"Sometimes Adrienne will start out with just a lyric and a piano line, or a melody or a chord progression, and we think, oh, we need to fill a hole in this story of this particular concept at this point in the album – let's write something for that," guitarist Jack Kosto said in a joint phone interview with Adrienne from Houston. "So it very much depends on how far we are in the writing process or what direction the wind is blowing on Tuesday."

"Oh, you got me!" she exclaimed. "One of my biggest vocal inspirations is (QUEEN's) Adam Lambert, who has a very strong musical theater background. Before I wanted to be a metal singer – I was in London at the time – I really wanted to be on the West End.

"I loved all the standard stuff, like 'Phantom of the Opera,' 'Wicked,' all the crazy big songs that bring down the house at the end of Act I. Those are my favorite ones to sing, and I guess I'll never really grow out of those roots. I love to tell stories and I love the drama of theater, but not the personal drama.

"And I don't like dancing. And i'm not very good at acting. So let's stick to music!" she laughed.

"Two in particular – (the German) Caspar David Friedrich and (the Russian) Ivan Aivazovsky," she said. "Aivazovsky (was known for) marine landscapes, and Friedrich has 'Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog,' which is a little bit of an inspiration for the album cover."

"I'm also a big fan of (the English composer) Edward Elgar – he does this piece called 'Sospiri Op. 70,' which is the most beautiful thing, it sounds like the pain of falling in love. It was something I listened to a lot when we were writing this record. And of course, Chopin.

"It's mostly these composers and painters – poets, I guess, but it's mainly music and visual art," she said.

"Jack and I met in a bookstore and I was wearing a NIGHTWISH shirt and looking for bandmates," Adrienne said of how the two got together. "We just saw each other and knew," she said with a laugh.

"He knew Pete from a band from years ago and I knew Chris through a mutual friend, and things kind of fell into place. The first time the four of us all jammed together, it was kind of magic and we all exchanged looks. It was another one of those we-just-knew moments," she added.

"Emerald Seas" may follow "Solveig" in the band's canon, but its story actually precedes the one told in "Solveig."

"The hero is captain of a ship called the Great Divide, and the (ship) is navigated by the hero's greatest desires," Adrienne explained. "At this point, the hero is out in the middle of the ocean trying to get to the island where the Fountain of Youth is. But because they're distracted by these memories, they're just going in circles and they don't even realize it because there's no land around."

"I have this special feeling about the ocean," she said. "It stands for endless possibilities – you could go anywhere, anything could happen, you could make anything happen for yourself. It's so enormous and can be so dangerous, but it's also extremely peaceful for me.

"Also, I was in such a huge phase of depression and burnout, so a lot of that fed into this as well, the idea of wandering on this endless emerald sea. One of my favorite cities in the world is Venice, and I guess because of all the stuff that's in the water, the water there is green.

"(And) my grandparents are based in Galveston, and when I was a little girl, I was there a lot. They live like a three-minute walk from the water's edge, so I spent a lot of time there, and it does kind of feel like home. And in Boston, even, just to escape from the city a little bit and stare out across the water just made me feel better," she added.

"'Every Crest' has this feel of adventure," Jack said. "These two characters (think) all the world could be ours, looking out at the sea and wondering if we can do all of these things together. So when I think of that, I think of driving tempos and soaring melodies and big, open sorts of things…

"Also, non-diatonic chords, to give this feeling of, not otherworldliness, but again, endless possibilities," Adrienne chimed in.

"Maybe we don't necessarily think about it as intentional, but it comes out that way, because that's what the feeling of the song needs to be," Jack said. "And 'Succumb' is probably similar in a way, that even though it's a different point in the story, the feeling is similar – this exhilaration and this shining brightness and soaring emotional content."

"I don't really remember writing it – it just WAS, suddenly," she said. "I remember I wanted to write something about this 'cinnamon, sweat, and rum,' because it's very evocative – you know there's a little something going on."

"This story is the backstory to the demon of 'Solveig,' so any time there's a hint of this demon character, that's going to be a screamed line," Adrienne said. "So this demon aspect of this character is everything that's dark, sad, maybe having given up, indulging too much – there's this terrible thing coming and 'OH NO, what if it comes and gets me?' And maybe I kind of want that."

"I usually will figure (a vocal treatment) out when I'm doing piano and vocals, before we flesh out the arrangements," Adrienne said. "But when it's time to actually record the vocals, sometimes Jack will give me some pointers of like, try to deliver it in this particular emotional way, or try changing the shape of your mouth to get a different screamed sound."

"It's never really to do something different than what she's already come up with – it's usually just to get more, or a more precise and powerful version of what's already there," Jack said. "It's never really 'maybe you should sing this line instead of screaming.'"

"I feel like my job writing solos is to tell not my own side of the story, but my own musical interpretation of the story without lyrics and in a shorter amount of time," he said. "So I feel like I have to write a small song within the song that goes along with it – not necessarily like an intermezzo, but similarly thought out."

"It's a little about how terrible this character thinks people are, and maybe how terrible this character thinks they themselves are," Adrienne said.

"Their body knows they're dying and their brain keeps trying to quickly process the last things that trouble them in life so they can move on peacefully," Adrienne said. "'Silvery Moon' is the last happy moment they had, and 'Bury You' is making peace with that and saying goodbyes."

"This was definitely inspired by the artistry of Edward Elgar," Adrienne said. "I wanted to have this peace at the end of the horror of 'Fearless.'"

"Yeah, well, we're not really good at those," Adrienne cracked.

"We're looking for some more live opportunities with MASTERS, but it's quite hard – we keep getting offers and we keep having to turn them down for stupid reasons that are unavoidable.

"With AVANTASIA, there are some festivals this summer and I will join them for that," she added.

"They actually came about via a booking agent who worked on some of the AVANTASIA U.S. dates," Jack said. "I believe he came to one of the shows in New York, and basically it just turned into a business relationship."

"He was there with us after the show and he was like, well I enjoyed your performance – what do you do when you're not with AVANTASIA?" Adrienne said. "And I was like, well, I'm going to go home and work on SEVEN SPIRES, my band.

"I got back to my hotel room and in the SEVEN SPIRES email, there was like, 'would you like to tour with AMARANTHE next year?' He saw me yell at people and then he was like, would you like more opportunities to yell at people with your band?"

"I think it's actually really cool for us to have different bills that we fit into," Jack said. "For the INSOMNIUM tour, we'll probably be doing more extreme vocal songs – heavier, faster death metal stuff. And then with the AMARANTHE tour, we'll be busting out more melodic cuts to some degree.

"Those bands were on our list of potential touring mates when we thought about finishing up 'Emerald Seas.' We're all goals-oriented people and we were making lists of, it would be good to tour with this band. And some of these things actually manifested, which is really cool," he added.