Raymond van het Groenewoud: ‘I do what I am told, I put my annoyance into my songs’

All those demons that paralyze me every day / all that tossing and worrying in the night / pull me out of here’, this is how Raymond Van het Groenewoud (73) opens his new album. For a man who made his debut 50 years ago with an album that… You should know how happy I am was called, that doesn’t sound so good.

In his apartment in Bruges, however, the singer looks awake and in good spirits. “That song – Give me strength – is about sleep problems,” he says. “I suffer from insomnia, but fortunately in a mild form. I often lie awake with negative thoughts, but I can see the uselessness of it. I practice a lot of ‘living in the now’, and the now at night is when you lie in your bed and can’t do anything. With that thought I will drive away the tormentors.” Furthermore, the report sounds good. His eye problem is under control, his body is battling a bit with osteoarthritis, which means he had to give up his beloved tennis game. But also: who organized the Ghent Festivities a year ago was able to close with a set of 109 songs, still stands.

The fun of playing is radiant

The last time we saw each other, in 2013, he had made a record that The last ride is called. Ten years later, he is still two records further and finished Egoist bursts with fun in a colorful mix of rock, punk, funk, disco and some ballads. “It could be the last one again, but the angle is different. After the previous album, play, recorded with producer Jean-Marie Aerts, in a relatively expensive studio in Brussels, I realized that that is no longer possible. I make almost nothing from streaming and I don’t sell enough CDs. Now I’m working towards an album, because then I can put a copy on my shelf, but if I tear my pants on it, it stops. I might also record one song every now and then and show on the radio that I have something new.”

You produced your own record for the first time. Does the album sound to your taste now?

“I think it’s fantastic, thanks to my sound engineer, Ward Snauwaert. With his buttons he can do things I didn’t know about. I arrive, as a half-baked guitarist, thinking that something should be this or that, and he senses what the intention is, quickly goes and gets a better guitar and lets me play on it. That pushes me up a floor. Suddenly I think I’m great.”

As a lover of voices, you have placed yours, and that of the choirs, at the front.

“When I played the finished album here, I was very moved. He has that warm feeling that I experienced with Beatles records, where I always thought: they are singing here in my house. I think like a housewife in that regard. I put on a record and start messing around in the kitchen and then it either happens or it doesn’t. I didn’t want a record that would stand up like wallpaper music. The vote had to take hold, or not.”

This way we can hear what you are talking about better than ever. About artist Jan Fabre, I think, on ‘Clean slate’.

,,Also. And about Brad Pitt and many others.”

You sound very annoyed. ‘The witch hunter, sick in mind/ That’s the filthiest beast’.

“What annoys me most is the amount of media noise beforehand. I find it scandalous that some people are portrayed as guilty before their guilt has been proven. And what baffles me is that specifically talented people are silenced in a job. Johnny Depp, who was exposed to the lawsuit year after year and was viewed askance in his professional world, is ultimately acquitted! I can relate when they say: he raped someone, he murdered someone, that’s why that person is locked up. But in some cases you are unfairly damaged.”

‘Clean woke, clean language/Holy knight of morality’, you continue. How do you tackle Marc Overmars (who was dismissed as sporting director at Ajax after inappropriate behavior, ed.)?

“If he is so stupid as to photograph his flute and send it to a lady on the left and right, can’t they handle him maturely within that working atmosphere and, if it happens again, fire him? Then he’ll let it go. I can follow that. But the false ethics of employers who throw out such people because they think they would otherwise disgrace themselves… I lack maturity.”

Does it affect you in your own life?

“I mainly see the illness of the human species. My solution is to lock myself in a small world where the information is tangible rather than readable.”

So without media? Then you bury your head in the sand.

“I’ll find out what happens. Sometimes I turn on the radio and after two main points I think ‘it’s okay, that’s of no use to us again’. If someone passes me a news item, person to person, I can tolerate it better because it is not made fun of or taken out of context.”

In ‘Solidarity’ you evoke the spirit of communal thinking, but as an inveterate individualist you quickly smell propaganda.

“That song refers to my parents’ generation, when the communist idea was still the textbook example of humanity, and how it fell apart with Stalin. You can of course extend the message to any party program today that claims it is new or about individuality.”

What political vision do you have?

“I see two types. You have people who adapt their policy to the idea of ​​what power they can obtain or exercise. And then you have types like politician Jean-Luc Dehaene (former Prime Minister of Belgium, ed.), who have a kind of humanitarian talent to ensure that it is feasible for everyone. Take it easy here, take it easy there: that seems to me to be the solution. In the media he was sometimes portrayed as a plumber who only solves today’s problems, but that is exactly what needs to be done.”

Can you understand that younger generations ask for more long-term thinking, for example in climate issues?

“The generation that has not yet had its turn dreams of how beautiful and how good it could be: that has always been the case. As soon as they step into the reality of having to make ends meet every month, they see it differently. Look, I like the optimism of people pointing out new ways to get around, and I think it’s going to be okay, but it’s going to take a long time because there’s a lot of corruption involved in fueling the world with fossil fuels. to maintain. It is the logic itself: no one wants to compromise.”

It amazes me how someone who can be so outspoken in his songs can at the same time put things into perspective.

“I don’t find an artistic challenge in civil disobedience, so I adapt to the policy. I drive 30 kilometers per hour when indicated, and cycle behind when that is the case. I do everything that is said so that millions of us could live together. Everything that annoys me or that I have an opinion about, I put into my work. That is the basis of my mental health. (thinks) I actually only find one aspect unacceptable: the gap between rich and poor. Policymakers cannot be criticized enough for this.”

Would you rather keep performing than make records?

,,Certainly. Performing is my passion and my life. It keeps me sane. And you make people happy, that’s something you just get. Besides, I now have a great group, the best I ever had.”

But you don’t have to invent new songs?

“There is no artistic necessity, so I could be lazy. But people are strange. They don’t like to work, but are very satisfied when they have worked. So I play what I have, and sometimes I get to the point where I want something different: a new catchy song that immediately freshens up older songs in the same family.”

Like ‘Abandoned Building’, perhaps the best song on your album?

“I’ve heard that before. I’m hanging on to it, I’m afraid.”

Excuse me?

“Well, all my songs are my children and I don’t think it’s fair to them that people pick out their favorites – usually the same four or five songs. It’s like asking a parent what their favorite child is.”

It is a beautiful song about the emptiness that looms large when you are very old. Made from your own experience?

“Very specifically, it is about three Dutch men who fled the Netherlands in 1948. One of them was my father. They ended up, with their friends, in the Brussels Marolles. They had children and were very attached to each other. I grew up in that ‘extended family atmosphere’: it was a nest. When my mother died, and later my father, I could put it down to earth – I’m not a whiny type – but when there was only one of those six left, it dawned on me that the whole story would disappear, and I became depressed. That song is about that feeling.”