LEFT is a Rock trio from Eindhoven in Holland composed by Ruud van Deventer (Vocals / Guitar), Bart van Oeffelen (Bass / Vocals) & Justi Schouten (Drums). They released singles like “Better Off”, “It’s The Incredible Greyman”. In 2009, they composed “The Quest For Fire” who has given them lot of success on Radio and in many other ways. In 2010, LEFT made a duet with Funkerman on the single “Speed Up Once More”. This mixing of these two styles, the Rock with a D.J gives them a new experience in their career.
They released two singles in 2012 “Notice Me” & “All Or Nothing” with Martijn Spierenburg from the Dutch Band Within Temptation as Producer & Music. In 2014 LEFT released their second album studio “Any Other Way”. The first single extract of it is “Garrulous” & the second single is “Just Come Home”. This album of 12 tracks was recorded in only three days with a tape recorder and a drum-tight ! LEFT is currently on tour all over the Netherlands & was selected for Popronde 2014 ! We talked with the singer Ruud van Deventer.
How did you know the rest of the Band, was it during your childhood ?
No, not really. We met each other in a place where young people can meet. Like a pub without alcohol you know, it’s just a meeting point for young people who want to playing music & there, we met & we started at first a cover Band with just Rock cover songs. After few years, we started to make our own songs and it became LEFT.
Which Rock bands did you covered ?
It was all kinds of bands because we had two girls as singers at the time. So, I wasn’t singer and we did things like Guano Apes, but also things like Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Limp Bizkit and more. All kinds of Rock 90’s Rock songs and then the two girls as singers left us & then we started to make our own songs with three of us. That’s about 10 years ago.
So, you released “Better Off” in 2009 & “It’s the Incredible Greyman” in 2010
Yeah, “Better Off” was our first single & “It’s the Incredible Greyman” was our second single from our first album “The Quest For Fire”. Before the release of this album we have made some Demos & EP’s but they weren’t publicly released. Just for getting shows.
How was the reaction of the public ?
It was very good. We just made the album ourselves. We got interesting responses also from Record Labels & Managements & we have got ourselves a Record Label, a Booker, a Management, a Publisher & then we started to be played on airplay on Radio and TV. We had two video-clips on MTV & our singles “Better Off” and “It’s the Incredible Greyman” were play at the national radio a lot. We had a lot of shows and our name became noticed in the Netherlands. So, the album was very well accepted by the public & then, now two months ago we made our second album & we hope to play as much as the first album.
You have made a featuring with Funkerman on his single “Speed Up Once More”, was it a great collaboration ?
Lot of artists want to do project with us, also few DJ’s. Funkerman is a known DJ, he travels all over the world to do shows & he contacted us. We wanted to make tracks with him. So, there was like an experiment, you know, we didn’t know what it’s gonna be, so what we thought was like an interesting experiment. So we made a track with him. It was very nice. Just one single but, we were in a very big studio and we also worked with a DJ, Brennan Heart, it’s a House star DJ. We also traveled all over the world for playing, it was very nice to step into another scene, you know, the DJ scene is very different from a Rock scene. We also played in that biggest Festival in the Netherlands, yeah, like 60,000 people dancing onto your music. That was really another experience for ourselves. It was really nice to do this kind of thing but we just wanna to get back to ourselves. After “The Quest of Fire” we have a quiet long period of experiment and do singles with different people, different producers, we just wanna to come to ourselves again, you know, just three guys making music they like and not so much all these singles and experiments anymore.
In 2012, you have released two singles “Notice Me” and “All or Nothing”. We can see your collaboration with Martijn Spierenburg on it. How was it ?
When we went to writing our second album, our management had the idea to do some co-writing sessions. I used to write all my songs myself with band but the management said maybe it’s Okay if you write with some different people, just to see what happens. So we just introduced, we did a writing session together & we were really connected. It’s a very cool guy and a very musical, talented, gifted guy. And so, we start to sing each other. Weekly, we writing songs together and he also offered to produce a few singles with us “All or Nothing” & “Notice Me” goes to singles produce and goes really radio singles so it wasn’t really songs for an album or something like that but just radio singles to get our name again in public media you know. So that was a very much purpose to singles for radio airplay, so they aren’t really Rock songs because if you make loud Rock music, it’s difficult to get in on radio. Sometimes we have to compromise a little bit.
How is your relation with your fans ?
We have fans all over the world. We have people who buy our last album on our website from Australia, Mexico… that’s really cool for us because before we worked with Martijn, we were only known in the Netherlands & thanks to his popularity & the support that he gave us, the Within Temptation fans discovered us. We really want to make a Tour in other countries like Martijn. I would like to go on Tour with Within Temptation & Martijn but that’s difficult (*laugh*)
Is it difficult to organize a Tour in other countries ?
Yeah, it’s really difficult to cross borders. Our booker has connections here but we don’t have connections in France or Germany. We played a few times in Germany but… Yeah, I would really like to play in France or in Germany a lot more. The booker hasn’t find the good place or the good festival, it’s difficult.
What can you tell me about your video-clips ?
Well, we shot twelve video-clips in one day. So we made video-clips for all the songs of the album. We just played the songs in a cool film studio. It’s not really singles, it’s just clips, you know, not radio singles or anything like that. But every months, we’re going to release one clip from the album. In about a year, there will be twelve clips for every song from the album. That’s the idea. So every months, a new song. The guy who shoots the video-clips is a producer, director also became a good friend after that. He shooted “Notice Me”, we worked almost a year on it, now I want to do 12 video-clips just in one day. He thought that it was an interesting idea. He said “Yeah, Yeah! Great!” so, it was just very quick but just catching the energy of the moment. Playing live in this film studio. He had a very nice wall with over 2000 little speaker boxes, so we thought that was very cool wall to playing and we started in the morning, we play every songs over and over again ‘til night to have the great take. Every video-clips aren’t the same & have their own atmosphere. Different lights, different lenses, different lightings… I think it’s very cool to have 12 clips at the end of the year.
Let’s talk about your last album “Any Other Way”
We recorded it in three days with a tape machine. So it’s a very old school tape machine. Just three days, so it’s really how it sounds the album. It sounds very honest, very down to Earth, no tricks, you know. That’s what we like to do. Sometimes, you work on a single or a video-clip during one year to find inspiration.
To conclude this interview, what would you say ?
Thanks to internet, people can love the music, also in another countries very easily. We hope that we can play for you in Live one day. It’s cool to know the Band on Radio or on TV but it’s different in Live. We search for new audience, we would like to play in festivals or in venue in another country to have a new Fanbase.
Album tracklist:
1. Garrulous 04:15
2. Just Come Home 03:23
3. Have You Ever 04:16
4. Out There 04:58
5. Amazed 03:13
6. Cut Right Through Me 04:20
7. Get Em 02:49
8. Vortex 04:14
9. Save The Day 03:23
10. Anti-Real-Life-Club 03:08
11. So Much More 04:54
12. Soothing Words 06:44
Check this video !
Informations that you need to know about LEFT
Website : http://www.lefttheband.com/
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/lefttheband
Twitter : http://www.twitter.com/lefttheband
How to buy the Albums & T-Shirts : http://www.lefttheband.com/shop/
