Q: We love the lyrics in your single, “Window”. What is your writing process like?
ROBIN: First of all, thank you for the nice words. Mostly, I just come up with some guitar chords or a riff, then I record a full demo version of just the music with guitars, bass and a drum machine. After that, I write the lyrics.
Q: Did any real life events occur that inspired the song?
Well, the song is about how most media nowadays report on political news and how sensational news coverage in particular influences and divides people and societies. You know, like these “politics of fear”. It can scare the shit out of people. Or even worse.
Q: How did the members of your group come together?
Robin: That’s a long story. Jetske Blonk (our drummer) and I had quite a tough time getting the right people in our band. We had some changes in the line-up of the band for some years. Now we are very happy with Dylano Hahury (our lead guitarist who joined the band in January 2019) and Martin Memelink (who joined the band in March 2021). They are really great musicians and, most importantly, just very nice people.
Q: Who, if any, are your idols?
Robin: Idols…mmm that’s a big word, but I’m really inspired by the words and works of people like Jim Morrison, Morrissey, Kurt Cobain, Frank Black, Mark Lanegan, Michael Stipe, Nick Drake, Ian Curtis, Tim Hardin, Tim Buckley, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Billy Corgan, Thom Yorke, Jason Lytle, Leonard Cohen, Elliott Smith, Mark Linkous, Bob Dylan and many more to mention. Great, real songwriters I do admire and respect a lot.
Q: We noticed you’re based in Amsterdam. How does your environment affect your sound?
Robin: In the end I think mood, that little voice inside your head that tells you how you feel and what you think, affects my songwriting and sound in the end. I don’t really know how to explain this, but here’s always this little sort of voice inside my head who’s saying: compose a song now, especially when I’m having a bad time haha. Sometimes I can hear parts of the song already in my head, you know, musically and I just have to record it and write the lyrics. But the melody or the atmosphere of the songs I write are a result of what goes on in my mind. It’s just these translations of moods, feelings, these images that come along with it, thoughts or even memories into chord structures.
Q: We noticed you’re based in Amsterdam. How does your environment affect your sound?
Robin: In the end I think mood, that little voice inside your head that tells you how you feel and what you think, affects my songwriting and sound in the end. I don’t really know how to explain this, but here’s always this little sort of voice inside my head who’s saying: compose a song now, especially when I’m having a bad time haha. Sometimes I can hear parts of the song already in my head, you know, musically and I just have to record it and write the lyrics. But the melody or the atmosphere of the songs I write are a result of what goes on in my mind. It’s just these translations of moods, feelings, these images that come along with it, thoughts or even memories into chord structures.
I live in a small town now near Amsterdam and Amsterdam is a really inspiring and really interesting place, but these little voices that can literary change your mind, is always there. I lived in Rotterdam for a long time, the second biggest city in the Netherlands, and of course life up there also inspired me to write songs. “When I’m Sane” and “Sofie Says” from our first album “When I’m Sane” for example, but also “Red Letter Days” and “Alice at the Wedding” from our second album “Glass”. These are songs that are based on events that happened to me while I was living there.
Q: What would you like to tell musicians who are just starting out?
Robin: Carry on doing with what you’re doing. The music industry can be pretty uncomfortable and tough sometimes, especially when you’re doing it the D.I.Y. way, like we do. If you really want to achieve something with your music, just work really, really hard and don’t give up! If you just want to have fun, which is I think the most important thing at the end of the day, then just keep on having fun and make some great sounds!
Interviewed by Zoey Rowntree
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