (guitar) and Sharon den Adel (singer), Within Temptation consists of: Jeroen van Veen (bass guitar), Martijn Spierenburg (keyboards), Ivar de Graaf (drums) and Ruud Jolie (guitar)

the members
Sharon
Full name: Sharon Janny den Adel
Date of Birth: 12-07-1974
Main instrument: Vocals
Other intruments: None
Other musical projects: None at this moment.
Favourite Music: Arid, Tori Amos, Heather Nova, Type O Negative, Paradise Lost, Bjork, Alanis Morisette, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, A Perfect Circle, Ayreon, The verve, Orphanage, Annie Lennox, Enigma, Him and Bob marley.
Favourite Movies: The X-men, Braveheart, Interview with the vampire, Dracula, Legends of the Fall, Sleepy Hollow, Grease, Dumb & Dumber and dancing with wolves (+ Ren and Stimpy)
Your life besides music: My job (FTX men product management), my cat Humphrey, Badminton, painting, reading a lot of fantasy books, going to the movies and I love being outdoors and gardening.
Most embarrassing gig: There haven't been any gigs I recall being very embarrassing...
Surprising Facts: None

Robert
Full name: Robert Westerholt
Date of Birth: 02-01-1975
Main instrument: Guitar
Other intruments: Keyboards and PC
Other musical projects: None.
Favourite Music: Tori Amos: music and emotions on the highest level, Paradise Lost: With Gothic they convinced me
of the power of melodic doommetal and good songs. I still love their albums, Rhapsody: great orchestrations and heavy
metal, way over the top. I really enjoy their musical adventures, Iron Maiden: Godfathers of heavy metal; who doesn't have a record of them ? And much more bands (I would at least need an extra page...)
Favourite Movies: Movies: X-men, Braveheart, The Matrix
Besides watching movies I am a fanatic fantasy-book reader. Unfortunately I often lack time for reading.
Your life besides music: 5 days a week I'm the Human Resource Manager for a small but growing business, specialised in Credit Management Solutions.
Most embarrassing gig: I think it was a the gig in the 'Blokhut' in Rotterdam where beacause of a powerfaillure the keyboards were detuned with 3 notes. It gave a surprising effect when the whole band started the first song together. In fact it was so surprising that we all stopped playing to tune again and started the show for the second time... then it went well, nerve-wrecking!
Surprising Facts: That we finally released our CD (even in the year 2000 !)

Jeroen
Full name: Jeroen van Veen
Date of Birth: 26-10-1974
Main instrument: Bass
Other intruments: Drums
Other musical projects: The JIM Generator.
Favourite Music: Progressive-/Symphonic- and Guitarrock
Favourite Movies: American Beauty, Twelve Monkeys, American History X, The Usual Suspects, Fight Club, Leon, Tarantino movies, Monthy Python movies, Dogma movies and a lot of Sci-Fi and Horror movies
Your life besides music: Webdesign
Most embarrassing gig: Bergen op Zoom - Boho, an audience singing Happy Birthday ( to me... )
Surprising Facts: None...man, I'm boring...

Ivar
Full name: Ivar de Graaf
Date of Birth: 20-08-73
Main instrument: Drums
Other intruments: Guitar, Bass, snakecharmer
Other musical projects: a 70's rock-coverband, a Glam Metal tribute-band, a prog-rock type band, an Avant-Garde band with Jeroen and Michiel (the J.I.M.Generator).
Favourite Music: Spock's Beard, Frank Zappa, King Crimson, Crosby Stills and Nash, Jethro Tull, Peter Gabriel, Pantera, Nik Kershaw, The Bass Vikings, Allan Holdsworth, a Perfect Circle and many others.
Favourite Movies: X-Men, Braindead, Sleepy Hollow, Pulp Fiction, Life of Brian, American Beauty, Fight Club, Apocalypse Now, Fargo, Godfather trilogy, Taxi Driver and many others.
Your life besides music: Not much, occasional part-time jobs and some photo-manipulation. Other than that it's music all the way!
Most embarrassing gig: I used to play in an easy tune Jazz-combo and we got kicked of a camping where we played after only three songs. They really thought we sucked ass. I never saw an audience disappear so fast!
Surprising Facts: I used to play guitar in a Folk-band, I floss three times a day, I sometimes jump naked in front of the bathroom mirror to see what myass looks like and I look awfull in drag.

Martijn
Full name: Martinus Johannes Everardus Spierenburg
Date of Birth: 30 January 1975
Main instrument: Keyboards
Other intruments: none
Other musical projects: At the moment nothing... too busy !!
Favourite Music: I like a lot, and I also dislike a lot :-) So I can't really give one answer... Right now I'm playing Rammstein and Sting in my car... (I mostly listen to music in my car)
Favourite Movies: The Matrix
Your life besides music: None
Most embarrassing gig: The first show I did with WT. Because of the nerves I forgot to play about half of the music....
Surprising Facts: When I was young I wanted to be an elevator repair man

Ruud
Full name: Rudolf Adrianus Jolie
Date of Birth: 19-04-76
Main instrument: Guitar
Other intruments: A little drums, bass, keys
Other musical projects: Vals Licht and some session stuff (Rosemary's Sons, Lieke (Starmaker)) I'm also working on a heavymetal suite with Ivar.
Favourite Music: Spock's Beard, Pain of Salvation, Incubus, Tori Amos, Ryan Adams, Renaissance, Cynic, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Nine Inch Nails, Tribal Tech, Lucinda Williams
Favourite Movies: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, God's Lonely Man, the Virgin Suicides, the Sixth Sense
Your life besides music: I'm a guitar teacher at a musicschool in Tilburg. I also teach at home. I love to read. And I love to get myself all sweaty in the gym before getting sweaty again in the sauna...
Most embarrassing gig: I used to have long hair and in some way it got caught in/around a microphone while I was headbanging. It hurt like hell but I kept playing. I felt so silly because the girl I was in love with stood right in front of me. We never got together (no wonder)
Surprising Facts: I am NOT related to Angelina. Cool huh?

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