1. What was the best Destine show you ever did? (Lore, JustMe)
Good question! There are too many, but just to name a few: The Atak Enschede show on our first headline tour, I love that venue and the show went great. Our show at Pinkpop, the Perron 55 Venlo show on our last October headline tour because the vibe of the crowd was amazing, and our shows in Japan because it was surreal to be on the other side of the world and see people singing along. And playing with some of our favorite bands is always amazing.

2. What is your favorite food? (patricia, girlmeid14)
Italian and Greek. And I always look forward to the typical Dutch food when we get back from tour.

3. How do you prepare for a show and what do you guys (usually) do backstage? (I think you won't be nervous anymore while you've already played so much shows, right?) -Celine
There are always (and hopefully always will be) some nerves, because we always want to give everything we have. But the last hour before the show consists of warming up our voices, warming up my fingers (our guitar tech Jim brings one of my guitars to the dressing room, and I always have a small amp simulator with me so I can plug in my earphones and play like I'm using an amplifier), our tourmanager Gert-Jan brings the flightcase with in-ears, we put those in and tape 'em so we don't lose them on stage. Sometimes we go through the set list if there are any changes or things that could be better from the last night, and then we go from the dressing room to the stage. We always come together right before we go on to get excited, remind each other of how lucky we are and then it's showtime! Does that answer your question?

4. Why is your first album called 'Lightspeed'? (Emmy)
The years leading up to 'Lightspeed' felt like one big rollercoaster. So many great things happened to us and we had the chance to go to so many great places. We did so many things we could have never dreamed of five years ago. I think 'Lightspeed' is a really powerful word, that captures the excitement we experienced and the whirlwind we felt we were living in.

5. I was wondering about the process of making a setlist. For example, how do you decide how many songs you're going to play, which songs and in what order? Are there certain rules you stick to or things you always keep in mind while making the setlist? And how long before a show do you compose the setlist? (Astrid)
The amount of songs that we're going to play depends on if it's a festival or a club show. At festivals there's a time schedule that you have to stick to. You're booked for a certain time. With headline clubshows you can basically do whatever you want. You can play 30 minutes or 3 hours, whatever you like. Most of the time we just pick the songs we like the most, combined with songs the audience knows, most of the time the singles. How we build up the setlist depends. On our last headline tours, we ended with 'In The End', because we wanted to experiment with that and wanted to see if we could pull that off, and we liked that a lot. But sometimes, especially with shorter sets, you want to end your set with a singalong. Most of the time we want to start with a powerful song. We also look at the dynamics of the songs, so we try not to have four very uptempo songs after each other, and then four softer songs for example. Can work too, but we never really liked that.

6. What would you choose: to be a smaller band and be able to hang out with fans after shows or a really big band and have the highest security and have very strict M&Gs? (Emilia)
I think there's always a way in between. We played shows with for example All Time Low, when they were selling out 1500+ capacity venues. But still they hung out with fans after the show. They just waited a little longer and couldn't stay for hours, but it was a great compromise. I think it's up to you as a band to find a good way to keep in touch and meet your fans, even though you're growing as a band. Because you always want your music to be heard by as many people as possible.

7. Does everyone write their own parts in the songwriting process? Sometimes it seems like Robin writes a song with all parts in it, and everyone just adds a small part. Or is it more like he writes the base of a song and everyone adds their own instrumental parts? (Tamara)
Robin writes the base of a song on acoustic guitar, and records a demo with all instruments right after. He programs drums, and records ideas for bass, guitar and keys. We take those demos to the rehearsal room and change parts wherever needed, but sometimes we keep the original parts. In the studio James gives his input and we review all parts again, and change and add some parts. But the crucial parts of the demo like intros almost always stay in tact.

8. Do you think there is a certain mentality/attitude required to be successful? If so, could you describe it? (Jeanne)
Being passionate about something. And driven. There are very few people who are so talented that they don't have to do anything and be successful. Most people and artists have to work really really hard to get somewhere. It's an advantage if you can get along with a lot of people, that you have social skills, and I'd say it's good to be assertive.

1. what is your favorite band?(patricia,girlmeid14)
Jimmy Eat World, Saosin, Anberlin.

2. What is the complete story behind the new album title Illuminate? What are your own thoughts and feelings with it and how did you agree on calling it like this? (Tamara)
A lot of the songs on 'Illuminate' are about making something positive from a negative experience, or trying to hope for the best in an insecure situation. We think light is a beautiful metaphor for hope and optimism. All artwork around (album and singles) 'Illuminate' has the same visual theme which incorporates hope, light, and looking to the future too.

3. How come your new album is released in the Netherlands as last? (Emmy)
Every country has it's 'own' release days for albums. In the UK that's a Monday for example. It came out in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland and a lot of other countries on the same day (March 30th).

4. If you could choose one thing to drink for the rest of your life, what would it be? (Emilia)
Freshly squeezed orange juice!

5. What have you always wanted to do / try out (no matter if others think it's a bad idea)? (Celine)
Start a band, quit school, and start touring around the world ;)

6. What was it like to be followed by cameras for an entire year? (Ilse)
We were already pretty much used to it because of DestineTV. We feel really comfortable having a camera around nowadays. So it was pretty easy and a lot of fun to look back haha.

7. How do you find the actors for your music videos? Do you simply ask people you know who have the looks or the attitude you want (Like Hubrechts father in Stay), or do you ask a casting agency to cast certain types or persons? (Jeanne)
We scout everybody ourselves. We use a lot of friends, friends of friends, family and people who are close to us.

8. What do you expect of the release of Illuminate? What reactions do you hope/think you're going to get? (JustMe,Lore)
I could have never hoped people would be so enthusiastic about it! I thought people would be constantly comparing it to Lightspeed. The reactions have been so great, people really get what we want to come across with this album.

9. In the previews of the new album you can hear a lot of strings. How did you record these? I presume you did not play them yourselves ;) (Astrid)
Our producer James has a ton of different plugins for strings and effects, he uses a lot of Native Instruments bundles. Having a real orchestra come in to play it is really expensive and time consuming. 99% procent of all records nowadays don't use real strings anymore because technology (plugins/MIDI) is so good nowadays. But I would love to record real strings on a next record! And then I'll have some lessons and play the cello ;)

1. What would have been your dream job if you were not in a band? (Patricia.girlmeid14)
If I wasn't in Destine, I would probably have been multimedia designer (graphic design, website design, audio and video productions) or work at a management company for other artists.

2. What's the best thing someone has said to you after the release show? (Heleen)
Good question! The amount of great reactions was overwhelming. I really liked all the nice words about Jordy. He played an amazing show and it's so good to have him in the band, and it's great if people who have known us for a long time think so too.

3. What is the craziest way someone has ever woken you up? (Yannai)
Haha, on one of our German tours we slept in the venue. The morning after, the cleaning crew came in and they didn't know we were there. So I woke up to an angry guy shouting things in German who turned on the light. Kind of freaky!

4. What is the weirdest fanmail you have ever recieved? (Yannai)
It's always hilarious when people tell you they are going to marry you when you've never even really talked to them. Pretty agressive pickup line!

5. Has anything ever been stolen? (Yannai)
Luckily we never had any instruments stolen on tour (*knock on wood*). In my old appartment, somebody broke in once and stole Laurens laptop. That sucked big time!