Gli olandesi Osewoudt rappresentano una ventata di "freschezza" in ambito neofolk e il loro debut cd lascia una traccia indelebile nella mente e nel cuore di ogni attento ascoltatore. Sono riuscito a contattare via mail Willem Witte, cordialissima mente del gruppo. di Lino Caserta
They are working on their debute album, which i am also going to mix and master and we shall see which label is interested in the production and release of their work. Furthermore It is always a pleasure to work with other bands like Art Abscons, Falkenstein, Gnomonclast and others. A. November from Hou en Trou is going to support me for my upcoming Strydwolf shows. Unfortunately, previous liveshows in Belgium and The Netherlands where cancelled for both Osewoudt and Strydwolf. There were to many complaints from people outside the music-scene, who seemingly didn't quite understand the concept of neofolk in general. There is more to the genre than WWII only. It handles almost every subject between life and death in my opinion. It is a shame that small bands like us (who are also displaying these kinds of aspects of the genre) are being denied to perform our expressions and creations as a concept and statement of art in stead of being regarded as extreme or political. It is the first time i have to endure with such sencorship in my whole artistic carreer, and it feels like a story directly from George Orwell's novel 1984. Luckely there still are some positive notices as well, such as the Villa Festival for example, where i'm both going to perform with Osewoudt and Strydwolf!
DO YOU KNOW ANY ITALIAN BANDS?
I know L'effet c'est moi and Der Feuerkreiner for example, and i met them in Augsburg(DE) at the Sunset festival, organized by SkullLine. They are very kind people and geat musicians, i like their work a lot and the performances were excellent. We had a very nice time together in Germany. I have listened to Kristian Giorgini, from the split with Karma Marata, and i also heard of a band calles Lupi Gladius and i like what i heard so far.
HOW MUCH IS IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO PLAY A LIVE SHOW? WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM PEOPLE COMING TO YOUR SHOWS AND WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO GIVE THEM?
I like to play live and i enjoy it a lot! With Osewoudt it is really nice to work together as a team and therefore we practice quite a lot, so for us it is more important to give the best we can when we play live, than the quantity of shows we give. During the show, people should do what they like. I mean; if they want to get a beer at the bar, walk around during a "boring" song or want to chat to others, please do so. Most of the time, people want to listen to the music we play anyway, but it doesn't bother me at all when people don't. What bothers me more personally are the seats people are forced into, like in a theate or church and there's no room to walk around, to stand or go to the toilet when needed. Almost needless to say, i hope people will behave. Needless to say because i have never experienced unwanted behaviour at neofolk shows and i don't expect this to happen neither. Of course i hope to give our audience a good time and a nice evening, and hope they found it worthy to come!
HELLO WILLEM, LET’S START THIS INTERVIEW TALKING ABOUT THE HISTORY AND THE DISCOGRAPHY ABOUT OSEWOUDT.
Hello Lino, Thank you for this interview!
When i met Hans at a neofolk concert, he was willing to drum for my project "Strydwolf" and we started to practice together in Rotterdam. After a few months, Rob (accordion) and Dave (percussion) came along to accomplish our live-set and we were practicing weekly at that time. We also performed a live show in this formation. Later on, Stefan (2nd guitar) joined us for additional guitar solo's and musical inspiration. At this moment, we founded Osewoudt. This new concept was developed by Hans, and we all liked the idea so we agreed. Rob and Dave started to write additional lyrics and in accompany of the lates tunes i wrote, we created our first Osewoudt songs. I still had to finish my Strydwolf album "Dunkle Wälder", and i am very thankful to Hans, Rob and Dave for their contributions on it! After this "cross-over" period between the two projects, we could fully work on new Osewoudt material and record a few songs as demo. Rob made thirteen special editions in wooden box with extra material like cards, a stamped coaster and even a DVD with the videoclip "Finsternis" on it. He also arranged everything for the video-shoot itself. This Demo-Box was send to different labels only. We got a very nice and warm reaction from Lichterklang and we got a good offer to release our music. Now we could work on new songs, concepts and ideas for our debut-album. Ward also joined our group to play basslines and we had a full line-up of six persons. With this formation we eventually recorded "Gelach van Zwart Geklede kraaien", which means as much as "Laughter of Dressed Black Crows" (In dutch expression; a black crow is a man in black clothes, which carries the coffin). It is an excerpt from "Ogen van stro", written by Rob, and we all liked this sentence so much that we choose to use it for the album-title. The recording and mixing was mostly done by myself in my little home-studio, but the mastering was done by Axel Frank, for which i am very grateful! He gave the album just that boost it needed, speaking in technical terms. After the release, unfortunately Stefan had to leave the band, as well did Ward short after it. Next to Osewoudt, we all have our sideprojects, jobs and families to support, which sometimes makes it hard to follow the tempo we have put ourselves in. Luckely, we found Jeroen willing to play the guitar-solo parts which i think are really unmissable in the live sets, and also he proved himself to be a warm welcome to explore new sounds and ideas with us. In this formation, we played in Leipzig thanks to Equinoxe Organization and Lichterklang.
WHAT DOES INSPIRE YOU TO COMPOSE MUSIC ?
It is rather an urge to create something one really likes, in what form so ever. I like music, i grew up with music and making music has always played a great role in my life. I think the urge to express my feelings is my greatest inspiration to create. On another level of course, bands, artist and other people have inspired and will inspire me all the time. Concious or unconcious, this is an ongoing process. If something makes me sad, i cannot make happy music and visa versa. To me, music is my mirror.
ABOUT BANDS, LIVE SHOWS, LABELS.
As told, Osewoudt and Strydwolf are my main projects. With Strydwolf, i release my albums at SkullLine and with Osewoudt, we have Lichterklang as our main base. I am very happy with both labels, and they both have their own specialities to support our music. Next to that i am recording Hou en Trou, a band from The Hague, my hometown.
I KNOW YOU ARE INVOLVED IN OTHER MUSICAL PROJECT, COULD YOU TELL US WICH ARE THE OTHERS ?
I've told about Hou en Trou and the collaborations with other bands. There are some other projects i'm also working on, which i prefer not to mention. (Those who know, know!).
A MESSAGE TO ALL YOUR ITALIAN FANS AND THANK YOU
Thank you very much for your support and listening to our music! Without our fans, this could never have been made possible. I am looking forward to visit Italy very much on the Villa festival, starting April 26th, and i hope to see some of you there!
Thanks for your interest.
ARE YOU WRITING SOME NEW MUSIC? GIVE US SOME NEWSES.
I'm always working on new material, mostly during weekends, in the evenings and holidays. At this moment, most of the material is being used for Strydwolf. Some of the material will be used for Osewoudt as well, but we are more and more starting to make music as a group together, where everyone comes with his own input and ideas which we try to blend into the typical "Osewoudt sound". My role in Osewoudt has changed more into additional bandmember where i can input and blend my ideas with the ideas of others, and is to record and mix new songs after those concepts are realized. One thing i can say about that is that in the future, all Osewoudt Lyrics are going to be written by ourselves. I think the outcome of the song "Aan lager wal" (recorded for the Heathen Harvest Walpurgisnacht sampler) is a representative example of the way we work on new material. In this case, Rob created the lyrics and accordion and Jeroen arranged the guitar chords. Vocals and percussion are from Dave, Hans accompanied the score with drums and i play a tune on second guitar i came up with. In this way, we all are contributing to one song. "Aan lager wal" is on youtube, for those interested. Recently, i've posted some new songs for Strydwolf on youtube as well; "Wonne der Sturmnacht"(demo), "Noch stehen nur die Eichen", "Überal" and "Lebenslauf" (released on the SkullLine sampler "Eichenlaub").