Onze laatste liverecensie.
Onze laatste albumrecensie.
Ons laatste interview.
Onze laatste video.
OK, is Tom Doing Great?
"Tom is doing great right now. The album reviews were great, the concerts are the way I want
them to be. I'm playing solo again, like I did four years ago. And the songwriting - the new songs
for the next album - is really going very well, so I'm not complaining so far."
Critics have compared you with Buffalo Tom. It's so obvious: You play a guitar, you focus on
the lyrics... People immediately think of the obvious comparisons like Counting Crows. Does that
bother you?
"Not if they say those things about my first album, because I also hear a lot of Buffalo Tom
in those songs. But my second album doesn't sound at all like Buffalo Tom. Maybe the song '8 AM'
is a little bit Counting Crows. But as far as I'm concerned, that's about it."
What are the influences critcs fail to notice?
"I really like the band dEUS a lot, and I'm really influenced by them. They have great
melodies, and that's what matters the most. At least in my music that is..."
I read you only started playing music late in life. When did you first feel the urge to write
music?
"When I was 17, two friends were looking for a singer to sing their songs. I wasn't writing
at that time, but a few weeks later I started writing my own songs. It all happened very naturally,
and I haven't stopped since."
You took part in the Belgian Rock Rally contest. How was the experience, knowing bands like
Red Zebra, dEUS, and Noordkaap preceded you?
"I knew it was a very big and important contest, but I focused on my performance, and I
didn't think about those things. When I came in second, I realised that this could be the
beginning of something much bigger, because there was a lot of media attention, and all the record
companies were there as well. The Rock Rally was and still is a good start for a lot of bands."
Novastar, who won that year's contest, collaborated on your last record. How did Joost help you?
"He produced three songs. He taught me how to use my voice in a different way, how to give my
songs a better structure, and how to bring out the best in my melodies. I always had good
melodies, but I could really screw them up, so that won't happen in the future."
When I compare your two records, what I notice most is how the lyrics seem to be edited more.
The early songs seem to have too many words. What are the progressions you have made? Or maybe you
have regressed... Just kidding!
"Everyone who makes albums will learn new things. It's the experience in a studio that opens
your eyes, and the mistakes you make on the first, you won't make them on the next... But the
answer to your question is also the previous answer."
Some of the lyrics come across as a joke. For example: "I believe in this, believe in ordinary
sideburns, baby." Or is that meant to be taken seriously?
"That song is about people who say stupid things to people who are successful in what they do,
because they envy them. One of those people who told me something really stupid had long sideburns,
and that's were I got the idea. "Ordinary sideburns" is a collective name for all of those people
all over the world. Not that original, I know."
Then again, a lot of the songs seem to focus on lost love, which is what a lot of pop
musicians tend to do. Are your songs autobiographical?
"Like I said, 'Slowly' is an example of that, and I wrote 'Supermodel' for a friend of mine
who once opened a Raf Simons fashion show in Paris. But the rest of the songs are just silly
stories I invented, and they are seldom about love."
English isn't your first language. Does that make it harder to write the songs? Or maybe easier?
"All of my favourite bands sing in English, and I personally think it sounds much better. In the
future, I would like to play all over Europe, so it would be difficult in my own language. It's
easier for me to express myself in English, but the writing is very difficult. I still make a lot
of mistakes."
I remember seeing you a few years ago performing alone. Now you're with a band. Why did you
decide to add more musicians?
"The first year and a half after the Rock Rally I played solo, but I got tired of it, so in
'97 I looked for some musicians and formed a band. With them I recorded my first album, which was
released in '98. I also recorded my second album with them but played the concerts with other
musicians, but they were not the right ones for me, so since January 2001 I went solo again."
When you play concerts, you've said that you basically lose all perspective around you and are
intensely focussed. How does that translate live? Are you able to perform this sort of material
easily?
"Oh yeah. Unless I'm playing badly, and that's usually because there's something to think about:
Some equipment's fucking up..."
Does it make it easier to perform live?
"I think it's much easier to play solo, because i've got everything under control when I'm
alone. With a band it's different: There are three more people who can make mistakes."
The video clip seems to have been a lot of fun to make. Was it taped in your local pub?
"No, it was in a pub in the Walloons, just across the language border. It's a pub for older
people, and it closes every night at seven."
Who came up with the idea to film in a pub?
"It was my idea."
Speaking of pubs: What's your favourite beer?
"Jupiler, men know why."
http://www.kindamuzik.net/interview/tom-helsen/tom-helsen/413/
Meer Tom Helsen op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/tom-helsen
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