The bad weather during a portion of the last day at Summer Breeze Open Air prevented us from interviewing Evil Invaders, a metal band from Belgium. But thanks to technology, we were still able to chat to lead guitarist and vocalist Joe about performances, songs to sing in the shower and more!

Benedetta

Hello Joe, how are you doing today?

Johannes Van Audenhove

I’m good. Just got back from a week holiday, so I’m fully charged again.

Benedetta

You’ve played more than once at Summer Breeze Open Air. Have you noticed any differences between maybe the first times that you were there and this time?

Johannes Van Audenhove

Not really. I think the festival is very well organized and they’re very constant with their production. And the crowd is always great, so I didn’t really notice a lot of changes. I feel like this festival got everything together from day one.

Benedetta

I wanted to ask you which one of the members of the band has the strangest way to prepare for a show?

Johannes Van Audenhove

Well, we don’t really have this ritual to prepare before a show. But I think I might be the strangest because I really need to get my focus and I kind of isolate myself a bit a few minutes before the show to get my mind in the right mindset. Sometimes people come and ask me questions and I tend to block them off without realizing. As soon as the intro is running, I got to be in full focus to do my best performance.

Benedetta

You have an upcoming tour with Udo in 2026. Do you have any other plans for Evil Invaders before that?

Johannes Van Audenhove

Right now, we put a stop to booking shows for this year because we want to focus fully on writing music, we want to wrap up the songs for our new record. Hopefully in December, get all the demos done and then we can record it next year. So, that would be the plan right now. Then in 2026, we got as many tours as possible. Planning that right now. I unfortunately cannot say too much about it yet, because it’s not confirmed.

Benedetta

If you could change one thing about the music industry nowadays, what would it be?

Johannes Van Audenhove

I think sometimes it’s annoying that bands see other bands as competition instead of just focusing on their own stuff and helping each other out. Because you have a lot of bands that help each other out, but you also have these bands that tend to push other bands down to make themselves look better. And I think that’s something pretty fucked up in the music industry. In the end you’re all just trying to express yourself as an artist, and it’s not a competition to me at least. Helping each other always brings you further in life than working against other people, that’s a short time solution in my opinion. I think it’s most of the time coming from a place of insecurity from the people that are pushing other people down. I mean, if you’re not strong enough in your own skin, then you’re not gonna make it anyways in this kind of business. You gotta be convinced of what you’re doing yourself and really go for it. Try not to focus on what other people are doing.

Benedetta

Do you think that the artistic life is lonely?

Johannes Van Audenhove

Well, no, not really. I’m constantly in touch with a lot of people, and I get to meet people on the road. Of course, sometimes the contrast is crazy when you’re on the road and then coming home from a tour. But you’ve seen a hundred people a day and talk to other bands which are on the same bus. So, you’re constantly surrounded by people. Coming home, if you don’t have a family or something, that could be very lonely for some people, I think. Your social life definitely suffers from being away all the time. A lot of friends go out on the weekends, and you’re going to play shows on the weekends, so I think some people can get isolated because of that. I personally don’t really have this issue. I think it also depends on the style of music you’re playing. If you play party music, for example, then you’re always at a party. If you’re playing something more like sad music or very intimate, small stuff, it’s different. It also depends on your mindset, too. You create your own reality, in my opinion.

Benedetta

Absolutely. Do you sing in the shower?

Johannes Van Audenhove

I don’t sing very loud in the shower. It’s mainly in my head. I’m making up songs and stuff or songwriting in my head when I’m in the shower. I look back at all the demos that we’re working on and it’s always like, I could try this, I could try that. So it’s definitely an inspiring place to be.

Benedetta

Agreed. Do you think it’s harder for women to be in the music business or in the metal music in general?

Johannes Van Audenhove

These days, I think it’s quite equal for men and women. I mean, there’s always this stigma about metal that it is supposed to be for men. But I think we’ve reached a time where we’re far beyond that. Back in the day it must have been really hard because it was definitely like the music business and all this stuff was run by men, I guess. If I see these documentaries and stuff about women even outside of the music business, in the film industry and stuff, it was kind of rough for them. You kind of almost had to prostitute yourself to get to a better place. I mean, not really, but that’s what I’ve seen. There was a lot of abuse in that industry. And I think that’s sad, of course. Nowadays, I feel like there’s a lot of women in the metal industry and a lot of bands that do great jobs as female-fronted bands have never been so popular as today. Sometimes I even think it’s easier for them to get an audience because most of the crowd is still men. And most of the men are still attracted to women. They also have the visual aspect that helps them to promote themselves, of course. If you’re a good-looking person, you probably have more chances of making it in life than if you’re ugly. Unfortunately, it is like that. It’s not going to change very soon. It doesn’t really matter which gender you are anymore to just do what you want to do in life. We definitely made progress. In the end, it’s about the music you make and not the way you look. Of course, these things go hand in hand with live performances. If you deliver good music, I don’t think it really should matter what you look like. As long as you touch people with the sound you’re making.

Benedetta

Have you ever shared your music with your family? If so, what was your family’s reaction to Evil Invaders?

Johannes Van Audenhove

My family is not really into metal or rock music, they’re not very music-minded either. Since I was little, I was already crazy about metal. I started listening to it when I was seven years old. And being the only person in my family actually listening to this kind of music, it was a shock to them in a way. They were like, “Oh, it must be a phase he’s going through“. But it didn’t go away for me. It’s what I wanted to do in life since I was a kid. When I first showed it to my parents, I don’t think they really got it. I mean, they thought it’s fun for him that he has a project. Also, we weren’t very good in the beginning; I was 17 years old, I could hardly play my instrument. I wasn’t a singer: I just had to be the singer because we couldn’t find a singer. So throughout the years, it was evolution, definitely. We played our first show in 2009, and you can’t compare that to the things we’re doing today. They witnessed the evolution as well, and they learned to appreciate it. They’re still not listening to my records, really, it’s not their style of music. They’re not into it, but they’re fully supportive of what I do. So that’s really cool.

Benedetta

Sometimes bands and, of course, labels and fans tend to assign a genre to each band they listen to, even though it’s very hard to put a specific genre to certain bands. I wrote news about Metallica in the beginning before they released the Black Album that they didn’t want to be called a thrash metal band. Would you be on the same idea of not labeling genres to what you do?

Johannes Van Audenhove

It has its advantages and disadvantages, because as soon as you label yourself as something, then it’s hard to grow out of it. If you start a band and you say, like, we play thrash metal, and then the next album doesn’t sound like thrash metal, you will still have that stamp of thrash metal on you, and you will maybe miss out on a new crowd that you want to reach. Although you still sound like your band, maybe your tempos are not really, or it’s not by the book of thrash metal. So I get Metallica in that way. Like, they said, “We sound like Metallica”, and they always sounded like Metallica. They never sounded like Slayer or Anthrax or Exodus or whatever. You know, they always had their own sound. Same with those bands I mentioned. Exodus never sounded like Slayer, yet they are put into the thrash metal box, all of them. On the other hand, I think it’s also good to have these boxes, because sometimes you reach new fans. The boxes can help you to reach the right crowd for your music, but they can also prevent you from reaching a different kind of crowd that might like you as well, in a nutshell. So I think if I had to label my band, I would say it’s a mix of heavy metal and speed metal, mixed with some progressive aspects, so it’s still quite open. People will know what to expect when they see us fly for the first time, they have an idea. We don’t sound like any other band exactly, it’s a mix of all the things that we like, going from hard rock to early death metal. I like to combine things and create something new, but of course, you gotta have some kind of stamp on your band, especially if you want to reach the right people.

Benedetta

Most definitely, yeah. So I think that this year has brought so many amazing things to metal music, but also, unfortunately, it took away from everyone the Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne. Was he, or Black Sabbath, an influence for Evil Invaders?

Johannes Van Audenhove

Definitely. A really big influence on me, personally. Because the first vinyl record I ever heard was Black Sabbath, Master of Reality, and I think I was eight years old, or nine years old. It was actually, in a way, my introduction to speed metal. Because we put the wrong rounds per minute on the vinyl player, and it just sounded way too fast, almost like Megadeth, you know? And I had never heard a band like Megadeth before, so this was like, mind-blowing to me. Later on, we figured out it was the playing it too fast, but it was definitely had an impact on me, as a kid. And of course, I still listen to Ozzy’s music and to Black Sabbath on a weekly basis.

Benedetta

Awesome. Do you remember who was your first music teacher, and what was him or her like?

Johannes Van Audenhove

My first experience with music teaching must have been around when I was seven years old. I didn’t like it at all, because it was so boring. It was just the theory, and saying like, one, two, three, one, two, three, these kind of things. This is not what I wanted to do, so I quit, and it took me a long time to to actually get back and enjoy music because of that. A few years later, there was like more an alternative, like less school-style way of learning the acoustic guitar. That was just like a teacher who would teach a group of kids the basic chords, like the campfire-style guitar playing. I did that for two years with my cousin and then I dropped out again because he was older than me, and he could go to the next step and play electric guitar. Then I was there alone in the lesson, and I was like, “No, I don’t want to do this alone, fuck this“. Because I just wanted to hang out with him and do something with him, because he was my best friend. As soon as he dropped out, I was like, “No, fuck it.” He kept on playing electric guitar, and at some point, he came to me and showed me what he had learned, like to read tabs. And then he was playing the first riff of “Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be” from AC/DC. And I was like, “Dude, that’s super cool. Nice. Can you teach me?” He taught me what he had learned and we founded the band together after that, a few years later. I basically have everything to thank to him that he continued playing guitar, because maybe I would have never picked it up again without him. After that, we just kind of learned everything by ourselves, by playing the tabs we found on the internet. I remember, like, the first time we played “Seek and Destroy” together, it was like a revelation to me that I could actually play those heavy riffs, you know. That was super cool.

Benedetta

Wow, that’s such a nice story. Thank you for sharing that. I wanted to play a little game with you, if that’s alright. So you’re going to a desert island. Food and water will be provided to you. You can bring along three objects of your choosing. It can be anything.

Johannes Van Audenhove

I guess my acoustic guitar. Because else I would have to have a power plug, which I don’t have over there, I guess. A guitar pick. If there’s no power there, maybe like a power generator. And something to play music on, so at least I can play and listen to music.

Benedetta

Wonderful. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with me, and for being such a good sport. Is there anything else that you want to add to our readers?

Johannes Van Audenhove

Just to say to keep an eye on our social media, because we were going to announce, hopefully soon, some new tours and updates on what we’re doing, so… We got some cool stuff coming up in 2026. But for now, we’re still writing music until the end of the year, but we’re going to give some updates on the planning of 2026 pretty soon.