Et Alors? Magazine 19

I’ve always been very much intrigued by Sarah
Bettens. When I saw K’s Choice perform in 1994
they had not yet recorded their monster hit “Not
an Addict”, which opened doors not only in Europe
but also lead to touring across the US with, amongst
others, Alanis Morissette and the Indigo Girls. Yet in
1994 I saw a girl run to her microphone, hold onto
it for the entire song and who looked at her feet for
the duration of the applause. A lot has changed since
then and that girl cannot be compared to the über-fit
and charismatic front woman she is today. We catch
up in the backstage area of a Dutch music festival to
talk about change, identity and challenges.
You once said you were lucky K’s Choice became
popular. What’s luck got to do with it?
I think there was a lot of coincidence involved. My
brother and I have been making music for as long as
I can remember but we never thought about it as a
future job. The idea itself was even too unrealistic to
dream about, so let’s just say we never considered it
a possibility.
Then someone asked me to sing something in a
studio and before we knew it we had a hit-single on
the radio and things started evolving. There wasn’t
any plan behind it. If I contemplate our position right
now, I can see the amount of work and effort that
we have put into it, yet I must say that we did indeed
get very lucky. We met the right people at the right
time. Of course you have to be present in order for
those people to find you, but we were very lucky to
kick off mid-’90’s, when record companies still had
a lot of money and room for development. We’re
talking about a completely different era here. They
allowed us time to grow, which is almost impossible
nowadays. We’re also lucky that we’re still - after 25
years - able to make music for a living. We still have
fun and we’re still doing things that challenge us,
both as musicians and performers. There’s nothing
worse for creativity than routine so once in a while
we have to shake things up a bit.
How do you shake things up?
Well, for example we changed our working method
when making The Phantom Cowboy - our last record.
Normally Gert and I write separately and then bring
things together to see what happens. This time we
started with a concept and actually knew how we
wanted the record to sound. Things like this, and
also things like introducing The Backpack Sessions
- an intimate tour with only our pianist - are our
means to keeping it fresh.
Do you need challenges?
I think so, I’m not a stressed out person but I like
change, both in my job and in my personal life.
At the moment we’re on the verge of moving to
California and there’s a lot to do, but that’s fun. We’re
going to start over. It’s like making a new record
and working with a new producer, even though the
previous one was great, you never know what it’s
going to bring. My sense of adventure is far greater
than being comforted by foreseeing the future.
A couple of years ago you started working as a fire
fighter? Why?
I needed it because music started to become
somewhat of a routine. I needed to do something
that was completely different, a job where I had
to show up and go back home after 24 hours. As a
musician you can start working at 2 in the afternoon
or you can work the whole night through. You work
on your music, your plans, your career, your writing,
you name it. It never stops. You can work all day and
there will still be that feeling that you can do more.
It’s never finished. So I looked for something that
was defined, which I found in being a fire fighter.
You cannot imagine how much I learned there and
it still brought me the eagerness to learn even more.
Because of that, being a musician made me happier
again.
Do you have any creative rituals when you start
composing?
We did in the beginning, but I’ve kind of abandoned
the idea of needing hours of time, the right mood
and even the perfect star constellation - in order to
write the perfect song. Now we just sit down with a
guitar and start. The Phantom Cowboy was written
in two weeks time. Gert and I sat down in a room
from 9 to 5 and just worked. We stopped waiting
for the right light interval or the most opportune
emotional state of mind.
Is art inevitably self-portraiture?
I think so. You keep talking about things that are
close to you. Its shape changes but the subject
doesn’t. As you get older your world changes, you
get married, have children, yet there are themes that
keep returning. Now we’re moving I found some old
interview from when I was 20 years old. How stupid
026