Annemieke gets up close and personal with Holland’s brightest popsters.
Annemieke gets up close and personal with Holland’s brightest popsters.
Hallo Carol and Peter! Thanks for taking the effort to do this interview! I’ve got my list of questions, and I ended up with 17! I hope you don’t find this too long…
IN: You have called the band after tennis player Betty Stöve. Was there a special reason for this?
Peter: Yes we wanted her as a Mother Superior figure, to take care of us if you will. By naming ourselves after her, she would probably hear of us. Part one of our plan would therefore have been successful…
IN: Carol, what was it like to change from a sound engineer to singer in Bettie Serveert?
Carol : Weird. I had already played in a lot of bands, but I didnt want to stand on stage because Im actually very shy. I loved mixing the music live, though. It was awesome to do, actually.
IN: You’ve got it together extremely quickly as a band. What was it like to be so successful so quickly? This success wasn’t just in Holland, was it? The US too…
Peter: Naturally that was shit hot!
IN: You play a lot of festivals. How do you find it playing the festival circuit? Peter: The more people there are the better it is, usually. However, the first time we played Pinkpop was rather intimidating…
Carol: Lowlands was one of my favourites, but I also loved Reading and Roskilde.
IN: How do you enjoy playing together with other bands?
Peter and Carol: Normally its fun, and we learn a lot. The last tour we played with Voicst and the Belgian tour we did with Sukilove. To be honest, by the end of our performances, most of the bands we tour with come on stage and join in with us.
IN: Who inspires you musically?
Peter: Blur, Mars Volta, Velvet Underground, Beatles etc, etc.
Carol: ……….and Captain Beefheart, Outkast, Destiny’s Child, Ramones, Jeff Buckley, etc, etc…
IN: How much does the band influence your life?
Peter and Carol (together): It is my whole life!
IN: What was or is the inspiration for making music?
Peter: Music making is for me the most important reason to make music.
Carol: Music making is just like breathing.
IN: When did you first get interested in music?
Peter: 10 years old.
Carol: 9, I think.
IN: And if you didn’t become musicians?
Peter: Painter, in the fine arts. But I don’t have any time for it nowadays. Outside of that? Nah… not really anything much
Carol: Graphic designer. Sometimes I have time… I’m actually in another band in Belgium; called Chitlin Fooks.
IN: Do you get recognised often?
Peter: We do if we go to the Paradiso. But not when I’m hiding in a ditch. And on the whole it’s very nice. As long as the person is sober.
Carol: Yep, fairly often. It happened that people stalked us, actually…
IN: Whats the best thing about being in Bettie Serveert?
Peter: I suppose the elements that we still don’t know about the band.
Carol: All of it!