“My mother came from Indonesia with only mix tapes from there. Which are really great by the way! (Laughs) My father came from this very Catholic family where they only played Dutch folk music, and marching band music!”
“My mother came from Indonesia with only mix tapes from there. Which are really great by the way! (Laughs) My father came from this very Catholic family where they only played Dutch folk music, and marching band music!”
De Nieuwe Vrolijkheid “The Boekhorststraat Interview” continues…
IN: Did anyone study music?
P: Vincent did. Composition.
IN: And you Natasha, did you?
N: I played piano since I was 5. I also did theatre in school and played parts in musicals. I was in Les Miserables, it was awful!
IN: Did you play the little girl who sings the…
N: Ahhhh Yes! The castle in the fucking sky!
(Vincent walks back in and hums the tune as he sits back down)
V: I studied composition for a while and then left. I started out as a percussion player. I played vibraphone. Orchestra stuff. We use one in the fourth song of the new alum.
It’s a terribly heavy instrument to carry around and totally fragile, so until we have flight cases we will not be using it during our live performances. Vibraphone has resonating tubes and resonation motor, so you get this vibrato thing, it’s really beautiful. When you are a real band, you have these people and after the song is finished, they take everything away… that would be great! I can’t wait!!!
P: We can finally play Chicago!
V: We could have this little platform on wheels and I could stand on it… and it would (roll left and right). (LAUGHS)
IN: When did you start playing guitar? (Natasha)
N: I was 18 years old. Quite recently, actually.
V: You started on borrowed guitars.
N: Yeah, borrowed guitars!
V: We started on all borrowed stuff.
N: Yeah, guitar is nice.
IN: How old are you now?
N: 23. So yeah, 5 years.
IN: And Drums?
P: Yeah… I use to play in a marching band/brass band in school. Now I am playing in a few different groups. My other side project is called R. It is more folk noisy pop music.
IN: Was your father a musician? (Vincent)
V: He met my mother at the conservatory. He was studying piano but he got kicked out and switched… to insurance as you do. Now he paints. He comes to a lot of our gigs. (looks over to Natasha) Your mother too, she is really enthusiastic about the context, not really the music, but the whole context.
N: My mom came to a gig of ours and came up to me, I was standing behind this gate, and she was so excited to introduce to me to these two boys she met. You, you’re in a band right? (Laughs) You have to meet them. They were very shy and very reluctantly shaking my hand. My mom is always meeting people, everywhere.
V: They were very cute, so I am going to go see their gig on Friday.
IN: Is this a sort of Boy Scout meeting then?
V: Boy Scouts, I scout boys.
N: Girls always come on to him.
V: That was a problem I had in America at Umass at Amherst (The Pixies! -ZG). I had to fend off girls.
IN: The metro sexual chasers?
N: It’s tragic. Girls get so excited, thinking they found their Asian exotic yellow hero.
IN: You recorded with Henk Korn of Hallo Venray in his studio around the corner, did he produce it as well or offer suggestions while recording?
V: He was giving us a lot of advice. When we were recording, I liked to consider him as a 4th band member.
N: He is very laid back. Not too much pressure.
V: But he was great, when there was a problem, he immediately has a solution. It is quite remarkable; he can come up with very simple solutions.
P: Just lie on the ground and sing! (laughs)
N: Yeah, that was difficult because you really have to use different muscles.
V: He got the tenseness out of the air. He is always relaxing.
IN: When did you record the first album, We Are John Wayne?
V: Last year, more than one year ago.
N: May 2005
P: I heard it before it was released, but didn’t play on that album.
N: The drummer just decided to leave just after we had recorded it. It was awful. We had just recorded it and wanted to send it to people and you’ve made an investment…
V: And you want to get gigs! At that time you have to play and take every gig you get and I use to call him up and say, “Taco, Taco, we got another one… “
N: We’d be freaking out, oh my god we got a gig! And he was like… oh okay, I’ll get back to you. We use to play everywhere. Just to get a chance to play!
IN: You want to become rock stars? Is there a goal?
N: Not sure if there is a mutual goal… I mean I just want to play music. I think we all just want to play music. Make music.
V: We are constantly surprised by the opportunities we get.
N: It’s fun as well.
V: We just want to play. If people can help us and we can help other people… then yeah… my target is to make a living out of making music.
N: It is always an adventure, getting transport to the middle of nowhere. Meeting new people.
V: I really like that part.
(Tim walks into the room, home from work. He sits down and starts rolling his after work joint. He’s never sat in on any of my interviews… this is also a band he’s seen and also likes.)
IN: A genre classification for your music? As I am not sure… Post Post Alt Grunge, Art School Post Rock, Retro Grunge Revival, Post Alt Indie, these are only my own classifications. Band that your music reminds me of is Sonic Youth, the B52’s, Sex Pistols, The Fall, Jesus & Mary Chain, Nirvana, Velvet Underground… (Barrett, Tangerine Dream, Faust, MBV, Sonic Youth – there’s some more – ed)
V: We are a gimmick band. Our clothes, our style, our music.
P: What are some of the other grunge revival bands?
IN: The Ponys and Wolf Parade, stuff like that. Dark, melodic, progressive. Those are my two favorite grunge revival bands that the moment. Hallo Venray.
V: I pretend to be in the art school. The only reason I am there is to get my OV card (student discount card).
TIM: How do you describe Hallo Venray?
P: This one is also for Marcel! (Laughs)
N: It is weird, if you see someone every day. The new stuff is great! I don’t want to spoil anything, but it is really good! Live they are very good!
TIM: Because of the name I never checked out the band, I thought they were going to be some hick band from the east of Holland.
P: Yeah! Because of the name. It is an awful name really.
V: It’s also a great name.
TIM: Now I like it, because your band never gets out of Venray. Hallo Venray!
V: Yeah, most of the bands in Den Haag could be classified as “Hallo Den Haag!” (Laughs)
V: We make pop music.
IN: Pop music? Really?
V: My definition of pop music is any song you can play with a guitar at a campfire.
IN: Even… I Woke Up From a Dream Song from the new album?
N: The song is not really about melody or hooks, not meant to be catchy. Sonically, intentionally we changed it around a bit.
IN: Right, so it is not really a pop song at all. I really like You Want My Blood On The Floor. That is very poppy. I also like the Kurt Cobain song, Kurt I know How You Died.
N: Funny thing is, I don’t think anyone really likes Kurt Cobain. We all think he’s silly.
M: Too Grungy! (Laughs)
IN: Did you see Kurt and Courtney?
V: We saw Last Days. Kim Gordon playing Courtney Love, what else can ask for!?
IN: Oh right, the narrative story about his last days. Kurt and Courtney dealt with more of the conspiracies surrounding his death. Such as that she hired people to kill him, there was no physical way he could have killed himself after shooting himself up with that much dope or handle a shot gun to the head and as cleanly as he did it. The note, does not sounds like him at all.
N: You see a lot of 13 year olds in Nirvana shirts.
M: Reprints.
IN: I’ve not listened to Nirvana since he died. It will always be my favorite band.
N: They had such a huge influence. I was 12 years old at the time and an older sister of a friend of mine, she use to have a flannel shirt and she was like, yeah, lets smoke cigarettes and listen to Nirvana and she made me a tape. I still have it. I was too young to fully grasp what the songs were about. Oh that’s a nice song… and then thinking about it now, oh my god I was 12 years old and singing about? Rape. You know. Awful stuff.
V: I Didn’t get into pop music until I was 17. I spent my whole High School career listening to avant-garde, classical and jazz. I clearly remember you and Taco wanted to take me to this band… Doll House Drama and I was like no…
N: No, I don’t listen to bands… (giving her best impression of Vincent)
V: I’m not interested. (Laughs) I’m not into bands. That was 4 or 5 years ago. Actually my first band experience was when Doll House Drama Grechko and Qrio played together. Both my parents didn’t listen to bands. My mother came from Indonesia with only mix tapes from there. Which are really great by the way! (Laughs) My father came from this very Catholic family where they only played Dutch folk music, and marching band music!!!
(He looks over to Pim and laughs)
IN: So you saw them on stage and you were like, that should be me?
V: (Laughs,) No, not at all…
N: We were just making music. Completely apart.
V: We never considered being on stage with or as a band! The name existed before the band even did.
IN: Huh, you had a band name before the band?
V: We had a name for our group.
P: For our club.
V: For our Boy Scouts Club. (They all laugh) I had never considered the idea of being in a band. I had played in orchestras, but this was something completely different. Not sure how we really ever got here. Yeah… it was that gig were Qrio took his guitar apart… Natasha said you have to see this band where this guy takes his guitar apart and keeps on playing while he does.
N: You have to see this… Come on Vincent, you really have to see this, this guy takes his guitar apart on stage… come on… Vincent said, “No, no, no”. Come on, come on, he (Qrio) makes a lot of noise. I was really into it and I wanted that too.
V: Yeah, I think we really started making music because we were just so bored. We took the keyboard and the borrowed guitar and the electronic drums… it just started that way…
www.myspace.com/denieuwevrolijkheid
Words and Pictures: Zoe E. Gottehrer
find part one of this interview by clicking here…