Beside After Forever‘s Sander Gommans, there are other famous musicians hiding in HDK’s shadow… More that just a guest star and actively teaming up with Sander, enters vocalist extraordinaire Amanda Somerville, renowned for her work with Edguy, Avantasia, Aina and other notorious metal acts.
Here is Amanda‘s statement about her participation to HDK‘s debut album „System Overload„:
„HDK is by far the most intense album I’ve ever worked on. I’m mostly referring to the style of music, but I also got very drawn into it emotionally with the writing and performing. We pushed everything to the limit! Sander has been a good friend since I worked with him for the first time on After Forever‘s „Invisible Circles” album, so it was an instant „yes” answer he got from me when he asked if I’d co-write some songs with him for his new project. Those „some songs” turned into an entire album, and what an album it is!
„Sander had a lot of ideas for the lyrical content of the songs and for some vocal melodies when we started. There were a lot of subjects that had inspired the music he’d composed and he wanted to express those themes and feelings more thoroughly in the lyrics, so that’s what I did. He had most of the music done by the time I came in to write lyrics and vocal melodies, but some things developed as we went along and inspiration struck. Come to find out, we share opinions on many of the issues he brought up and have had many similar experiences, plus I find it rather easy to play the chameleon in terms of getting into an emotion and making it my own, so it worked out great. I feel that the songs are just as much mine as he feels they’re his, which is how it should be with the writers of an album that is as emotionally loaded as this one is, in my opinion. Otherwise, what the hell’s the point, honestly? To top it all off, we’re both the same type of crazy, so we had a lot of fun in the process!
„I’m really proud of the way „System Overload” turned out. It was an honor to work with the amazing musicians featured on the album and Sander is an incredible multi-talent and inspiration. It was all certainly a challenge that resulted in pushing my boundaries and learning new things, which I love. Since writing and recording this, I feel for the first time that I’ve truly stepped into the metal world, even after all the work I’d done in the scene prior to HDK. With this album, I no longer feel that I’m the „non-metal metal girl.” Bring it on. ;-)”
