Adrie van den Berk was born with life between music artists. He was already a 12-year-old boy in his father’s record store and now he has more than forty artists such as Snollebollekes and Django Wagner under contract. “It was never my intention to expand it like this,” he says in the Omroep Brabant talk show KRAAK.
The family had two record stores, in Best and Eindhoven, but Dad did more than just sell records. He was the manager of George Baker’s blond singer. Adrie took his own role in the family business: “I ran the shop when I was 17, then still together with my brother.”
Adrie van den Berk has now been the idiosyncratic boss of one of the most successful record labels for Dutch artists, Berk Music Productions in Eindhoven, for 25 years now. Quirky because he doesn’t care about what the radio stations in Hilversum are playing. Because that’s certainly not his music. Successful, because he no longer seems to need that support. He quickly saw the opportunities offered by streaming services and his YouTube channel already has 370,000 subscribers.
Van de Berk specializes in cheerful Dutch music. “You can try to fight against U2 worldwide in the Netherlands, but I also love this and at a certain point you see that there is a market for this.” He didn’t have a preconceived plan to become a record boss with a stable full of artists.
“Actually, it was a coincidence,” he says. “One thing led to another and then we just add another artist, and another employee, and another. An office there and another artist. It was not my intention to develop it that way, but I have feel for hits.”
He picked Django Wagner from a bar in Helmond and Rob Kemps (Snollebollekes) he had known for years. “He came to our store in Best as a male. Years ago I said to him: “We are going to do something together.” What the two artists have in common according to the record boss is charisma. “An artist must have that. You can now also see it with Jan Biggel.”
He has a big hit with ‘Ons mother zej nog’ and is the newest star in the firmament of Berk Music Productions. “Biggel has charisma. That guy is ugly as night, but people like it! You have to have that.”
Carnival, normally perhaps the busiest time of the year for Adrie van den Berk, is now one big question mark. He thinks that’s the worst for his artists, some of whom are now really struggling financially. But for Adrie herself, the corona pause button also becomes irritating. He had to postpone the sold-out Snollebollekes concerts in GelreDome in Arnhem, which were scheduled for March, until next year. It is working with the brakes on and that is not what Adrie likes to do.