{"id":950,"date":"2019-09-22T20:52:32","date_gmt":"2019-09-22T19:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fr-nt.nl\/?p=950"},"modified":"2022-06-07T22:50:41","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T21:50:41","slug":"a-long-way-back-moss-over-hun-magische-laatste-plaat-never-be-scared-dont-be-a-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fr-nt.nl\/en\/2019\/09\/22\/a-long-way-back-moss-over-hun-magische-laatste-plaat-never-be-scared-dont-be-a-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"A long way back: Moss on their magical \u2018final record\u2019 Never Be Scared \/ Don\u2019t Be A Hero"},"content":{"rendered":"

Only since about a year or two, has Marien Dorleijn been making furniture again. His resignation from the carpentry workshop where he worked ten years ago seemed like a formality at the time. He was going to go on tour with his band Moss, which had just released a new record, but since he had exhausted his annual leave, Dorleijn would have to leave the company temporarily. The rest is, yes, history. That new record, Never Be Scared \/ Don't Be A Hero<\/em>, blew up and for much of Moss the band became a full-time job. All of them are now in their forties, and have found some peace of mind. And when an album of this stature celebrates its anniversary, it is a perfectly fine opportunity to look back. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by: <\/strong>Ruben van Dijk<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018looking back\u2019 is officially only scheduled to last one night, when the band is playing Never Be Scared<\/em> in its entirety in TivoliVredenburg on September 28. And the band members had not even originally wanted that night to happen. \u201cThe idea mainly came from other people,\u201d says guitarist Michiel Stam. \u201c'Isn't it nice to make a moment out of that?'\u2026 Gosh, shouldn't we just start working on a new record?\u201d \u201cThey asked us whether we wanted to do a whole tour,\u201d says singer Dorleijn. \u201cNo, we'll just do one. Because ultimately it's the record that helped us go where we could go in the years that followed.\" Or, as drummer Finn Kruyning sums it up early on in the conversation: \u201cWe still exist because of that record.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three of them are sat down at a picnic table in Amsterdam Noord, barely a stone's throw from the office of their record label Excelsior. Dorleijn has just gone through the photo material for the vinyl reissue of Never Be Scared<\/em>. In between the looking back, the three catch up. About camping holidays, a new TV, the kids. Moss has become a band of fathers. Dorleijn's seven-year-old son, for example, recently asked how many records he had made. \"Then I explained them all and he asked, 'Are we going to listen to them all?' And so we started to listen to them all - which means you have to start at the beginning.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember when Excelsior said, 'Guys, we\u2019re out of money,' and then they heard the demos and never spoke of it again.\u201d<\/p>Marien Dorleijn<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And Moss didn't start with Never Be Scared<\/em>. \u201cWe had to hear that very often: 'Yes, I would like your first record.' 'You mean The Long Way Back<\/em>?' 'Oh, you have another record?'\u201d And often enough Dorleijn had preferred to have forgotten about it himself. That afternoon with his son, he listened to the record for pretty much the first time in thirteen years. He always felt a bit ashamed of it, he says. But: \u201cWe needed to make The Long Way Back<\/em>, otherwise Never Be Scared would never have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kruyning: \u201cIt took us so long to write that record. And what also played a part: we were actually already playing a lot before that. And then the record was released and nothing really happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dorleijn: \u201cThat was a bit of a disappointment. So you do one little tour and that's it? You're not going out on the road for one or two years? So then we started working on a second record, because Excelsior had said: if the first one doesn't go well, you just do another. Which was actually super sweet. I remember Ferry [Roseboom, founder of Excelsior, ed.] saying: 'Oh well, it cost us some money, but we'll just write that off. Too bad.'\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A second chance came for a second record; or a final record, as the band saw it themselves. \"We're going to make that record and then it\u2019ll be done, we thought.\" It turned out to be the perfect set of circumstances, says Dorleijn. \u201cWe had total freedom. We made the record we wanted to make and no one told us what to do. There was no \u2018sophomore slump\u2019, it was the easiest second album ever.\u201d On the eve of the recordings of Never Be Scared<\/em>, Moss was a band that could go in all directions, was bound by nothing and at the same time wanted to move forward with all its countless ideas - and quickly too. Dorleijn: \u201cI remember calling Frans [Hagenaars, producer and co-founder of Excelsior, ed.] and saying: 'We have to start recording now.' And he said: 'I'm working with Johan now, but I can reschedule that for another two weeks. Come on.\u2019 We had sent out the demos and suddenly there was this buzz within Excelsior. I remember when they said, 'Guys, we're out of money,' and then they heard the demos and never spoke of it again. You could just tell there was an internal buzz, that even the raw footage they had been playing to death in the office. I went to Noorderslag and everyone was talking about it. We hadn\u2019t even finished the album yet! I didn't realize that at the time, but in retrospect it was already happening, there was already a kind of excitement. If you are involved in such a process, that kind of thing will give you quite a boost of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dorleijn recently conjured up the recordings for Never Be Scared<\/em> in ProTools before a rehearsal. He went through every individual channel: kick, snare, cymbals, guitar one, guitar two, bass, et cetera. \u201cI got really excited about it, because I heard that it was recorded at a rapid pace. I hear that there\u2019s no perfectionism is not in it, but that it is rough around the edges. It sounds very liberated, the guitars are a bit out of tune sometimes, you can hear my voice being pushed to its limits. But drown it in a ton of reverb and no one will hear any of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stam adds: \u201cIt just has this energy. You were just full of hunger. I wasn't at the recordings because I wasn't in the band at that point, but you can hear that you had a lot of ideas \u2013 but not too many \u2013 and that you were well prepared. And then it's just bam, bam, bam and done \u2013 not wanting to do another twenty takes. I heard the record and thought: how cool is this! So bare-bones and measured. Of course it's not just bass guitar, two guitars and drums, but all the extra things that are in it fulfill a clear function. That was a real difference compared to The Long Way Back.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was this buzz and then we went on tour \u2013 and the first shows we were really like, uh okay, where's everyone?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>Marien Dorleijn<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Dorleijn: \u201cThe record was also put on tape in eleven days. It was a rush job, but we were very well prepared. We had already made all the demos, again and again. Then we just went and started recording it. That was it. Some things even remained; 'I Apologise (Dear Simon)' is actually a demo, which we only polished up a bit in the studio by adding a guitar and some vocals.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title of the album came from a friend of then guitarist Bob Gibson, someone from the world of graffiti: \u2018never be scared, don't be a hero\u2019 was one of his tenets. It spoke to Dorleijn's fear of the unknown at the time. He calls it a kind of \u201cteen angst\u201d, although he was no longer a teenager by then. \u201cI think I was living through a scary time. I was quite funereal. Not depressed, but\u2026 I had just turned thirty and was still sort of figuring out what I wanted to do with my life.\u201d Shout out all you got, he encouraged himself. Sing high, sing loud, use all your energy. \u201cAnd suddenly I didn\u2019t need as many lyrics \u2013 like on 'The Comfort': \u2018come out, take care and see \/ come out, take care and see \/ you'll get me going on \/ you'll get me going on\u2019<\/em>\u2026 It\u2019s the same thing over and over again, to the point where I feared that people would pick up on it. But no.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Never Be Scared<\/em>was a sum of its parts with extraordinary outcome. Call it one of the best Dutch albums of this century, if you like. It turned Moss into a Big Act. Less than a year after the release, they would bring their journey to a provisional climax in a packed Grolsch tent at the Lowlands festival. A crazy year, especially since, right after its release, it seemed to unfold just as it did with The Long Way Back<\/em>. \u201cLet's be honest: there was a buzz and then we went on tour \u2013 and the first shows we were really like: uh ok, where is everyone?,\u201d Dorleijn recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so Moss, the band that venues had been booking on the basis of The Long Way Back<\/em>, was suddenly playing sold-out venues with a new, completely different album. It presented them with two problems. Kruyning: \u201cIn terms of booking, we were always one step behind. A venue would book us three months in advance, things were going just fine and we\u2019d do it for 500 euros \u2013 but by the time it was three months later, we were playing in way, way bigger venues for 500 euros. I don't remember what we were paid for Lowlands, but that was a scandalous fee too. It was all very clumsy from a commercial point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dorleijn: \u201cAnd then we played the first shows in The Hague and Rotterdam\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stam: \u201c\u2026and there would literally be eight people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dorleijn: \u201cIt went very gradually.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stam: \u201cI remember you saying: we have a few more guitars and synths on the new record. Would you like to be a part of this? Bob can do some more keyboards and you can play some guitar. Just for a few shows, half a year or so, because that's how it was with the previous record. Nobody had expected this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n