The holiday season is coming up and lots of people go out for a short visit to Holland. Especially Amsterdam, due to the possibility to broaden one’s education in the medical sector, quite popular. You don't really need drugs to get high in Holland. Despite the lack of global exposure in the media, the lowlands contain a couple of extremely talented bands; bands who signed with international labels, did small clubs tours throughout Europe, the UK and the US or were once support act of bands who later turned larger than life.
When you visit Holland, there are certainly a couple of bands you have to see perform. To prepare you for your trip, the next four weeks Altsounds will highlight the most popular rock bands of the current Dutch music scene. So turn on, tune in and drop out with 'Highlights of the Lowlands'.
In Part 3 of ‘Highlights of the Lowlands’ vocalist/ guitarist Tjeerd Bomhof tells the story of his band Voicst.
The band had so much fun while getting broke in New York, sleeping in airports and playing in dustcarts that they forgot to get famous in their home country. Until they made up for it last year, seven years after they started. In the meantime they were support act for basically everyone who did matter in the land of music, from Bettie Serveert and Nada Surf to Presidents of the USA and Danko Jones, something they still love to do, even though they sell out their own headline tours today.
Profile:
Name: Voicst Reason for name: Voicst was a word written on a wall in South Africa Members: Tjeerd Bomhof (vocals, guitar), Sven Woodside (bass, vocals), Joppe Molenaar (drums) Music: energetic pop and rock, with a twist Influences: life Admires: Queens of the Stone Age, Mars Volta, Millionaire Recommended Dutch bands: Talla Mbaye, Kyteman, de Staat, Roosbeef, C-Mon and Kypski
Though nobody knew them before the year of 2000, Voicst started out years before, as the typical local high school band.
´It was a bit of a cliché. I played guitar, wanted to start a band and there was this guy (Sven) walking around in t-shirts of bands that I liked. So I approached him and asked if he played music. He didn't, but he did listen to music a lot. I explained to him how to play the bass guitar and we started our band. We were just a typical unpretentious high school band, playing music at school. At a certain moment Joppe joined us. He saw us playing and liked it. It's been like that for about a year, then we didn't see each other anymore for a couple of years, we played and tried out things with other bands, but we never felt what we had back then. We ran into each other again and it was like, maybe it's time to do it again, for real. We felt ´fuck, this is what we want to do, we'd like to see the world, to perform all over the world´.´
´We were just excited to see what we could make of it. And we didn't perform live for a year, but we just made stuff, four or five days a week in the rehearsal room. I can't remember exactly when, but at one point it just became an ongoing thing, one thing leading to another. Suddenly we performed at all those venues, in Holland and in the rest of the world as well.`
The name chosen for the re-united high school band who soon travelled the world was Voicst.
´I saw this word written on a wall in South-Africa, a kind of graffiti piece. Later on I read the story that it was a name a certain artist used. He wanted to surprise people with the things he did. I never really understood whether it was really a word, but it was meant to surprise, and to give energy. Doing things, surprising people, giving energy. I thought it was funny and suitable for us.´
Spreading around the energetic pop and rock, help was on its way in the form of life as a support act, something a lot of bands hated and regretted until long after they gained world wide fame.
`We wanted to do this, so we worked hard on it. McLusky; that tour, and all the others as well, were bands we really liked and when we knew they would come to Holland we would ring the venue - those guys weren't that big at the time - and we asked if we could be the support act. In England, last time we were there, we played with the Presidents of the USA and Juliette Lewis (and the Licks). On one hand, we were doing things ourselves, but on the other hand, as soon as we did something, something else would come up too.´
`It always was fun and I still like it, just because it's sincere. Nobody knows who you are. We performed in England, Germany and France with all kinds of bands. Some days the audience matches better with what you're doing than other days. The thing with our music is, we're not really a rock band and we're not really a pop band and sometimes you're in front of a rock audience who likes rock only. But as you're already there, there's just one thing you can do, give them all you got. That's the sincerity, and when you bring that the response is genuine. They either like it or not and it's really great, every single time you have to make something out of nothing. Very often we did very well.´
`We realised very early on that Holland is a nice place to perform, but we liked playing other places as well. So, we just tried to organize things. We did some shows in England, back when we hardly performed in Holland but the way we started in Holland, we started the same way in other countries. We never thought ´oh, we need to be big in Holland first before we go abroad´, we thought ´fuck it, let's try to perform in other countries like Germany and France immediately.´
The list of other countries also included the United States, where they were asked to play the CMJ festival in New York.
`We sent them two songs and said we wanted to play there and suddenly we could. In New York we met people, from Enon, all the way through to meeting the producer who recorded our first album. It's just like what I say to other people when asked ´how do you manage all this´. I don't know exactly how it works, but it's just, you do something and it leads to something else.´
Down to Earth as they were, the New York gig was followed by the ´Unsigned´ tour, a joint venture between several unsigned Dutch bands, to promote the album with the same name, released by Dutch music organization Nationaal Popinstituut.
´It was fun. Out tour with Bettie Serveert was our first ever tour. The 'Unsigned' tour was the first time we toured on our own and people came to see us. Being a support act is nice, but it's also nice if people are there to see you. That tour was a lot of fun.´
Nevertheless, the next stop was still going to be the USA. Their recent tour was going to be the last as a band without a record or money.
`We've been to New York before to perform, and that was a brilliant thing to do and we were working with Eli Janney, the bass guitarist of Girls against Boys in James Iha (Smashing Pumpkins) studio.
We didn't have much time, partly because of financial reasons. So we were there for about three weeks working our asses off. It was awesome and we worked with very cool, professional people. It was very inspirational. It was also a way of recording we hadn't experienced before. In the end we really had to speed things up.
It was just really funny. We felt like, when you want something but it's impossible, you gotta make it happen but it was financially hard. We put our credit cards together, every time we struggled to get money together, but well, if you really want something, it's possible. Just an extra credit card here and there, and you will get there.´
Despite interest from different labels, Voicst decided to release their first album, ´11-11´, named after the hours they daily camped in the studio, on their own label, Duurt Lang Records (meaning Takes Time Records).
`Everything we do always takes us ages. We did, and still do, everything in our own way, the way we thought it had to go. Sometimes things take a little longer because you're not satisfied yet, so you just wait. We could have recorded our first album earlier, but we felt we weren't ready for it before. Other record labels were interested, but we just wanted to release it on our own label. We felt that, at least in Holland, we knew how to do it. The labels who did show interest, I felt they didn't really offer anything special.´
One thing leading to another didn’t mean the band was only going up from this point on. Highlights could easily be followed up by lows, like the Belgian tour with the original name ´Holland sucks`.
´That tour truly sucked. I felt it wasn´t organized very well. Problem was, there wasn´t really any (headliner), it was all about the combination of bands and it just didn’t work, because none of the bands had ever done anything worthwhile in Belgium before. It would have made more sense to play with Belgian bands who attracted an audience.`
And the other way round, this low was followed up by slightly more successful concerts, like the weekly ones in London.
´There was this nice club, the Luminaire, in London and for a month we played there every Wednesday, or Thursday, just for the sake of meeting people to co-operate with, people who organized gigs and managers etc. We went away in the morning, we slept at the airport in the evening and went back again the next week. A bit tiring, but a fun thing to do.´
Austin´s South by South West was also knocking on their door and in 2005 their first time in Austin was indeed a fact.
´The last time as well. I think, places like that are just very useful. You can use it to show yourself to people who could help you. That’s what happened. We were able to do a lot of other things, because of the people who saw us there.´
One thing that did happen even before they were in Austin, was being asked about using the song ´Acts of Fire´ during a commercial of the American Movie Classics Network. After that the same thing happened with Heineken (2005) and computer game Fifa World Cup 2006, who both used the song ´Whatever You Want from Life´
´Just because someone really liked it. Someone did see us performing in the USA and loved it and through someone else it ended up with the right people. It’s a good way for people to see and hear you. During that time (of Fifa 2006) we received e-mails from all over the world from people telling us they liked the song. Then you really notice it’s good to do something like that.`
Though other people obviously liked it, Voicst weren´t too happy with the mix and decided to do it all over again.
´The record was going to be released in the US. It was firstly released in Holland and it was going to be released in the US and Japan. The problem was, we were so amazingly broke when we recorded the album in 2004, we only had three or four days left to mix and for a complete record, that’s not enough. So we felt we could do it better. We asked Victor Van Vugt who had worked quite a lot with Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, and we went to New York to remix. It was a bit weird, but still a fun thing to do.`
Another year of touring went by ..
´Performing, performing, performing, that’s all you gotta do. Gaining experience and meeting people` - and the Posies, The Bravery, Millionaire and Danko Jones all shared the same support act in the form of Voicst. Because of the new album, ´A Tale of Two Devils´, 2007 was going to be the year of the studio. ´After a conversation it turned out that the three of us, we played so much and experienced so much and we tried so much, creatively, that we felt we had to go to the next level. We wanted to go into a completely different direction, creatively. So we thought about it and the idea and came up with using a horn section. We knew that we wanted to collaborate with About - a producer who lives in Berlin - as producer and fourth member. He brought in his techno and dance influences. Sound-wise we knew we wanted to go eclectically. So we thought, who would fit in as producer? We checked which records we liked, sound-wise, and came up with records of Interpol and the National and those records were produced by Peter Katis. So for months we’ve been asking him, would you like to do this for us? It took quite some time before he said yes, but he’s just extremely busy and he finishes his current project before he wants to look at the next one. Once he said yes, he asked if we could come over in six weeks time.
I’m glad we could work that way, because he’s such a great producer to work with. We were all over the place, because we wanted to go in many directions, creatively, and he was just there to tell us what could be done and what could not be done. We were experimenting a lot, working with the trumpet player of Beyoncé and the pianist of Simon and Garfunkel, people from everywhere, it was good to have someone to supervise.
We just wanted to freak out, we wanted to be completely free and having someone around who could blend all these things into one. He is such a talented producer, he can make things sound so beautiful. (Financially) we finally had our head above the water again when we wanted to record this album but, we felt we were doing the right thing, so it was okay...make it happen.`
2008 marked the return to Holland, or maybe ´the final start` would be a better definition.
´We started out playing everywhere. We were abroad for most of the time, so we had to turn down requests from television shows and radio shows: we couldn’t do it because we were abroad. So we decided, with this record we’re going to concentrate on Holland. We hadn’t sold out Paradiso. We wanted to accomplish certain things in Holland as well. So we thought, let’s go for it in Holland.
It’s nice to see that those things did happen; played Pinkpop, sold out our own tour. We’ve been playing Holland for more than a year and now - the new record will be released in Germany soon and we’re going to South-Africa. So we’re still looking, what more can we do?`
Playing in a dustcart turned out to be one thing, while doing a short tour in the Balkan this year, the band found itself locked inside of one.
´By day we played in a converted dustcart. We drove around, locked up inside the dustcart and would end up somewhere in the city. In Sarajevo, for example, we drove around, the dustcart stopped, it would open and we would play immediately. We played near a terrace, and on a huge square with hundreds or thousands of people and they didn’t know we would be there, so it was a surprise, a Guerrilla gig. It was great fun. And in the evenings - those gigs were just promotion for our shows - we would play in clubs with local bands.´
Voicst doesn’t seem to feel the need ever to stop playing live, because there’s always some place they’ve never been before, or have to go to start from scratch, like South Africa.
´We’re going to play at the biggest festival, Oppikoppi, South Africa´s Pinkpop or South Africa´s Glastonbury. Plus we’re doing some gigs in Johannesburg, Durbanand Pretoria with the idea of coming back to South Africa in February.
(But it’s) mainly Germany now, from September on. After that we will be working on a new album. I’m not sure how we’re going to do that, it could go in any direction. I would love to go to England. I don’t think it’s going to happen soon, because we have to make a new album, and Germany is quite a big country as well. It would be great to play in England. The shows we did before were a lot of fun.`
´Yesterday I read - you’ve heard of Kyteman? - he used to play trumpet with us, but he’s going to do a project with the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra. My first thought was, that is so cool, maybe I should do that too. Maybe this is the perfect ending. Maybe we’re just going to do things which we think ´wow that would be brilliant to do`. Of all the things in life I ever wanted to do, this is one of the best. I think that’s what we’re always looking for; What’s gonna make us excited?`
´11-11´ versus ´A Tale of Two Devils´
´I think the first album is more straightforward, in a way. It’s just guitar/bass/drums. With a twist in the songs. There’s always something in there you don’t really expect, I think that’s what we’re looking for.`
´The second album is the same, song-wise, but there are more instruments. More electronic sounds, organ, trumpet and baritone sax as well. A lotta shit goin´ on. The songs remain the main thing though. The first record was about the things we used to do, and the second record was a response to that; we are used to this, what else is on, what more can we do? The second album is about - I’ve had enough of performing, we’re done, we’ve been playing the songs a million times, I’m not going to travel any more, I am just in Amsterdam. You’re thinking, fuck, I’ve been living here all my life and you’re looking at it in a different way, because you’ve been away for so long. So lyrically, that’s what it’s about, it’s a bit more than just the music.
I think we have grown in a way that, at first, we wanted to be more energetic and we forgot that we’re also playing songs, that we were making music. I think there has got to be a bit more music now.`
Voicst on tour, South Africa
August 5 - Burn, Durban
August 6 - Tokyo Star, Johannesburg
August 7 - Roxy, Johannesburg
August 8 - Oppikoppi Festival, Northam
August 11 - Tings, Pretoria
August 12 - Tanz Cafe, Johannesburg
August 13 - East Rand Street Cafe, Johannesburg
August 14 - Zeplins Rockshack, Pretoria
August 15 - Black Dahlia, Johannesburg
August 16 - Bohemian, Johannesburg
Nice work again floris, how the hell do you get these bands to go into so much detail!
All of this has fit into one thread, note the formatting, text, colours and everything. Next one you do copy this style and it should all fit into one. If you could go back and do your others that would be great.
Thanks for putting it into one document, that's much better. And all those videos, just brilliant, it looks marvellous.
What I did during this interview series was, naming a key word and asking them to tell something about it. So I said for example south by south west and they told me their complete life story. But seriously, I think they're just really nice guys...
And doing your homework pays off.
Do you want me to re-do the first and second one so it fits into one page? I would love to see that.
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Highlights of the Lowlands: Racoon Part 2
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Highlights of the Lowlands Part 3: Voicst
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