31 f “B
ut you really have to invest in it,” says Hartwin, using that word again. “Having your own sound man is really important.
And if you’re not a famous band you have to pay that from your own pocket. And that can be frustrating but it’s about… not want- ing to be at the top – that’s a stupid word… but to really show your music at its best. So you keep investing, keep taking risks.”
On your website the group is described as “one of the best Flemish folk export products.” Music as an export product, where’s the romance in that?
“We have a romantic vision behind it,”
Ward insists. “But we want to bring it to the rest of the world. Everything is arriving in Belgium so we have to do the same.”
“That sentence is maybe for Belgian festival organisers,” says Hartwin. “Because first of all you have to play the whole world, be successful then maybe they’re gonna book you in your own country! I think that’s true for most folk bands from every country in the world. We hear a lot of people say- ing, ‘I didn’t know there was this cool folk music in Belgium’. Most of the organisers are the same generation as our parents and
it’s sometimes difficult for them to under- stand how hard we work and the attention we give to every detail.”
That’s undoubtedly a big difference
between Trio Dhoore’s generation and the musicians that came before them. That understanding of how the world works and a willingness to engage in that in order to serve the music. What’s the point in striving to be the best if no one gets to hear it?
I was somewhat alarmed to find there’s singing on the new album. Did it take three records to find your voices, or were you always frustrated vocalists? Are you no longer an instrumental group?
“Actually fRoots told us to do it in their review of the last album!” laughs Ward. “In the review of Momentum it said, ‘If they can do one thing better then it might be adding some songs.’ So we followed fRoots’ advice. But it’s good to have some… I can’t find the right word.”
“Balance!” suggest Hartwin with a grin.
“We were working on the concept for the new album, that we would use one or two really traditional melodies. We have them on Flandinavian and also Maasland
Jig, and the first time through we play them very slow and very traditional and then we up the tempo. But the thing we can’t ignore in the tradition is the singing; there are a lot of traditional songs. We went to see this guy Marc Hauman, who we really like, and he’s doing the same as we do with music but with text; he’s writing lyrics in the same way as they did years ago. So he wrote lyrics for us and we thought it fitted the concept of the new CD. We have traditional melodies, some songs in the idea of the tradition and our own work.”
“It felt good and right,” says Koen. “It
fits together. But we’re not yet really con- vincing singers. If you understood the text – which is telling this story about the tradition of instrument making – you would get it. It fits.”
It’s one of the great clichés of interview questions but it seems appropriate to ask here, given the group’s ambition. Where do Trio Dhoore see themselves in five years’ time?
“Someone asked us that five years ago and I think our answer was very close to where we are now.”
triodhoore.com F
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