Without a doubt Badlands is one of the better European bands out there. Therefor it was a real shame the band broke up about four years ago. But after already being teased by a fully acoustic EP last year Badlands is now back together as a full band again and seems to be stronger than ever before with an excellent and steady line-up and plenty of releases and big plans coming up! This is the first interview with singer / guitarist Victor since the band got back together, exclusive at american-oi.com! Enjoy!
Badlands is back! And with that you made a whole lot of people happy Victor, what is your response to this and how are you doing these days?
The reactions so far have been great indeed. Ofcourse I’m very pleased with this positive response. There’s a lot of going on right now and the people I’m currently working with are highly focussed and motivated to achieve great things. We are working hard to make a name for ourselves and I feel like I just started making music, although Badlands actually began more than 12 years ago. It really is a new beginning in the sense that a lot of people still don’t know us. No wonder since there was a four-year recording hiatus and after the band broke up, we have not played live shows for 8 years. Now we’re back and sometimes we pay in areas where people never heard of us. But then it is all the more challenging to convince the crowd of our music by giving it all on stage.
I can’t believe it has been over 12 years since “False Gestures” came out. I remember receiving a review copy from Rebellion Records for one of my old sites and at first I didn’t really know how to respond to it, a bit confused to say the least, I was a lot younger back then (obviously) and “False Gestures” contained a lot of acoustic and clean tracks, music that wasn’t on the top of my playlist in those days. Did you ever expect reactions to be so positive on your music?
I had never dared to expect such a positive reception. When “False Gestures” came out I was still a teenager, barely 19 years old. Back in those days my life was all about listening to Oi! and punkrock and visiting as many Oi!, punk and hardcore gigs as I possibly could. I didn’t consider myself a musician or anything like that, but rather just a fan of the music. So when all of a sudden people came to me saying how much they liked my music it was quite a surprise for me. And it still is.
Initially I had no real ambitions with my music. I just sang and played for my own amusement, as a personal outlet. Back then I only had an acoustic guitar and no band to accompany me, so in a way I was forced or say challenged to write songs that didn’t need anything more than voice and guitar only, songs however that captured the beat and energy of a punkrock band. Eventually some bandmembers joined in and Badlands turned into a real group, but this typical singer-songwriter approach still lies at the heart of Badlands. I still write all songs on the acoustic guitar before I start practicing them with the other bandmembers. Perhaps this is the reason why people think Badlands has an authentic sound, which is very melodic and subtle but yet extremely powerful.
Last year was actually your first release in four years after the album “When Angels Are Crucified” in 2008 with the fully acoustic EP “Capital Of Spirit”. Why just acoustic songs? Did you want to get to the basics and start from scratch or were there other reasons to choose for this EP?
The funny thing is that the reasons for writing and recording acoustic tracks were exactly the same as when I first started more than a decade ago. In 2012, when I decided to reform Badlands again, I had no band to accompany me so I had to write songs that I could perform all by myself.
To record acoustic songs instead of band songs also had practical advantages. We wanted to show the world that Badlands was about to come back with a new line up in 2013 and recording 3 acoustic tracks could be done relatively quick, also without investing too much money.
Nonetheless, I wanted to make this release really special. Therefore I worked together with Nicholas Morell, a very good friend of mine from the USA, who is a classically trained guitarist. He arranged some of the guitar parts I wrote and is responsible for the amazing guitar work on the EP. So it’s a unique recording first of all, very different from all other Badlands releases, and moreover a great way to start a new chapter in the history of Badlands in a metaphorical sense, going back to the acoustic musical roots of the group.
What was the reason to stop with Badlands to begin with? Was it the trouble keeping a steady line-up or were you tired of the (Dutch) skinhead scene or just tired of making music in general?
The main reason I stopped playing music was that I had other priorities. In 2008 I was very buisy with my studies and about to move to Germany to continue my academic courses there. Because I was on the move all the time it was impossible to keep a band together.
I also felt I had nothing left to say musically. After releasing several albums I thought I wasn’t able anymore to add anything interesting to my repertoire, both musically and lyrically. The inspiration one needs in order to make authentic and convincing music was lacking so I decided to pull the plug with the conviction never to return on stage again. But obviously I proved myself wrong. The events in my life triggered my imagination and I felt the urge to translate my thoughts into music and words once more.
What did you do in the past four years? Work, finishing up a study or were you still writing songs?
I finished my studies in musicology and philosophy, worked as a freelance musicologist, gave lectures on music, and worked as artistic manager for a foundation organising classical concerts. So there was not much time for me to write new material. Occasionally I strummed the guitar with friends, hanging around, improvising and jamming a little bit, but no serious songwriting until recently.
2013 will be the ‘real’ comeback year for Badlands if you ask me, there’s an EP about to be released, there’s a mini-LP coming up where you just finished the recordings for and perhaps a full-length?
In 2012 we gave away our ‘business card’ in the form of “Capital of Spirit”, just to show Badlands is back on the map. I also gave an exclusive acoustic concert at the Bandworm Festival in Magdeburg which was a really cool thing to do. The response was overwhelming and gave an enormous boost to my enthusiasm and motivation to go for it again.
Now it all starts to run. A new EP called “World of Pain” is about to be released and currently we’re in the studio to record the mini-album “Alexandrian Age”. With this mini-album we go back to the catchy sound of the first albums, fast and melodic, nostalgic, and as always with a touch of melancholia.
And for all of this you gathered a whole new band around you. Can you introduce the new members to us and were they involved in other bands prior to Badlands?
On bass we have Matthijs van Klaveren, and on drums we have Rutger Ides. Both of them also play in Hail Infinity, a progressive rockband. Besides Hail Infinity Rutger is also the drummer in the indie-rockband Beatnik Fandango. Moreover, he is an excellent sound engineer, responsible for recording and mixing the “World of Pain” EP and also the upcoming mini-album “Alexandrian Age”. Our second guitarplayer is Christian Stöbe, the guitarist and leadsinger of the German Oi! band Martens Army. He really brings the right energy to Badlands with his strong musical vision and powerful style of guitar playing.
On the upcoming EP is the track ‘Open Road’ which has been released on YouTube last month and is also on the ‘Oi! Made In Holland volume 2’ sampler. I – LOVE – IT! You must have been overwhelmed with positive reactions?
We’ve received a lot of good reactions from a lot of different people, all of them with different musical tastes and backgrounds. I’m glad we increasingly reach a broader audience with our music, not just fans of Oi!/punk but also people from the hardcore scene, metalfans or people with a more general alternative taste for music.
It’s a good development that all these so called different musical styles and scenes start to blend in with each other more and more. It’s an ecclectic multi-media age we’re living in, and the majority of the people do not want to limit themselves to one scene or genre only. Instead, they are into a lot of different genres at the same time. I think Badlands is representing this tendency. First of all our bandmenbers all have different musical backgrounds. And although we perfectly fit into the punk-rack, our music contains so many influences other then punk that it’s accessible for a wide range of people outside of the Oi!/punk realm.
One of the comments I read online is that the song had a ‘Bad Religion vibe’ and although ‘Open Road’ sounds 100% Badlands, I can see where that reaction is coming from. When older Badlands albums had more like a Templars sound. It’s a long way to say the least to go from a Templars to a Bad Religion vibe haha, what’s your opinion?
Our sound has evolved in the direction of melodic punk, so I think nowadays people will start to compare us to bands like Bad Religion and Social Distortion rather than Templars or Perkele. Nonetheless, the influence of Oi! is still there, but doesn’t dominate the general sound and feel anymore as it used to do in the past. Also lyrically I don’t engage with the typical Oi!/skinheads subjects. But I think also in the beginning Badlands was hard to categorize; our music has always been a mixture of styles rather than just Oi! or punk.
Productionally we have also moved forward. That’s another reason for having a different ‘vibe’ nowadays. We’ve paid a lot of attention to the chorus-parts this time, adding more refined backing vocals and extra harmonic layers to the vocal parts. Also the music itself is more elaborate than ever. The drum parts are worked out really well, and recorded meticulously in order to achieve a much ‘bigger’ sound. When it comes to recording the guitars we also follow an entirely new procedure, recording the chord progressions with different type of guitars so the sound becomes much more open, transparant and hybrid. On top of these chord sequences we’re adding several melodic guitar lines, through which the melodic aspect of Badlands gets fully emphasized.
I’ve grown as a musician and have the privilege to work with excellent people with a professional attitude. Also the productional means are much better now. Our first album was recorded in just a few takes with the most limited equipment and with a total budget of 500 EUR. I still love that record, it has a lot of charm precisely because of the fragility and vintage, low-fi character of the sound. But today we need a much better production in order to realise the full potential of our songs.
What musical direction do you want to head with Badlands? You have amazing vocals and your (acoustic) guitar work is fantastic as well. Did you ever feel limited within the boundries of Oi! and streetpunk music?
Actually I don’t. For me punkrock is an umbrella term. A broad number of musical styles and influences can fall under this category. I listen to a wide spectrum of music, from J.S. Bach to John Coltrane. Those influences might not always be audible, but unconciously, in some undefinable and almost secretive way, I carry along those influences while I’m writing songs. On the upcoming mini-album we even go back to our old style, but within the conservative form I’ve invented some new aspects so my music continues to evolve.
Like I said earlier, the demo-recordings for the mini-LP ‘Alexandrian Age’ have just been rounded up. Can you tell us a bit more about how the recordings went and what can we expect from this 12” EP?
The recordings of the “World of Pain” EP are completely finished and ready to be released as part of the UNDER ONE FLAG 7" SERIES initiated by Pirates Press Records. This EP will also be brought out by Rebellion Records as a standard release with different artwork. Talking about “Alexandrian Age”, we’re still in the recording process, but it’s all running smooth so we expect to complete in august. One can expect 6 well produced, passion driven songs. Lyrically the songs are about history, love, and the quest for an authentic life. No acoustic tracks this time, every song is played by the whole band. We will come up with the most catchy songs we ever put out, carried by the most powerful sound to date.
Okay, I think this is it for now. If there’s anything I’d forgot or that you like to add, feel free to do so!
Thanks a lot for the interview! Please like our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/badlandsofficial
And listen and schare ‘The Open Road’.
