Two and a half years ago, Guitar.com listed Esmée van Sinderen as one of the most promising young shredders that is shaping the rock and metal music of the current era. Just yesterday marked the release of the debut video of her partnership with the leading German music merchant Thomann, for which she is the first official Dutch content creator. Aside from covers on social media, however, Van Sinderen has slowly, but steadily been sharing her own music with the world as well.

“My head is frequently on the verge of exploding due to the enormous amount of ideas I have stored in there”, Van Sinderen admits. “I would love to form a death metal band. I would also love to have a very cheesy glam metal band. Also, I would have a company for painting guitars called Studio VS, I work on cars, I make my own paintings, and I would love to give guitar lessons.”

This drive to do her own thing eventually lead to the formation of the hard rock duo Gramophone, which released its debut EP ‘Time to Strike’ two years ago. “The most important reason for me to start Gramophone was that I wanted to write and record my own stuff”, Van Sinderen nods. “Gramophone was my first experience with recording my own music. I guess you could see it as sort of a try-out. Over the last few months, I have been working on my first solo album, though.”

Pleasantly Familiar

“For my solo album, I have been considering experimenting with a few different tunings to make things a bit heavier. Maybe I will try writing a few songs in D standard or in a drop tuning. However, the songs I have written so far have all been in E♭, which was also the tuning that all the material for Gramophone and Cobra Spell had been written in. It just feels pleasantly familiar.

The idea for this solo album is that every song will feature a different vocalist. Of course, you never know who will say yes, but I hope to at least convince a few singers I have in mind to collaborate. There are some singers I have in mind that are definitely more metal singers than Mattis (Karlsson) from Gramophone is. Mattis has a great seventies rock voice with a nice rough edge to it. The singers I have in mind now have a more contemporary heavy metal vocal style.

Also, I am aiming for a slightly more modern sound. It will of course be heavy metal, but I’m not sure whether the sound will be as eighties-focused as Gramophone was. The production is allowed to be a little more modern. But of course, the financial aspect of it is something I still need to figure out.”

An Old Toaster

The remark about the financial aspect doesn’t come out of nowhere. “When I was still in Cobra Spell, we recorded in a great studio in Spain”, Van Sinderen says. “And it truly shocked me how much that cost. That put me under a lot of pressure while recording. Every wrong note you play costs so much extra time, and therefore, so much extra money…

I am the type of guitarist who likes to take the time to work out things on the guitar. Live shows never make me nervous, but my hands were shaking while we were in that studio, which kept me from playing with the amount of emotion that I demand from myself. That’s why I invested in building my own home studio that allows me to deliver things that are completely ready for mixing and mastering to a studio.

On stage, I love playing through Blackstar amplification. For my home studio, however, I have been working with a Neural DSP Quad Cortex. I do have a Kemper, but that’s like an old toaster compared to that Quad Cortex. It’s just so much more convenient for home recordings. Partly because I need the DI in order to re-amp things in a studio in order to cut costs. That is something I still prefer doing over going to an actual studio to record things.”

A Certain Foundation

“As a guitarist, I don’t have too much theoretical knowledge. Composing music and learning to play covers is something I largely do by ear. And if there is ever a time that I’m truly stuck, that’s when I dig into musical theory a little bit to figure out how to create the thing that I have in my head.

One of the things I have always feared is being in a studio, and people will go: alright, now go ahead and play something in this or that scale to plug the hole that we have in the production here. That’s just the kind of thing I like to take the time to sit and work things out for. When we were in the studio with Cobra Spell, it happened quite often that people went: we need something here, just go ahead and play something there. The idea alone is enough to make me nervous.

I don’t think I will ever be the type of guitarist that can draw on a large bank of theoretical knowledge. Because if that could be the case, I think I would have been that type of guitarist already. When I had music lessons as a kid, I did play a bit of piano, and I’m familiar with how modes work, so I do have a certain foundation. But I’m not an expert.

My boyfriend is quite well-versed in musical theory. Sometimes he listens to something I have written, and he goes: you’re constantly switching scales, and that shouldn’t work, but it does. It’s just very strange from a theoretical viewpoint. But as long as it still sounds good, I don’t see the need to change that.”

Nice and Eighties

But first, there is content to be made for Van Sinderen’s partnership with Thomann. “Thomann started following me on Instagram, and they sent me a message”, she explains. “Initially, they asked me to join their affiliate program. We sent some e-mails back and forth about that, which they forwarded to their Dutch contact to see if it would be a good idea to approach me to be their first Dutch content creator.

At the moment, Thomann only has a Facebook account in Dutch. They would like to publish more content on that, but they didn’t have anyone for that yet. Since I am far from the biggest name in the Netherlands, I was quite surprised that they approached me of all people, but the calls so far have been very promising. If the first videos do well, we will see if we can expand it to the likes of TikTok and Instagram.

We agreed that I will be primarily making content of the sort that I also publish on my own channels: playing music, covers, just me playing guitar. They have also asked me to focus on Dutch rock bands, though they are more than happy to have me playing songs from some other rock bands as well.

The first two videos will be ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane’ by the Scorpions and ‘I’m Insane’  by Ratt. Nice and eighties; just the way I like it. But there will be videos of songs by Dutch rock bands. I have been thinking about DeWolff, because I’m a big fan. But maybe also Herman Brood, Golden Earring, Within Temptation; that sort of stuff.

That’s what we will start with, and when that does well, the other channels may be opened as well. And we might start looking at options like product reviews or showing off new products. But that is something for another day. First: the kind of content I do on my own accounts. That’s probably also what I enjoy doing most. Playing guitar is the reason why I started doing this in the first place.”

Counting the Pixels

‘I’m Insane’ might seem a fairly random first choice, but the song has a certain degree of significance for Van Sinderen. “I actually those that one because that was my first video on Instagram that went viral”, she says. “And I had recorded that original video on the worst possible video quality. It’s one of the worst-looking videos I have ever made. It’s almost possible to count the pixels.

The song isn’t too difficult to play either, especially because there wasn’t any lead guitar work in the video; it was just the intro and a chorus. But it quickly gained around 350 thousand views. A lot of people posted some really nice comments about how they had forgotten all about the song, and that the video brought them back to their younger days. That was a lot of fun. It was maybe three or four years ago, and it was kind of the start of my social media career. So I definitely wanted to pitch that song to Thomann.

There are videos for which I have designed special outfits, and I adapted the set with special led lighting and things like that, and those didn’t get anywhere near the number of views that the ‘I’m Insane’ video had. I think I just came back from work, threw a belt with studs on, and went with it, haha! Sometimes I don’t understand how that happens, but I guess that’s just good luck, and I’m happy with it.”

Always and Everywhere

Van Sinderen’s work with Thomann might introduce her to some different instruments, but she plans to remain loyal to the brands she already works with. “My Jackson Randy Rhoads is the guitar that I will use always and everywhere”, she smiles. “It has two Seymour Duncan Distortion SH-6 humbuckers. They have a nice, sharp sound that blends with my Blackstar amplifiers really well.

My dream guitar has always been a Jackson Warrior. But when I joined Cobra Spell, I wasn’t allowed to play the exact same guitar as the other guitarist, because the visual part of that band was very important as well. I considered getting a Jackson Star, but those were only available in two cream colors at the time, and I was looking for a black one; I love the combination of gold and black.

That’s when the Jackson Randy Rhoads entered the picture. It’s super light, so it’s perfect for jumping around on stage with it. Also, it had the right look and the right sound. So I didn’t need that much time to make a decision on that one.”