Interview With 'Before The Drop'

Firstly, introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about the band and how you came to be? It all started with just a two week surge of chai latte overdose induced inspiration from our guitar player Maarten, from which basically the fundamentals of a whole album sprung.. Maarten contacted Twan (drums) and myself (Rob, guitar/vocals) to play bass. Initially more vibed as a instrumental project, we all soon decided the music asked for female vocals, which became Marlouk (keys/vocals) who brought some sweet vocal lines to the table. When I started singing along, I switched from bass to guitar allowing me to focus more on singing. What were you all up too prior to the band, was this always the chosen path or did you have other dreams and aspirations? We’ve all been playing in bands as long as we can remember, and for most of us, these bands worked out pretty well.. We’ve collectively played all the A-list venues in the Netherlands and some abroad. Also we’ve played at some sweet festivals in the Netherlands (e.g. Pinkpop, Lowlands) and again, abroad. With this band we plan to do it as a group, as we feel we have something special in our hands here.. Aside the obvious goal of world domination with this band, Twan aspires to be a professional curling player and Marlouk holds the world record for not eating gingerbread on Wednesday. Tell us about your latest EP and why our readers should check it out. The EP is a Post-Indie piece played by musicians with a background in more heavy music. You can feel the tension to play the shit out of these songs, while they require us to play controlled. It rings through in the music. The double vocals in it give an extra depth, adding to that tension. Have you ever come face to face with someone within the music scene who has left you awestruck and why? Aside from a flirt with Juliette Lewis (and the Licks) on which I reacted in a very cool, totally not star struck way with an open mouth and a ‘HHRRLLMM’ like sound, basically all musicians are also just people, working hard on and off stage. The stage thing is supposed to give the awestruck-vibe, and I can safely say I’ve met several musicians from all kinds of genres and level of professionality who blew me away. A special note on the guys from Woven hand, who manage to give an intensity and depth to their performance every time I saw them side-stage. If we were to head out to one of your live shows what can ourselves and others expect? You’ll hear a solid band, who knows what she wants and uses everything it can to drag you along during the ride of the set. We’re real, but know how a show should be set up. I would love to tell you more but than I’ll have to kill you. Just come and see for yourself. If you had one artist/band that you could go on tour with tomorrow who would it be and why? Always a tough one.. Stylewise we could go for Snow Patrol or those kind of bands, but in the origins the songs sprung from listening to both Mogwai and Faith No More for example.. Ok I’m just gonna go with Pearl Jam then, mainly because it would be epic AND annoy the shit out of a lot of girls I dated in high school.. You can spend an hour with a musical icon living or dead, who would you pick, why and what would you speak about? Well now that me mentioned them, I would love to pick Mike Pattons’ brain for an hour. The dude is so diverse in both vocal and songwriting, I wonder where that all comes from. And finally and most importantly is Die Hard a Christmas Movie? Man, of course it isn’t! Die Hard is definitely not a Christmas movie. It's THE Christmas movie \m/