Ruud Jolie, guitarist for Within Temptation , has released the book, In Spotlight And Shadow: My Road Trip With Within Temptation . The book features a foreword by Steve Harris , bassist for Iron Maiden , and a moving afterword by Sharon Den Adel , vocalist for Within Temptation .
The curious fact is that in the preface, Steve Harris, in an interview with Backstage Explorers , explained how he achieved this feat [transcription via Blabbermouth ]:
“Well, I’ve known Steve Harris for about 20 years, and he’s always been very supportive of us as a band. We opened for Iron Maiden a few times over the years. And I remember it was around the time of COVID, 2021, and my schedule was canceled—no touring, nothing was happening. We had to postpone the Worlds Collide we were doing with Evanescence , so I was feeling down. And then I got a call from our manager, and he said, ‘Okay, I didn’t want to give you this information by email, but I want to talk to you on the phone because we’re going to tour with Iron Maiden in the United States next year.’ So I was like, ‘Wow.’ A dream, for sure.”
Rudd continued: “But even being a glass-half-full person, I was thinking, ‘Okay, it’s been over a year, COVID, and these guys are approaching seventy. Will they all still be alive?’ […] We did the tour and had drinks with Steve and his assistant/security guard in Manhattan one night, which was a lot of fun. And one of the reasons it was so much fun was that we barely talked about music. We hardly talked about music, and we didn’t talk about Maiden, which was refreshing for us, but can you imagine a guy like Steve Harris talking to… He knows I’m a big fan, but I didn’t talk about Maiden… We talked about all sorts of things. He tried to talk about football with me, but I don’t understand anything about football, so it didn’t work out.”
Steve Harris invites Rudd to his home in the Bahamas.
“A few days later, we played our last show of the tour in Tampa, Florida, and I heard my name. And he invited me and the rest of the band to visit him and spend a few days with him. And he said, ‘Oh, I have some guest houses, so you don’t have to stay with his old man all the time.’ I said, ‘Wow, that would be great. I would have accepted in a heartbeat. But we have to go home, we have three days off and then we start production rehearsals for the tour with Evanescence. So it’s not going to happen.’ ‘Think about it,’ he said.”
“So, the next morning, we were sitting on the tour bus and suddenly Stefan [ Helleblad , Within Temptation guitarist] said, ‘Ruud, don’t forget to text Steve and tell him you can go to the Bahamas.’ And then there was this silence, and we looked at each other and everyone started laughing, because who would have thought… If you had told me, at age 12, like, ‘Hey, one day you’re going to text Steve Harris and tell him you can go to the Bahamas,’ I would have thought you were crazy. In the end, Stefan Mike [Within Temptation drummer] , Carl Casagrande , the tour manager we had, and I, traveled to the Bahamas last January and spent about four days with Steve, which was amazing,” Rudd confessed.
Within Temptation shared about the book on their official website: “For over two decades, Ruud has been with us on the road, experiencing the highs, the lows, and the utterly bizarre moments that only life in a rock band can provide. Now, for the first time, he reveals these untold stories in his book, In Spotlight And Shadow .”
READ ALSO: Steve Harris recalls Iron Maiden albums with Blaze Bayley on vocals
