EPICA guitarist Isaac Delahaye is featured in a new interview with Shannon Joy at LA Music Blog. Ane xcerpt is available below

Q: Design Your Universe is somewhat of a departure from the band’s more recent work, in terms of its overall heaviness. As far as your involvement during the songwriting process, would you say that there was a conscious effort to move the sound in a new direction, or was it more so a natural progression within the band?

Delahaye: "Well, it was natural in a way. Both me and Ariën came from GOD DETHRONED, so we were more heavier influences. In that way, it’s kind of natural, but I think it was also the thing that the band wanted, or Mark wanted, as the band leader, for our sound. You have all these bands like EVANESCENCE, NIGHTWISH, WITHIN TEMPTATION, LACUNA COIL—those are all female-fronted, symphonic bands. They’re all kind of more commercial than the things we are doing, so we wanted to go in the other direction, more heavy. And it worked in the end, I think we grabbed that spot that was open. There are not many bands that are female-fronted and heavy like Epica is."

Q: At this point, you’ve had the chance to play the material all over the world. How are the fans reacting to the new songs, or I guess, the new sound?

Delahaye: "Well, we play more new songs now, so it’s obvious that they have to react (laughs). From what I’ve heard, most people really like the direction we went. They also like the guitar solos; that was something that never really happened before. And yeah, I think overall, if you have the set list like it is nowadays, it’s very varied. We have 'Tides Of Time', which is a ballad, and we can play 'Kingdom Of Heaven', and there’s lots of stuff going on, not only in one song, but also in the whole set list. There’s everything. There are ballads and really heavy stuff that we play. It’s cool. It’s really challenging."

Click here for the complete interview.

As previously reported, Epica vocalist Simone Simons is featured in a new video interview with Bassy Stacy at BayAreaRocks.com . Check it out below.

The band recently announced a string of UK tour dates for March 2011. They are as follows:

March

10 - The Robin 2 - Wolverhampton, UK
11 - The Rescue Rooms - Nottingham, UK
12 - Corporation - Sheffield, UK
13 - Moho Live - Manchester, UK
15 - Scala - London, UK