Hello, how are you? Could you begin by introducing yourself: name, age, hobbies, job, the basic first question.
Haha great, feels like the first day at school, introducing each other. Well, I’m Pim and 23 years old. I work at a web development company where I do design and programming. I’m in the last year of my education as well, I switched from full time classes to 1 day in the week and the rest of the time I work / free-lance. As for hobbies, the time I do have free aside from this are usually spend doing something hardcore or job related ;) Or reading, fanzines, books, newspaper, anything with words in it will do. Educate yourself.
How did you get in contact with hardcore and punk music? I heard that all began because of Nirvana, am I right? (Yes, I’m like you and love that kind of story)
Haha, great you did some research! Well my love for alternative music started with Nirvana for sure. For some years in my youth it was the only band I listened to. I loved it. It was heavy but still melodic. I don’t care what people say about them, talk as much shit as you want. I love that band, and they have been so influential to a lot of kids.
A bit later I got in touch with hardcore / punk. Not a direct link with Nirvana though, it’s not that I discovered it through their namedropping or covers or something. No Turning Back was the band that drew me in (a long time ago, back when they still played metalcore / beatdown stuff). The energy, the honesty, no barriers between band and crowd. The D.I.Y. aspect. That got me hooked.
You sing in the band Said and Done, so could you introduce the band, a short history for those who don’t know you, where everything began, you first song, your first cover song (I’m pretty sure it was a Nirvana’s cover!)
Of course, Said And Done started in 2006. It’s more or less an evolution from the first time Joost (our drummer who’s now in Taiwan) and I started jamming back in ’99. Throughout the years people came and went, names were dropped and claimed, the sound changed and it all came together in what we now call Said And Done. Said And Done at the moment is Remco on guitar, Stef on guitar, Joep on bass and Henri on drums. Our original drummer is away for half a year in Taiwan. He’ll be back in January / February. We’re siked Henri was willing to step in for the time being. Awesome dude. Anyway, aside from them I’m the one holding the microphone and writing the lyrics.
The first things we did back in ’99 were actually doing our own songs. I wrote some stuff and I was excited to play them with a drummer (although he could hardly drum at the time, not that I was any better…). I played the guitar and sung back then. The first song we covered was a Nirvana song for sure. I think it was “Floyd The Barber” from “Bleach”. Pretty easy song. But soon after that a lot of them followed, we couldn’t help it. The first cover we did with Said And Done was “Hard Times” by the Cro Mags. We also did “No Remorse” by Crown Of Thornz, “Down By Law” by Madball, “Life Is Pain” by Merauder, “Devilangel” by True Blue and at the moment we’re throwing around “Life Of My Own” by the Cro Mags and “Foot the Bill” by Leeway during rehearsals. Good times.
I know that there were a lot of names for S&D so what could have been the name of the band instead of Said and Done?
Pfff, we had a huge list indeed. I don’t know what was on it exactly anymore. I remember “Sink Or Swim” being on it, recently a vegan band from Germany claimed that name. Cool people by the way. “Give And Take” was the one that was close to being picked. In the end we went with “Said And Done” though. Other names fell through because they were already used. Like Said And Done we found out later…. Oh well, we’re part of the hardcore tradition of recycling names now.
You played guitar when then band began, am I right? Why did you change for the vocals, could you imagine you playing guitar in Said and Done instead of singing now?
Yeah, totally in the beginning (before we were called Said And Done) there was a period I played the guitar and did the singing. But when the music evolved I decided it was time for me to switch to singing, because I couldn’t focus on both properly. So nowadays I keep the guitar playing to myself although I did a short lived oldschool project called “Those Days” some time ago. We still have plans to revisit that some day, when we have the time. At the moment I couldn’t imagine playing the guitar in Said And Done instead of singing, it would sound totally different. I can imagine myself playing guitar in a band after this though. For sure.
In the song “No Balance”, you deal with the gap between poor and rich, and the fact that we have to wake up, but what can we do? What are the best things to do in your opinion?
It’s about the gap between rich and poor as well, but it’s more about the balance in general. It’s lost. We live in a world of extremes you know. What we can do? The first thing is opening our eyes for it I guess, being aware of it. I don’t know if we can turn the tide, I’m pretty pessimistic about that actually. But we have to keep hope I guess. PMA!
The things to do are mostly small things. Help out charities. Be it with giving money, collecting, or donating clothes or something you know. All kinds of options. How about benefit shows for charities, you don’t see them that often anymore?
At my work we’re developing a website at the moment called unitedthoughts.org. It’s about making sure the money you give is going to the destination you want you know. So it doesn’t get lost somewhere along the line. You vote for a charity and if a charity gets enough votes the money is going there. We’re trying to give people more control you know, to bring them close to the projects.
Could you tell me who must feel concerned about “Empty soul”?
It’s more or less the sum of a couple of peoples. It’s about politicians playing with words, twisting around the subject. It’s even about people who I like to call friends, breaking their promises. I absolutely hate it, I always try to keep my word. I can’t stand it when others don’t. But you know how it is. Time heals wounds they say, it’s not true all the time, but with stuff like this it is. Until the line is crossed for the final time. You can’t keep forgiving, you don’t keep forgetting. Once it’s enough, it’s enough.
Could you explain me the artwork of the LP “Everyday”, we can see different characters from the churchman to the cop, is it reflecting the life in the Netherlands? Is this representing a feeling of oppression and how they want to control you? (Like in the song “controlled”)
That’s exactly what it should reflect. The hippie was an idea of the guy who did the drawing, Nabbe the Bastard, by the way. We didn’t came up with that one. The rest is what you described. The guy on the left in the back stands for corrupt governments, who only care about the money. The church, the pigs… The terrorists stand more for the fear that the government instills about them than the actual terrorists. But you can take it both ways if you want to. The guy in the middle is you, me, whatever. Slowly turning insane.
Why did you decide to totally change the artwork for the new 7” and put only pictures of landscapes, are all of these places means something special to you?
Didn’t you read the inside Simon haha? Shame on you! Haha no. It’s pretty simple, all those pictures are from our trip to Spain in February of 2007. Right after we released “Everyday”. Those pictures, the title and the song “Into The Distance” reference to that time. So yeah they’re special to us.
We decided to switch from the drawings because we wanted to do something different. It also was easier for me to do the designs since I had all the source material I needed and wouldn’t have to wait on a drawing or anything (not saying that we had to wait long on Nabbe or anything!). We’re pretty glad with the result.
You seem to come from a little city, do you have a records/music stores there to get good stuffs, places to rehearse, how did you spend your time?
City? We come from a small town. Different small towns actually, all pretty close to each other. There are no good record or music stores around here, we have to go to the city for that but then there aren’t any amazing places either. Thank god for the internet, where you can order whatever you need if you search well enough. It’s still a search, just a bit easier.
As for a rehearsal room, we rehearse at my parents place. It’s right behind our house. My dad has a company where he needs to have a big storage room etc. In that building we build our rehearsal room into a corner (because of a neighbor who complained about the noise). So now we can rehearse whenever we want. It isn’t the best space sound wise, but aside from that it’s amazing. We’re really lucky with it.
We rehearse two days every week (when possible), and that’s the only time we see each other most of the time. Aside from shows that is. We all have our own separate lives. School, jobs, sports, you know how it is.
You guys seem to love “Only living witness”, tell me how awesome is that band for you? Can you introduce this band to our readers please?
Hahaha, great question. Yeah, I love Only Living Witness. I think all of us in this band do. That groove, that voice. It’s up there with the best bands ever, for me that is. I interviewed Jonah for Some Will Never Know (and Asice.net) and he was really nice about at all, great guy.
Some weeks ago, Only Living Witness reunited in the USA and Koos Loudnoise tried to bring em over to the Netherlands for a final show as well. And he succeeded. They played at this big metal festival in Eindhoven. Not the best setting ever, but still, we had the chance to see them live. It was amazing. It was such a blast to hear those songs performed live. Never thought that would happen, since they made it pretty clear a reunion was out of the question. Luckily things changed.
As for an introduction to everyone else, just check www.myspace.com/olw. Listen to Prone Mortal Form and if you’re not banging your head right away, you can forget about it. You just don’t understand haha.
You just completed a European tour, what are your best memories of this adventure?
You wanna hear me say the show in Rennes right? Hahaha, ok, here you go. “The show in Rennes was the best memory of that trip”. It’s true though. We had a blast! I need to mention the show in Santona (Spain) as well. It’s just amazing that people from other countries can sing along to songs we have written in our small rehearsal room you know. It’s pretty unreal. Aside from that it was just the time together, the off days checking out the cities. Just having the time of our lives, meeting new people. Amazing times.
You guys spent a day off in Paris, what do you remember of the French capital and what did you visit?
That day was really cool. “Oh we have a day off, let’s check out Paris” hahaha. Now that I’m saying it out loud I notice how cool it actually is. You don’t really understand that when it’s happening you know. We’re spoiled hehe.
As for that day. We parked our car near Ben’s place. Shout out to Ben by the way, dude’s amazing. He was supposed to do a show for us originally, but that fell through because of the venue. When I approached him for a sleeping place, he opened up his house for us without any questions. Amazing. We owe the dude. He even was sick at the day itself but was so friendly. Really cool. Thanks dude!
Anyway, we took the metro and started exploring the city. First we went to the Champs Elysees. All those people, cool to see. After that we went to the Arc de Triumph where some of us took the stairs up. Quite a climb, amazing view though. In the end we visited the Eiffel tower, but when we saw the lines of people we decided to just chill in the grass. That’s when we decided to get in touch with Ben and we went to his place. There we enjoyed some beers (No worries, Ben is still edge) and a nice pizza before we went to bed.
It’s a great city. We behaved like proper tourists haha.
I read on your tour report that you appreciated the show in Rennes (and we loved it too), and you wrote that “all of the rumors about French scene are wrongs”, but what are these rumors?
People say that there aren’t any many good French bands you know. Such a big country and not many good hardcore bands. People talking though, always amazing. I’m not talking about Kickback by the way, not my kinda thing. You guys proved the rumors wrong, at least that’s how I think about it. I loved it.
You never heard about that though? Because other people I talked to from French seemed to agree about it.
You just put out a zine, which really impressed me. It’s quite personal (sometimes maybe too much), but it is really well done, questions are really far away from what we can read in a random hardcore zine! In the previous interviews that I read of you, you asked people to begin paper zines, why paper zines? The internet and all the blogs’ stuff are so easier and useful!
Thanks dude! You thought it was too personal sometimes? Which parts? Because I think if people didn’t want to talk about some stuff I always said they could refuse to answer or something. I think it’s interesting to talk about personal stuff etc, more than the usual standard questions you know. That was the whole intention of the zine.
Why paper zines? They have more soul than paper zines, it’s more work to do them, so if people take the time to do them, it… I don’t know. It just feels better. Aside from that I can’t sit down on the toilet, or lay down in bed and read an e-zine. Wait, actually that’s untrue. I can read them on my iPhone haha. It’s just not the same though. I totally agree that for making them the internet is a lot easier. But that’s the same discussion with vinyl and CD’s. I still prefer vinyl though. It’s good that some stuff takes some effort for people.
How do you choose the people you interview, is this only friend? Because you seems to know all of them personally.
No not at all. I didn’t knew Jonah Jenkins at all. And with Patrick Kitzel, Andrew Westerhouse and Sean Riley I only exchanged some emails or messages now and then. And most of the other people I don’t know THAT well either. So no I can’t say I picked them based upon that.
I just picked people that I thought would be able to come up with interesting stories, you know, people who have something to say. For some of the people I had to do some research, for others I knew some background info so that was easier. The intention was to do personal interviews, so that’s how they come across, as personal conversations.
Why didn’t you put reviews in your zine? That’s the first thing I read in a zine, i like to know how people feel about a record, what is their favorite song and why..
Hahaha, I guess we’re exact opposites then. I don’t read reviews that often, because they’re not really interesting to me. Good, original reviews, with a twist or something are always great to read by the way, so there are exceptions to this. But those reviews that simply state the bio. All those zines with pages and pages of reviews. I don’t know, I can’t be bothered with it.
Aside from that the zine took me a long time, so reviews would be outdated right away. I write reviews now and then for asice.net, so check that site for reviews. I actually wanted to insert a page about this in the zine, to explain it, but I left it out at the last minute. Maybe I should include one in the next issue. I pretty much hate to review stuff too. I’m just not good at it. So I guess that helps haha.
Now I’m talking about this, I kinda have to come back about it a bit. I do love to read the reviews in old zines. To see how they thought about releases back then. Especially with releases we now consider classics you know.
In Some will never know, you‘ve made a “how to...” guide with advices of other scenesters, what are your advices to people who want to do a good zine?
First of all. Don’t put it off, just do it. For real, it’s going to cost time and money, but it’s totally worth it in the end.
Secondly, don’t do “here are 10 questions, please answer them” questions. Send return questions on the answers you get. The best things are face to face interviews, but I didn’t do those for Some Will Never Know either. Those are all email interviews. Do some research, on the other hand starting off blank can be cool too.
Pick people who have something to say. Nah that’s not totally true, everyone has a story, everyone has interesting stuff to say. Just make sure you get that info out of them. If people reply with standard one sentence answers, don’t publish the interview. Nobody cares and if someone isn’t willing to give decent answers they’re sure not worth the free publicity you’re giving them.
I don’t know, just try to put some effort in it. As long as it’s done with heart it’s okay by me.
Oh and for all you Frenchies, translate it into English ;) Sorry Simon!
You’re also involved in the label “Pressure Release Records”, with the guy of Light the Fuse, you are only focused on tapes. Why don’t you put out CDs, people have less and less tape player, so what’s the point on releasing only tapes?
Yeah I started that with Rob some time ago. It’s more or less dead in the water at the moment, we’re not doing much with it. But the new 3 song promo tape of Said And Done will be on Pressure Release again. PRR08.
Why tapes? Because tapes are great. Why vinyl? Because vinyl is great. Demos and promos etc are cool on tape, other releases should be on vinyl.
I just don’t give a shit about CD’s. They’re just all over the place, getting scratched etc. You know the deal. With vinyl you have to be careful with it, take care of it.
If you want to promote your releases, it’s time! Sell your products man!
Aaah that shit sucks, I’m horrible at it. If you think anything you just read was meaningful, or do like a mix between Cro Mags, Leeway, Only Living Witness or something, feel free to check out our band. Places to remember are www.saidanddone.org and www.myspace.com/saidanddonehardcore. Say hi, leave us a message. Communication is the key.
Here is the “say what you want” space, so this space is yours!
I have nothing to add, I just want to thank you for the opportunity you gave me to speak out. Thanks a lot. I’m looking forward to the result, even if I can’t read it haha. La France c’est tres bien et au revoir! Something like that ;) Shout outs to Money Time and Golden District. Good luck with your zine man, hope to meet you guys again soon!
