Robbie van de Graaf (25) from Eindhoven has been a big phenomenon on YouTube for years. A career as a singer had never really crossed his mind. But next year he could just represent our country at the Eurovision Song Contest. He and his friends, better known as De Bankzitters, have signed up for the song competition. “We are going to do something un-Dutch”, says Robbie.
The Eindhoven native started making YouTube videos ten years ago. Especially game videos, which were quickly viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. His friends, Milo ter Reegen, Koen van Heest, Raoul de Graaf and Matthyas het Lam, were also fervent YouTubers. After a few years they decided to start a channel together: De Bankzitters.
“It’s not like I said I wanted to be a singer when I was six, absolutely not.”
The five of them made parodies of boy band songs. It started as a joke. But now they have their own repertoire and are quite successful. Last year they were in the Top2000 with three songs and are sold out. “It’s not like I said I wanted to be a singer when I was six, absolutely not,” says Robbie, looking at a platinum record on the wall. “Of course it was exciting in the beginning. But now that we’re doing all those festivals and our own shows, I’m very comfortable on stage.”
And so the men are now going for the biggest stage in Europe. “At our house we used to always watch the Eurovision Song Contest,” says Robbie. According to him, the idea to participate was born jokingly at the table. “But soon we thought, we just have to do this. This is really something that suits us.”
“We are going to make that bizarre act that no one has ever made before.”
Although the band originated from a joke, the friends take their participation in the Eurovision Song Contest very seriously. Robbie is even confident that with their participation we will make it to the final next year. “You see a lot of boy bands or groups that they were put together by someone,” says Robbie. “We are true friends and you can see that chemistry.”
Moreover, they want to do it completely differently. “We are going to make that bizarre act that no one has ever made before,” says Robbie. “In recent years, it was mainly about the song, but we provide the total picture.” He cannot say exactly what that will look like yet. “But it has to be as bizarre as possible.”
Whether the YouTube band will actually go to the Eurovision Song Contest is by no means certain. Registration opens Wednesday. Artists, composers, lyricists and others can submit their songs until September 30. The Dutch selection committee decides who will represent the Netherlands.
The most famous song of De Bankzitters:
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