CHARLOTTE WESSELS & MARTIJN WESTERHOLT Share Their Sides Of DELAIN’s 2021 Mass Departure

Delain suffered a pretty major departure in 2021 when vocalist Charlotte Wessels, bassist Otto Schimmelpenninck van der Oije, guitarist Timo Somers, and drummer Joey de Boer all quit the band. Founding keyboardist Martijn Westerholt has since recruited a whole new lineup and Delain released a new record called Dark Waters in 2023.

Wessels has since spoken to Scott Penfold of Loaded Radio about her departure, saying her personal reason for leaving as insurmountable conflict. Wessels doesn’t go into it much more than that, only saying that it was super frustrating Delain couldn’t work things out.

“There was a conflict and we couldn’t overcome it. That’s a very short version of it. I’ve never really gone into detail about it, and I still don’t really feel about going into detail about it. The thing that I will say is we spent a lot of time trying to work things out. We were already putting much energy in that before we kind of got to the conflict where it was hard to come back from.

“But, yeah, especially since the pandemic happened, we had no gigs. We had all the time in the world to think, like, ‘Okay, what are we going to do? Will we be able to solve this?’ And we took a very long time. And in the end, the answer was no. There was no solution that we could find where we would continue in that way. And a part of me — it’s such a big part of my life, and I’m very happy, I’m very proud with what we did in that time. So it’s frustrating to me that we couldn’t work it out. The thing that kind of comforts me is the fact that we did take so much time to explore all the different possibilities, like, could we make this work? Yeah, I don’t feel like there was really another option. So that’s why.”

Interestingly, Westerholt also commented on the departures in a recent interview with Belgian Jasper, saying he was tired of pretty much carrying the band. Westerholt notes that his new lineup “shares the tasks way more” and that he feels the band is function better because of it.

“Well, of course you try to coach the new people with the experience that you have. And for myself, which is a different aspect, it’s more of a team effort now, because in the past it was not so much a team effort. Charlotte did a lot and I did a lot, and the last album, also, Timo was more involved, but that was only with the last album, really. So for the rest, I simply did so much that that was what was getting me into a burnout.

“And also missing the appreciation from people around me for everything that I did, because I’m only human and everybody needs some appreciation and doing something like Delain is very challenging. And, yeah, it’s very important that you are supported as a human being. And now this happens way better because we — how do you say? — share the tasks way more. There’s less on my plate and I can focus on what is my specialism, other people can focus on what they are good at, and I can focus more on making music, and that makes me really happy and grateful.”