Lewsberg is perhaps the most Rotterdam band in the Netherlands. Or perhaps it is the band of a city that no longer exists, a city where buildings are built with concrete, where literature is allowed to be meaningless and functionality takes precedence over beauty. In any case, Lewsberg is a band of nuance, which is further explored on their second album In This House.
Written by: Ruben van Dijk
Photos: Cheonghyeon Park
“These are good times for me – with all that social distancing,” says Arie van Vliet, cheerful. In the midst of the corona crisis, he sees things on the bright side. He's making frequent use of his balcony for the first time in a long time – he’s even got a little tan – and doesn't have to shake anyone's hand, let alone hug. Michiel Klein nods in agreement.
Klein and Van Vliet, guitarist and lead singer of Lewsberg respectively, sit one and a half meters apart in Van Vliet's office on Stadhuisplein in Rotterdam, which overlooks a concrete jungle. Both gentlemen speak in well-considered, eloquent Dutch. Van Vliet regularly turns to Klein after an answer: “What is your opinion on this?”
Anyone who gets acquainted with Lewsberg, live or on record, may have to get used to a feeling of detachment. Van Vliet's lyrics closely follow the Rotterdam literary tradition that reigned supreme in the 1960s, with standard-bearers such as Cornelis Vaandrager, Frans Vogel and Robert Loesberg. They’re matter-of-fact rather than animated, prosaic rather than poetic. They offer observations rather than any personal sentiments; often spoken (and very rarely sung) with an administrative deadpan delivery. Like no one else needs to hear it.
Second album In This House is then mostly made for the band itself. Right?
Klein: “We make this music because we want to make this music ourselves, because we think it's beautiful.”
Van Vliet: “Yes, so then you make it for yourself, I think.”
Klein: “But we do choose to go public with it.”
Van Vliet: “Are we then also making it for someone else? Do we still make it for ourselves, but let other people listen to it too? I don’t know."
Klein: “I think I make it for people who are really interested in it. I don't have to convince people."
Fair. And so in Lewsberg's world there is no need for compromise. This also applies to the live shows, where Van Vliet maintains a straight and motionless stance. The interim stage banter is often factual and unvarnished in tone, as if it were a public service announcement. Klein: “We're not going to swing our guitars around. We’re not trying to convince people. People often experience that as aloof, but I don't think that is necessarily the case. We don't want to make it any bigger than what it is. It is what it is, and that's the way we convey it."
There is no need for regalia. The cover of In This House – black surface, white border, the title in the top left corner – speaks volumes. “Things can remain hidden,” says Van Vliet. “You can try to say as much as possible with minimal means.” Klein adds: “How much can you take away and what are you left with? And to what extent can you create something that appeals to the imagination and, as far as we are concerned, even appeals to the imagination more than when you are going to say everything?”
The more you leave out, the more the listener has to fill in for himself. And that is exactly why Van Vliet writes the way he writes. “I also find it most interesting in literature or poetry, when I don't get the feeling that a meaning is being forced on me, but that I interpret what I’m reading in my own way.” It must be a dialogue, an invitation to interaction, where according to Van Vliet many songwriters mainly write monologues. “When someone is very much singing about their own emotions, I think that creates more distance than what I do. But people don't experience it that way, because they are used to a different sort of expression and may be looking for that more.”
Klein adds: “You could say about our music, lyrics or appearance: it's not enough, I can't do anything with this. While, conversely, we often think: what are you imposing on us?"
As much as there seems to be a nihilistic tendency, Lewsberg's music is not a blank page. Klein: “Arie and I have discussed this. I was of the opinion that once you get it out there, people can and should interpret it however they want. I see it as a coat rack, on which you can attach meaning – and not one of them is the true meaning. Then you said: but in the end it is there.”
Van Vliet: “Yes.”
Klein: “And that is important.”
Van Vliet: “Yes. Just like you can look at something in a museum and then read the text next to it and it turns out to be something else. Sometimes it is a pity afterwards that you have read that text. Sometimes it is good that you have read that text.”
“When I graduated from the Willem de Kooning Academy, someone else who also graduated that year had put a slat against the wall with a stroopwafel on it. I think the stroopwafel was painted white, but I'm not sure anymore. There was no further explanation.” “Then I thought: as an image it is funny, but maybe I would find it more interesting if I knew why it was there. At the same time: if the person's explanation is that he just really likes stroopwafels, but not the color brown, then it is actually a very boring story. Then I would rather not have known why it was there.” "I think it's a shame that when I walk through the streets, every shop or café has a very fresh flowery air. As if that's the only way something can be pleasant."
"It saddens me that when I walk through the streets, every shop or café has a very fresh, flowery smell coming from it. As if that's the only way something can be pleasant, if it smells good."
Arie van Vliet
Some explanation to offer up a little bit of context can therefore not hurt. But the emphasis lies on ‘some’. That was also the idea behind the band statement accompanying In This House. No biography, no conclusive narrative, but a summary of eight points that the band would like to draw your attention to. “We wanted to see how unobtrusive we could make a statement,” says Van Vliet.
‘Some people are more kind than they think. Some people don't dare to show how kind they are.’ ‘Not every good deed is part of a plan.’ They are Lewsberg’s aphorisms, and to what extent they actually have to do with the tracks on the album remains obscure. Although Van Vliet and Klein are willing to provide some explanation, they prefer not to do the same for their lyrics.
Take point two, ‘More pixels is less imagination.’ Van Vliet: “A lot of people tend to want to know more about everything. In my opinion, things become less interesting when you can see everything: whether it's about things that are recorded in HD and therefore capture images very well but in a completely uninteresting way, or the fact that there are surveillance cameras everywhere that register everything, so that nothing remains unseen.”
Or point four, ‘In Rotterdam people no longer build with concrete.’ “I sometimes find it a pity that for everything that happens in Rotterdam nowadays, people think about how it can be made as beautiful as possible. It saddens me that when I walk through the streets, every shop or café has a very fresh, flowery smell coming from it. As if that's the only way something can be pleasant, if it smells good. I used to find it very pleasant when you walked past a cafe, that a very nasty smell of beer or smoke came out. Nowadays things are no longer allowed to smell.”
Klein: “The functionality and the ugliness of the city, that really belonged to Rotterdam. And that is changing.”
Van Vliet: “And you notice that in the people. In the past there was also much more room in Rotterdam for people who did not fit into the picture, the oddballs, the extremes. You always saw quite a lot of crazy people walking around in Rotterdam and they were just part of it. It's not that everyone was actively avoiding them, thinking: what a madman. It was just a weirdo who was part of Rotterdam. Today, that weirdo is no longer allowed to exist. They have become a kind of pariah. Point four is about buildings, but ultimately what happens to buildings is also about the people who live in them.”
"We're just opening the door. We've made something, come and listen."
Michiel Klein
Klein and Van Vliet are disappointed about the change the city is undergoing, concerned too, but not cynical – and they would like to emphasize that. The tide can turn for Rotterdam in the future, they are convinced of that. “The consciousness is there. We are all talking – also with other people – about how things are changing in Rotterdam and that this is not the right direction. The sooner we can change that, the better. But it is not too late.”
‘There will come a day when the mice will take the owl,’ is point three, a tentative indication that there is room for hope within Lewsberg too. Van Vliet: “That is a hopeful thing. That's about the fact that very often the same people are the victims of things, that I look forward to the moment when that may no longer be the case. Whether by chance or by very hard work; I believe in any case that there will come a time when the establishment will lose out.”
“It's a one-sentence story. But the sad thing is that those mice will always think that, but that they will never really catch the owl.”
Klein: “In principle it is not possible.”
Van Vliet: “So it sounds very hopeful, but at the same time it is also impossible. And because this story has no end, everyone can decide for themselves whether they give it the sad or the hopeful ending. To that extent, I think it fits in with what's happening on the record and within the band.”
Lewsberg depends on nuance. They are not cynical – not really – but a sense of hope is also “completely useless”, according to Van Vliet. Much remains covered, even more is left out, but that doesn't mean it can mean all, or nothing. Van Vliet maintains distance in his lyrics; the band derives comfort from relative anonymity, but at the same time point eight reads: ‘In this house we make mistakes. In this house we don't give up. The door is always open.’
Klein: “We are not emphatically seeking the distance. Instead, we're opening a door. We made something, come and listen.” Lewsberg doesn't have to swing their guitars around, talk or sing about personal feelings, or force a story on the listener. Instead, there should be dialogue. “If you can get closer to each other in a natural way, without anyone pushing for it, I find that much more exciting.”
Approaching each other with distance kept. Arms open wide, but without shaking hands.
The album In This House releases on friday 27 March . Editor's note: this article was originally published in Dutch. Some quotes may have been altered in the translation.
