Post by Steve on Apr 25, 2009 5:22:32 GMT 1
I had a Dutch friend look at the biography by Jean-Paul Heck that appears at the official website and translate it into English.
These are just some of the days of your life. An album goes by, you slide it in your CD-player and BANG! About 50 minutes later a loud smack brings you back into reality. Chances are high that such a extraordinary “Aha-feeling” hits you with Bertolf’s debut that did not get its name For Life for nothing. There is no measure that can be used for the 12 songs that Bertolf wrote alone or with famous partners. De man from Dronten that goes through life knowing that his first shrieks were on the day that John Lennon got killed in New York. That’s just a fact which gets a real meaning when you dive into the musical history that’s behind the man who created For Lofe. He himself explains it: ‘I Write my first songs at age 14. The obsession for the Beatles was very fresh but already huge, especially with Paul McCartney’s work. Songs as A Day In The Life and Martha My Dear inspired me hugely.’ But there was more, much more! His father taught the young Bertolf at the age of 6 the evergreen All I Have To Do Is Dream by the Everly Brothers. After that there was attention for his ‘Americana’ love, amongst others made by The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers but real bluegrass as well. ‘I grew up in between the banjo’s and mandolin’s, the colors and sounds of roots-instruments have nested themselves in my genes at a young age.’
After that came the music lessons at high school in Kampen. ‘There I found the Beatles album Rubber Soul. It opened a whole new world.’ Even though the scene in Kampen was quite small, Bertolf dived right in. He played in a cover band, they played a good version of Radiohead’s Paranoid Android and in the end he got on the school of music in Zwolle. In between he got composition lessons of fellow Drontenaar (inhabitant of Dronten) Paul de Munnik. ‘I felt like a rebel there since instead of walking around in a Toto T-shirt, I was wearing shirts with prints of Supergrass and Kula Shaker. That was my way of rebelling the controlling idea that at the school of music it is all about playing wonderfully.’
But he found supporters and with them Bertolf founded the band The Junes with whom he first won the AMP Battle of the Bands in the Amsterdam Melkweg and later they won the John Lennon Amnesty International Contest by Radio 3FM. ‘That attention lead to the opportunity to write 4 songs for a movie made inspired on the book by Carry Slee Afblijven.’ The spell was broken but Bertolf’s hunger wasn’t over. ‘I am a man that first and mostly is interested in the song. How that shows? For example, I know all the songs by trumpeter Chet Baker, but just his vocal songs.’ In the end he chose, like many talented singer/songwriters before him, for an own career that lead to this debut.
For Life became a wonderful album on which it’s not always happiness that rules. ‘I can’t stand too much blossoming and it should not be overdone.’ That’s all his debut is not. Bertolf recorded the album in the studio of producer Guido Aalbers (he mixed songs from, amongst others, Coldplay, Live and Muse) and the famous ICP Studio’s (Bløf, De Dijk) in Brussels. There he played almost all of the instruments by himself. ‘I love an old sound and that’s why I’ve used items like a Hofner-bassguitar and Vox-amplifiers. But on the album I also play the lap steel and mandolin.’
Variety writer Bertolf wrote 40 songs which he recorded at home for the album recording process. ‘I limped between two thoughts. There are songs that melancholic bend toward pop music and others you can really call Beatles songs. In the end the emphasis goes towards the first category.’ Luckily that doesn’t mean that all the Beatles influence is gone. Take the song The Way I Love You Now. Paul McCartney would have loved to place this composition on one of his latest albums. But Another Day has quite a different sound. A master piece that could make Coldplay’s Chris martin quite jealous. Another special track is the intense Feel You where the spirit of Thom Yorke wanders around. Sometimes the gesture on For Life huge, dramatic even. The rhythms are often stirred up and the instrumental parts succeeded perfectly. For Life never collapses, partly because of Bertolf’s glowing and variable vocals. One time he surprises you with his forced head voice (Monogamy (Is On It’s Way Out) while a bit further in the light-heartedly Mr. Light or the to Damien Rice inclining Don’t Wanna Lose You Yet he surprises you with not only his vocals as well as his instrumental parts. In short: this early in 2009 is the greatest Dutch pop sensation a fact. Really? Really! The 47 minutes and 49 seconds on For Life are living proof.
Jean-Paul Heck, December 2008
Thanks to Cynthia!
These are just some of the days of your life. An album goes by, you slide it in your CD-player and BANG! About 50 minutes later a loud smack brings you back into reality. Chances are high that such a extraordinary “Aha-feeling” hits you with Bertolf’s debut that did not get its name For Life for nothing. There is no measure that can be used for the 12 songs that Bertolf wrote alone or with famous partners. De man from Dronten that goes through life knowing that his first shrieks were on the day that John Lennon got killed in New York. That’s just a fact which gets a real meaning when you dive into the musical history that’s behind the man who created For Lofe. He himself explains it: ‘I Write my first songs at age 14. The obsession for the Beatles was very fresh but already huge, especially with Paul McCartney’s work. Songs as A Day In The Life and Martha My Dear inspired me hugely.’ But there was more, much more! His father taught the young Bertolf at the age of 6 the evergreen All I Have To Do Is Dream by the Everly Brothers. After that there was attention for his ‘Americana’ love, amongst others made by The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers but real bluegrass as well. ‘I grew up in between the banjo’s and mandolin’s, the colors and sounds of roots-instruments have nested themselves in my genes at a young age.’
After that came the music lessons at high school in Kampen. ‘There I found the Beatles album Rubber Soul. It opened a whole new world.’ Even though the scene in Kampen was quite small, Bertolf dived right in. He played in a cover band, they played a good version of Radiohead’s Paranoid Android and in the end he got on the school of music in Zwolle. In between he got composition lessons of fellow Drontenaar (inhabitant of Dronten) Paul de Munnik. ‘I felt like a rebel there since instead of walking around in a Toto T-shirt, I was wearing shirts with prints of Supergrass and Kula Shaker. That was my way of rebelling the controlling idea that at the school of music it is all about playing wonderfully.’
But he found supporters and with them Bertolf founded the band The Junes with whom he first won the AMP Battle of the Bands in the Amsterdam Melkweg and later they won the John Lennon Amnesty International Contest by Radio 3FM. ‘That attention lead to the opportunity to write 4 songs for a movie made inspired on the book by Carry Slee Afblijven.’ The spell was broken but Bertolf’s hunger wasn’t over. ‘I am a man that first and mostly is interested in the song. How that shows? For example, I know all the songs by trumpeter Chet Baker, but just his vocal songs.’ In the end he chose, like many talented singer/songwriters before him, for an own career that lead to this debut.
For Life became a wonderful album on which it’s not always happiness that rules. ‘I can’t stand too much blossoming and it should not be overdone.’ That’s all his debut is not. Bertolf recorded the album in the studio of producer Guido Aalbers (he mixed songs from, amongst others, Coldplay, Live and Muse) and the famous ICP Studio’s (Bløf, De Dijk) in Brussels. There he played almost all of the instruments by himself. ‘I love an old sound and that’s why I’ve used items like a Hofner-bassguitar and Vox-amplifiers. But on the album I also play the lap steel and mandolin.’
Variety writer Bertolf wrote 40 songs which he recorded at home for the album recording process. ‘I limped between two thoughts. There are songs that melancholic bend toward pop music and others you can really call Beatles songs. In the end the emphasis goes towards the first category.’ Luckily that doesn’t mean that all the Beatles influence is gone. Take the song The Way I Love You Now. Paul McCartney would have loved to place this composition on one of his latest albums. But Another Day has quite a different sound. A master piece that could make Coldplay’s Chris martin quite jealous. Another special track is the intense Feel You where the spirit of Thom Yorke wanders around. Sometimes the gesture on For Life huge, dramatic even. The rhythms are often stirred up and the instrumental parts succeeded perfectly. For Life never collapses, partly because of Bertolf’s glowing and variable vocals. One time he surprises you with his forced head voice (Monogamy (Is On It’s Way Out) while a bit further in the light-heartedly Mr. Light or the to Damien Rice inclining Don’t Wanna Lose You Yet he surprises you with not only his vocals as well as his instrumental parts. In short: this early in 2009 is the greatest Dutch pop sensation a fact. Really? Really! The 47 minutes and 49 seconds on For Life are living proof.
Jean-Paul Heck, December 2008
Thanks to Cynthia!
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