Interview to Rutger van Driel
https://larmschutz.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/larmschutzmusic/
First say welcome to this written interview
for CIan Orbe blog. Today we make an interview to the multi-instrumentalist dutch composer Rutger van Driel (part of Lärmschutz duo)
- Which are the concept behind your music project, how you categorize your own music?
Whatever Lärmschutz does, it is (almost) always free improvisation, whether it is for our semi-classical Tafelmusik-series, our attemps to harsh noise, the jazz-like Wood and Tin-series (just guitar and trombone) or the more rythmic approach for our latest split with Noiose. We do whatever we feel like and wherever the music takes us. We even have one recording on which the music demanded us to sing, which we have never done before and never after. It is up to you to find out which one. So we touch upon a lot of genres but is always created out of nothing with a diy-attitude.
- Do you release music under your name? or only under the duo Lärmschutz?
do you have other active or past music projects?
There have been very few occasions when I’ve
released music under my alias RVD. One was for tow prepared guitar solo’s for a
compilation on Humanhood Recordings on which my Lärmschutz partner in crime
Stef Brans also contributed, so to avoid confusion we did this under our own
name.
I also have a project with Spelonk, a violin/electronics musician from my
hometown Utrecht. We have released two albums so far, called Spelonk vs RVD and
RVD vs Spelonk. Everything else I create in this genre I do under the name
Lärmschutz. This can be solo, duo or even an octet.
I have a variety of active bands:
- Graeae (dark-jazz/soundtrack improvisation)
- Black Wall (groove noiserock)
- In Bad Met Marie (reggae/no wave impro)
- Extra Sneaky (nineties Mr. Bungle-like rock)
Furthermore are there a few regular collaborators with whom we perform and record, like Michiel Teunissen (bassclarinet), Jan Schellink (everything) and Niels Terhalle (poems). I have too many past projects to name, but they go from singer-songwriter (A Tergo) to ska (The Shenanigans) to indie (Eccentric Women and Sad Men) to noise (Gorgo), to name but a few.
- Lärmschutz is your main project? or do you have other active moniker or band?
Lärmschutz is definitely my main band. I can do whatever I want and Stef will follow and vice versa. We both challenge each other in doing new things and realizing there’s no limit to what we want to do. Since we have our own label we can release anything we like. In my other active bands (see previous post) there are much more limitations, wether it is in the songs or in the genre. I like that too, but the ‘anything goes’ with Lärmschutz has definitely my preference. All musicians with whom I play in other bands, can also play a part in Lärmschutz, and many do. For example, there is this band Makaak and with the bassplayer and the singer we have as Lärmschutz released two albums called Macaca. I love this jazzlike crossover attitude.
- As multi instrumentalist, How many instruments you play, which is your favorite and why?
I think I can use every instrument in my recordings for Lärmschutz. I know enough about all kinds of instruments and my own limitations to use them in a Lärmschutztracksupporting way. My favourite is the slidetrombone. This is an instrument which you don’t usually see a lot in bands who make this kind of music. I really like experimenting with prepared trombone, all kinds of mutes, pedals and other effects and of course the natural sound. I like the double bass as well. This instrument is being played with your entire body and the vibrations are felt from your head to your toes. For both instruments your hearing is very important. There are no frets or keys or marks where the notes are. It’s all about listening and feeling. Very intense instruments, for both your body and your mind.
- In what year did you start making music? which was your first band?
In the part of Holland where I come from it was a custom to start playing the recorder at the age of seven for two years (that was in 1982) and then decide if you want to play another instrument in an orchestra, so I started playing the slidetrombone in a youth orchestra when I was nine. My first band was a coverband when I was fifteen. I played the bass in a band called Perception. My first real band came a few years later when I was nineteen. I started playing trombone in a skaband The Serial Skankers, the first of a couple of skabands for the next years.
- Which inspiration you have from the place where you live? There's some inspiration from your country in your music?
I don’t really draw inspiration from the place where I llive. In my city, Utrecht, there is a pretty big indiescene, but there’s not really a scene in which we can take part. Not much room for bands who like to colour outside of the lines. There are other places in the Netherlands where there are more like-minded bands and places to perform, like Rotterdam or Nijmegen. I don’t take my country as an inspiration in any way.
- Which are your favorite music projects and visual/plastic artists who inspire your work?
All projects of Mauro Pawlowski, RudyTrouvé, John Zorn, everything Mike Patton, Zu and espescially Massimo Pupillo, Psychotic Quartet, Cactus Truck, Jeb Bisshop, dEus, Dead Neanderthals, X-Legged Sally, Frank Zappa, Dale Cooper Quartet, Colin Webster but also more mainstreamprojects like Arctic Monkeys, Beck, David Bowie, Nick Cave and I am a really big Queenfan (so I gladly took the chance to record Bohemian Rhapsody for the 60/70 bands-compilation).
- How do you see the current Experimental music scene?
I think the experimental music scene is connecting as never before. Al kinds of platforms make it possible to play with people from all around the world, and make and hear recordings with whoever we like. This was in the old days not possible. All the hometaping and stencilled fanzines were charming, but it was really difficult to get to music from different parts of the world. There’s a real lively scene on Bandcamp, Facebook and what not with musicians who find eachother and challenge each other. Also there are a lot of enthousiastic people who run (net)labels and create a space to put our music. Good times for the scene.
- What has been the experience of make live performances under Lärmschutz project or with other artists?
I love playing live. With Lärmschutz we always try to invite other people to play with on stage. We try to play with as many different people as possible. We always start with no appointments and no regulations, so it’s always kind of exciting what we come up with. We never choose the easy way, not for 5 people, not for 200 people. It’s really an adrenalinerush to play with Lärmschutz. It’s almost meditation. It is uncomparable.
- Which is your favorite song or composition and album created by yourself?
This is an unanswerable question. We only record stuff we like. There are some releases that come to mind. I think the dronesplit with The Howl Ensemble turned out really nice. Also the split with Jorge Nuno is really different for us. Very relaxed and acoustic playing. This worked really well. The third one I like to mention is The Battle of Nürnberg. This is an improvisationwe played while watching a soccergame. The game was Portugal versus The Netherlands. This was a massacre with sixteen yellow card and four reds. We invited Jan van Wessel to play drums and Niels Achtereekte joined us on bass. We were also divided in two teams and played against each other in stead of with each other. It was also a long take, one whole soccergame last at least ninety minutes. Very intense and exhausting, but a nice, chaotic result, just like the game.
- Tell us about the concept & the creation process of one of your latest albums "Heaven's Gate" released by Camembert Electrique.
The main idea for this album came from our regular collaborator on bass Niels Achtereekte. Like many we have an interest in people who are a bit different. For this recording we took an audiotape of Do from the Heaven’s Gate cult which he used to brainwash people to join his cult and eventually to commit suicide. We cannot understand these people and think a guy like Do is mad, so we tried to capture the madness of the cultleader and the uncertainty and doubt of the followers.
- Tell us about the underground music scene in The Netherlands. and which are your favorite artists from your country?
It is really small, but then again, it’s a really small country. Everybody knows everyone and has played with everyone. There are a couple of place to play live, but not that much. A part of the scene takes place in the squatworld. There are a couple of great Dutch bands, my favourite by far is Dead Neanderthals, but also Albatre is really great. I love the performences of Donné and Desirée. Those bands are part of a scene called The New Wave of Dutch Heavy Jazz. Highly recommended.
- We have always seen that you love collaborations, which have been your favorites?
I really like it when collaborations go fast. With Lärmschutz we like to record and release our music as quickly as possible. It is a take on the moment and shouldn’t be kept on a shelf for too long. I think the one with Juan Carlos (as Storyteller 6666) is one with which really captured the moment of our lives at that time. The collab with {AN} Eel is also very cool. The collaborations for the Tafelmusikseries are also worth mentioning. We played with a lot of different artist for this serie in which we use Barocmusic to improvise. Carla Genchi was the first guestmusician to use vocals on a Lärmschutzrecording. As LSTBSCOÖP we (Lärmschutz and Terbeschikkingstelling) have started a frequent collaboration and have recorded and released quit a few tracks already, including our Noise Audio Book-series, and an album with only trombones.
On another level we have been collaborating with Sander Reijgers for our
coverart, and I think his work really works with our music. Both abstract and
for both of us is the road towards the work equally important as the result.
- Any anecdote that you want to share with us in the creation of some track?
We tried to record a soundtrack for a director once. The movie was about streetartist. We couldn’t make the music fitting to the movie to the approval of the director, so the project was cancelled. We released this music on our first edition of the Rejected Soundtracks. When we had the tapes duplicated we used the wrong take, one with almost no music. This turned out to be great fieldrecordingtrack, but totally not what we intended.
- Any news for 2021 in your music project or future collaborations?
There are a couple of works in the pipeline. We have some more editions of our Faux Amisseries. In this serie we invite an artist to fill one side of the tape, and we as Lärmschutz fill the b-side with an improvisation inspired by the recording on the a-side. We are also working on a more regular base with the ideas and concepts of Michiel Teunissen (saxophone and bassclarinet) so that one is probably coming soon. There are plans to do more stuff with {AN} Eel and Juan Carlos. I am working an album with Sergei Tumanov. There’s always enough music the make!
- Any other thing that you want to say to your listeners?
If you have come this far, thanks for taking an interest in me and in Lärmschutz. On larmschutz.bandcamp.com we have collected all the Lärmschutzrecordings. We have also our own little label, called Faux Amis (fauxamis.bandcamp.com) for mainly Lärmschutz related recordings, but we have a couple of other projects waiting for a release. If you want to join us in a recording, just let us know.
RELEASES BY Lärmschutz IN CIAN ORBE:
- Gian Monsters (split with other artists) (2020): https://archive.org/details/giant-monsters-split
- Inviting EP (2020): https://archive.org/details/larmschutz-inviting-ep
