Simons and husband, Kamelot keyboardist Oliver Paltai, welcomed son Vincent in October 2013 while Epica were in the studio recording their 6th album, 2014's The Quantum Enigma.

Simons tells Horns Up Rocks!: "When we did the demo recordings at my house together with Sascha Paeth, Joost van den Broek and Mark Jansen, I was sitting there with a huge belly, and my legs up. So that was all not very sexy and not very metal. But it was nice to kind of work on the new project.

"And making a new CD is also a little bit like giving birth to a baby. But, of course, you don't have to change it, nor breastfeed the CD. But definitely there are two great new things in my life. And the baby being, of course, the real lifechanger. But I think that The Quantum Enigma is going to be also a good change for Epica."