Sharon den Adel

As front-woman of Dutch metal favourites Within Temptation, Sharon Janny den Adel lent her soaring vocals and intimate lyrics to a backdrop of huge, heavy symphonic rock which helped the band cross over to a major global audience. Born in the small town of Waddinxveen in the mid-west part of the Netherlands, her family lived in a number of different countries growing up, including Indonesia, Yemen and Surinam and when she returned home as a teenager her different style and upbringing made her an outcast at school. She suffered bullying and loneliness but found an outlet in music when she met Robert Westerholt and discovered bands like Paradise Lost and Iron Maiden and in 1996 they formed Within Temptation together.

Over 20 years they grew into one of Europe's most prominent metal outfits and hit their commercial peak when 'Hydra' reached number six in the UK Albums Chart and made the US top 20 but with the band taking a break, den Adel announced her solo project My Indigo in 2017. After what she described as a family crisis the project resulted in a cathartic, emotional experience on which den Adel proved to be at her most introspective and personal, creating a sound that grew from raw, stripped bare piano ballads into heaven-bursting storms of glossy Euro-pop.

Released in 2018, her debut album 'My Indigo' featured tracks like the dreamy, warped, reggae strut 'Indian Summer' and the quivering, repentant torch song 'Out of the Darkness' and saw den Adel emerge from a vulnerable, worn down character suffering with writers block, burn-out and personal chaos into a defiant, empowered, all-conquering front-woman again.