We haven’t had a new Fresh from the Post feature in a while, so we’ve got something special. Here’s a Dutch band who may or may not bring the in ‘very’ in the ‘sexual’ — it’s The Very Sexuals.
I had the pleasure of having a Q and A with The Very Sexuals frontman, Joep van Son, who shared some his thoughts about dutch indie music, making a sountrack for a post-apocalyptic love and how showers and great band names are correlated –
First and foremost, how did you guys start out?
How we started out is a bit of a strange story. I was writing a bunch of songs and i just finished the first album for The Sugarettes. After making loud-guitar music i wanted something different to happen. I emailed Pien Feith, a dutch female singer who i admired very much, and stuffed her inbox with sketches. We were total strangers and met only once just before we went into the studio. The rest of the band are friends I played with in the past. So we planned a two hour rehearsal and started recording right away. Luckily there was some chemistry 😉
Why did you choose to name the band ‘The Very Sexuals’? And on a related note – what does it mean to be ‘very sexual’? 😉
The band name ‘the Very Sexuals" just popped into my head while showering. I guess I was washing my hair! I came up with it even before we started this project. On the other hand, the music isnt really sexual. But we do have sexy women in the band. I cant think of a deeper meaning behind the bandname. It just sounded alright. And what it means to be ‘very sexuals’ ??? I guess that you are part of a group of indiepop nerds. (but yes of course! )
On your music, how do you guys describe your sound? What can people expect when they listen to it?
The new album is going to be more of a fuzzy rock thing i think. But I like it when our songs sound a bit nostalgic. My biggest influences are from 90’s shoegazer and grunge bands. (yes i’m above 30!) But I like to mix these influences with stuff from my parents record collection like The Beach Boys, Velvet Underground, Righteous Brothers and so on…. When you listen to our music you can expect little songs, very short, to the point, boy/girl harmony’s, not pretentious! And Pien’s vocal contribution to the music gives it a bit of an elusive quality in my opinion.
I’m a big fan of apocalyptic movies so i decided to make every song on the album about the same boy & girl who survive a nuclear war but still having the same relational problems as before the war. I dont like conpept albums but I accidently made a concept-EP.
I’ve listened to your EP (Post-Apocalyptic Love) and I could say, you’re not like some bands that when you listen to one of their songs, their sound is kind of the same althroughout. Yours is kind of a nice mix of different influences and not only does it sound good, but if you listen closely, it’s great lyrically as well.
I always thought that for english people, when hearing Dutchies sing English, it must sound very silly. We are all troubled with the ‘Spruitjesaccent" and lyrically we aren’t that good. That is also the reason i think that it is hard for Dutch bands to have some succes abroad. English lyrics aren’t my best quality, I think. I concentrate more on atmosphere than the lyrics.
You could’ve fooled me! Your lyrics are quite good – to say the least, you know much thought was put into making the lyrics. In one your songs for example, in ‘Finn’ there’s this one line that goes – ‘Boy meets girl and girl steals his potential to be cruel’ . That kind of rings true to most relationships, it’s just, nobody’s put it that way in words, and in a song too, which makes it awesome.
There’s two songs that we’re posting on the site, can you share any story behind the songs, what inspired you to make it?
I really dont know what our single Carla is about. I just wrote some fragmentary lines. It has something to do with a battle or confrontation in a relationship.
Anti Valentine is based on ‘Unchained Melody" by the Righteous brothers. I adore this song. The last part we are influenced by "low". I didn’t want to record this song at first but the ladies in the band pushed it through. Now it’s my favourite one.
Last but not the least, I ask this question to all the artists that I feature since we’re all in the business of indie music – How do you define indie music?
Tricky question. The term indie reminds me of early 90’s alternative bands. I get a romanic feeling. I sometimes use the word also to define our music because we do almost everything ourselves, writing, recording, artwork, promo, music videos. We are not signed under a label anymore because we broke our ties with it. We are still looking for a nice label to work with for our 2nd album 😉 I think indie is more the mechanism inside and around the band instead of it as a music-style.
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The Very Sexuals EP ‘Post-Apocalyptic Love’ is out now as a free download. If you’re piqued about what is is to have a post-apocalyptic love, you can head on over to their site and grab yourself a copy 😉
