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Reviewed elsewhere in this issue Destine’s
sophomore release ‘Illuminate’ is something of a gem. Combining the
tuneful youthfulness of All Time Low, the edge of Paramore with their
own take on modern pop rock sees the band cutting out a nice little
niche for themselves not only in their Dutch homeland but also here in
the UK with a sound that is also tailor made for the American market.
Mike Newdeck caught up with guitarist Hubrecht
Eversdijk to talk about the band’s new album and how the band has
progressed since the debut.
The
songwriting seems to have gone up another level with less reliance on
simple pop punk fare what do you put this down to?
Thanks! I
don’t know exactly. Our music has always been influenced by the bands we
listen to, and the things we experience and go through. I indeed think
there’s a difference between our first album ‘Lightspeed’ and our new
album ‘Illuminate’, but it was ever intended or forced. It has been a
very natural growth.
Why
did you choose James Paul Wisner to again produce the album, didn’t you
fancy a change?
We were really
happy with how our first album ‘Lightspeed’ turned out, how the
recording process went and with what James contributed to the album. We
felt our best work together still had to be done, so we decided to work
with him again. Once again he did a great job, and the cooperation was
even better than before.
Robin is the main songwriter, what input do the other band members have
songwise?
Robin comes
with the basic idea for a song. After that, we take it to the rehearsal
room and every band member gives his input. We try different things,
rhythms, breaks, and so on. When we go into the studio, our producer
James gives his ideas on how we can improve the song. Sometimes we end
up changing a lot in a song, sometimes we hardly change anything from
the original song idea. This process has always worked great for us.
What
is the aim of the label Sony and where they are going with you?
They want to
develop acts they believe in. The great thing is they have always
supported us in what we do, and always let us decide about the direction
we want to go with the band and our music.
There have been some forays into the UK market and videos have appeared
on the Kerrang channel, do you see some success in the UK, particularly
now that you’ve toured over here with Attack! Attack!?
Yeah we
definitely notice more and more fans are from the UK. It’s great to see
your fan base is growing after you’ve toured a certain country a lot.
The tour with Attack! Attack! was a great opportunity for us to meet new
people and introduce them to our music. It’s always cool to see that
hard work and touring a lot pays off.
What
about the American market? Your music seems tailor made for it?
It would be
awesome to tour in the States one day, but it’s very expensive and if we
go there, we want to do it good. Right now we still have a lot to gain
and to do here in Europe.
Bands from Holland rarely get any praise or any degree of success
outside their own country, what has Destine got that others haven’t?
I think a lot
of bands from Holland are a little afraid to stand out of the crowd. We
are not afraid to make extreme choices in the production and recording
of our songs for example, where a lot of Dutch acts would consider it
way ‘over the top’. We want to go for a certain sound and not end up
somewhere in between.
Would you say it makes things ultra-difficult being Dutch?
It has its
pros and cons. It’s easier to get well known all over the country
because the amount of radio and tv stations are limited for example, but
when you live in the UK for example there are way more opportunities for
tours and stuff like that.
How
did you enjoy your trip to the UK?
We like
touring in the UK. It’s always cool to visit big cities like Manchester,
London and Birmingham. Last tour we also visited Sheffield,
that is one of the most
beautiful cities we’ve been to in the UK so far! Our favorite place to
eat is Wetherspoons haha. Fast, cheap, and a lot to choose from!
The
view is that touring is all about booze, drugs and women can you dispel
that myth?
We don’t
really do drugs, but the rest of it is absolutely true in our case ha!ha!
We love to party after a show.
What
was it like sharing the stage with Attack Attack and Failsafe?
They’re all
great guys. We’ve toured with Attack! Attack! alot, and it’s always fun
to have them around. Failsafe was on the UK tour we did with Attack!
Attack! to, and they’re all super cool, down to earth and really
talented.
The
band use harmony vocals on the records and pull it off live, how do you
achieve this? Who is responsible for the vocal arrangements and who fine
tunes it?
Robin writes
most of the vocal harmonies when he is demoing the song. Robin and
Laurens record them in the studio, and I sometimes come in for group
vocals too. Live Robin obviously sings lead vocals live, and Tom,
Laurens and I sing backing vocals.
Overall your live sound is very sharp, what do you attribute this to?
We pay a lot
of attention to our live sound. We want to pull off live what we do on
the record, even though there are sometimes over 100 tracks going on for
a song. We have a great crew who are also all friends of ours. So we
love to talk about gear and our live show while we have a drink
together, it’s the best of both worlds.
With
so many of you able to sing, isn’t it tempting to share lead vocal
duties?
Laurens sings
a few lead parts in a couple of songs, but we all feel that Robin can
deliver the songs he writes the best.
Do
you feel that your debut album suffered because many of the songs had
been previously released as singles?
Not really. It
had been such a long time since we put out new material that we didn’t
want to wait until the album was finished. It was a great lead up to the
album and the album release and reception was very successful luckily.
Why was the new album
called Illuminate?
A lot of the songs on 'Illuminate' are about making something positive
from a negative experience, or trying to hope for the best in an
insecure situation. We think light is a beautiful metaphor for hope and
optimism. All artwork around 'Illuminate' (album and singles) has the
same visual theme which incorporates hope, light, and looking to the
future too.
The title
track is slightly different from your other short sharp 3 minute pop
songs and has an epic feel to it, how did this song evolve?
We love dynamic, epic, long songs that end an album. Originally the
song ‘Illuminate’ was even longer, but we cut out a few bars. The drums
you hear in the end of the song was the very first take Jordy did for
that part of the song. He just improvised because he was really feeling
it. We never really talked about how long the ending had to go on, we
just felt it out. That take made it on to the album. We added everything
on top of that drum take.
Keyboards seem higher in the mix and the overall sound of the album has
slightly more bass, was this intention?
We always just
do whatever feels right for the song. Some of the new songs were written
on piano where all of the songs on our first album were written on
guitar. That’s one of the reasons there are more keys in the new songs.
And we tried to go for different arrangements with keys and synths on
some songs, where we normally would just fill parts up with guitars.
What’s the plan for 2012?
The summer’s
coming up, so we’ll play a lot of summer festivals. We’ll go back to
France, the UK and do a headline tour in The Netherlands. And as always,
we’ll take it from there and see what comes on our path.
Why
did you decide to cover ‘Down’?
We played a
radio show where they always ask you to do a cover besides your current
single. When we were recording our first album in America, ‘Down’ was on
the radio a lot there and we loved it. A few months later it was also a
big hit in Europe, so we decided to do a cover of it. The reactions were
so good and we really liked the way it turned out that we decided to
record it and put it out as a single while we were writing for our new
album.
The
next single is ‘All The People’, which has a nod toward Coldplay. What
is the song about and are you admirers?
Like most of
our songs, you can interpret the song in multiple ways. We like to keep
it open so everybody can have its own meaning to the song. As far as
influences go, we love bands like The Afters or Say It Twice who write
great powerful songs but don’t necessarily use a lot of guitars. That
was a cool challenge for this song.
If you haven’t already done so check out Destine’s hook filled new album
‘Illuminate’ which is out now.
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