The section Here I come away is a collaboration with the Huus van de Taol and pours over Drenten and their stories. Harmen Boels oet Skonnerd has been working for many years in the export of gruunte and fruit. Maor de mieste mèensen knows hum as a singer of Drèentstaolige pop/rock music.
For a long time Harmen Boels thought that you would become a farmer, as you see Dad. On Odoornerveen, where it is raised. But the business has no future. “In hindsight I think it was good, but earlier I think it’s a pity,” says Boels (52) in the riding bag on Skonnerd, where he lives with his girlfriend.
“We are on our way to another house. I come from the plain and would like to be able to walk around my own house again, as I am from the farm.” He would like to live on Odoornerveen again. “Or at least here argens in the vicinity of a canal. That attracts.”
From flugelhorn to guitar
For five years, Boels was the lead singer of the Drèentstaolige roots band Aosem, which stopped at the end of 2022. Many people know about that, but he has been making music for a long time. “Earlier on the farm we were already busy with music. My dad sang in different choirs and my mom had a banjo, where my brother and I were playing together”, laughs e.
Nao recorder lessons add to the music in the neighboring village of Oring. “I played bugle and cornet. Around 15 pm e I was tired of marching on the street and I like to play guitar. Because I used to help on the farm, my parents gave me an electric one.” He pours on lessons and from that moment on plays in all kinds of bandties, arranged together with seeing brother Hans.
Boels is nao Aosem nou veur humzölf in progress. Earlier this year came the first single Oil on the fire oet and later dizze month the second: Stien veur sten . “That song is about a time when I lost everything. Later on I had to build up my life. Such a period of misery gave fo ok foal inspiration.”
‘Pick out the Coke’
“We couldn’t perform with Aosem in the coronation, but I did write a lot of songs. After that, the band never really got off the ground. The sting was out of the coke, it didn’t work anymore”, Boels looks back. “I knew very quickly that I wanted to go with the music. I now want to do what I like myself and can follow my own head. I also sing in the new cover band Eastman. We play Bruce Springsteen songs and stuff.”
Veur humzölf continued to sing, just like with Aosem, in the regional language and preferably made smooth guitar music. “I like writing and singing songs in Drèents. It is very pure and unique. My texts are often a bitch bluesy and I run from daj der ash listener different channels with on you. Then my fracture Stien veur sten Heurde, Zee e: ‘That story from Mom and Dad!’ I thought: if he has that in it, ok fine.”
“I also use quite a few Dutch words in my songs. I sing as I speak myself. Some people don’t think it’s Drèent’s satisfaction, but I don’t like all those language rules. I will say something: for me it is not a regional language, but a spoken language. With aa instead of ao indeed. That’s how I talk.”