Carol van Dijk and Peter Visser revisit the full story of Bettie Serveert’s recently reissued debut album, Palomine, three decades on
There are some albums discovered in a pivotal stage of a music addict’s life that – despite the multitudes of things discovered subsequently which might be hipper, more innovative or wrapped in the received wisdom of ‘classic’ status – remain go-to items through thick and thin. Records that can be revisited for comforting familiarity as well as for still-hidden internal corners. Bettie Serveert’s 1992 debut Palomine is one such long-player for this writer (who also borrowed the album track “Under the Surface” for the name of his long-gone printed music zine).
From its iconic sad dog toy sleeve inwards, Palomine is a time capsule from a period when the original line-up of singer/guitarist Carol van Dijk, guitarist Peter Visser, bassist Herman Bunskoeke and drummer Berend Dubbe were somewhat unexpectedly but happily drawn into the same guitar-driven orbit as Buffalo Tom, Come, Madder Rose, Pavement and other fellow-travellers from across the Atlantic, after a demo tape made it from Amsterdam to the office in-tray of Matador Records in New York.
Thirty years on – with the album reissued as a deluxe vinyl bundle on Matador and as a self-released two-disc CD version bolstered by must-hear early demos – Palomine feels more charming than ever. Still brimming with its blend of languorous, tumbling, twangling and churning arrangements around the yearning tones and words of van Dijk, its songs continue to push and pull with an even stronger emotive ensemble-encased resonance in their older age.
In affable dialogue, via electronic mail, the still-active and ever-modest Bettie Serveert core duo of Carol van Dijk and Peter Visser, shed some extra absorbing light on the Palomine phase of their history… and a little more besides.
Have you been pleasantly surprised about the attention and affection that the thirtieth anniversary reissue of Palomine has generated?
Peter: Oh definitely! We were expecting some interest but this overwhelming response blew us away! The fact that the two big Palomine shows we are going to do were sold out so quickly, we could have never imagined that.
Carol: Yes, absolutely! Who would’ve thought that after thirty years our Palomine album would still be remembered? We’re very happy that Matador Records wanted to re-release it.
In remastering the album and revisiting everything around it, is there anything that you’ve rediscovered from this period of Bettie Serveert that you had forgotten about?
Peter: Well, a lot of memories came back, as it did over the last year, preparing for these reissues, but looking back, the advantage we had of not expecting anything with recording the album, and therefore being able to make the music without any compromise, or ‘we need a hit’, was really great. With the second CD [Lamprey] we had to live up to the success of Palomine, which was a lot more difficult.
At the time of its original appearance, did you realise that you’d made something special with Palomine?
Peter: Not at all, although there were some signs. With practice we noticed that the guy who owned the [rehearsal] place was listening behind the door, friends of us were really enthusiastic and when we played our first gig at a friend’s party, we had to play all the songs we had – eight – again as an encore.
Carol: The songs were special to us, but we thought that only our friends would like them. At the time I really didn’t see the point of making a record, because we thought it would not sell and we’d be stuck with boxes full of LPs.
With quite a few of the songs having been demoed between 1991 and 1992, when it came to record the album itself, did most of it come together quite quickly and easily in terms of the final arrangements in the studio? Was most of it recorded in a ‘live in a room’ set-up?
Peter: The recording of the album took two weeks I believe. We didn’t think about arrangements after we’d recorded the demo, we just tried to play those songs as good as possible, mostly live in the studio, perhaps even some vocals of those live recordings were used. There were only a couple of overdubs.
Carol: We were very green and never thought about arrangements. Peter and Herman had made a studio record before with the band they used to play in – De Artsen – but Berend and I had no studio experience at all.
Did you take a variety of approaches during the Palomine-era in writing and assembling material as a group? For instance, “Sundazed to the Core” sounds like it was completed as a collective jam, whereas other songs seem like they were more concisely constructed around the core composition.
Peter: There were three approaches… One, Carol would come up with a finished song and we, the guys, tried to add our parts to the best of our possibilities. Two, Carol would come to me with a song and together the two of us would finish the structure, after which the four of us played it many times to come up with a group-version. Three, band-jamming, as in “Sundazed to the Core”.
Carol: “Sundazed to the Core” started out as two separate songs that we jammed on. We started writing the song called “Sundazed”, but ended up connecting another song called “To the Core” at the end of it – at first we called it “Down in a Certain Lake”. For some reason the two songs seemed to belong together.
Was there lot of thought and internal debate about the final running order of Palomine; to make it flow cohesively between the longer and shorter songs, the two versions of the title track, a cover, and having to move “Brain-Tag” on to the bonus 7” with the first and now-reissued vinyl versions?
Carol: It took a while to find the running order, especially because we only had a cassette deck to work with. But the most important thing was the ‘emotional flow’ of the songs. That’s when we discovered that “Leg” had to be the opening song. Palomine was first released on CD, so when Matador wanted to release it as an LP, we realized that we had to put one song on a separate 7”, because the CD was too long. After long debate “Brain-Tag” was moved to the 7”.
Focusing on some of the album tracks individually, the sublime “Leg” still feels like a brave and bold track to have as the epic six-minute opening moment, with its lengthy languid guitar-led introduction, the almost-jazzy drums and the uncredited organ swells as the intensity builds. What informed the blend of what went into the final album incarnation?
Carol: The way we played “Leg” is the only way we knew how to play it. It was written in Fall 91 and started out as an acoustic song – [with] me on a 12-string guitar – that Peter and I played. It took a while before we learned how to play it as a band because of the tempo changes, which are slightly unusual. During live shows we still ‘count’ out loud before switching into the next part.
You included two quite different takes of the title track…
Peter: With the “Palomine” song, the band decided to do a slow, improvised version of the song, having the two versions of “Sgt. Pepper” or “It’s No Game” by David Bowie on Scary Monsters in mind. I remember the producers not being very fond of that idea until I saw them half-way during the song turning knobs on the control board.
“Under the Surface” remains one of the highpoints to me from the record. What inspired its writing and arrangement?
Carol: Thank you! Peter and I had been working on “Under the Surface” for some time and finished it on the Dutch ‘Koninginnedag’ – Queens Day, which used to be April 30th – in 92. The Betties were staying at a friend’s house – Hans van den Berg, who sent our first demo to Matador Records – in Arnhem and we were doing two shows that day. During [the] soundcheck of the second show, we taught Berend and Herman the song, and played it live for the first time that evening. It wasn’t a good version, but most people at the club were drunk, so they probably didn’t notice. It took a couple of weeks before we learned how to play it with the whole band, but we never really thought about arrangements. We just tried to play it as good as possible. By the way, Ron van den Boom – our fan club leader of twenty-six years! – named our fan club after this song.
How has your relationship with other such heartfelt and seemingly quite personal songs on the LP – such as “Balentine” – changed over the years?
Carol: They haven’t changed. Most songs on the album are very personal, so I know exactly what they are about. While doing live shows, I often close my eyes and ‘see’ the lyrics like a movie playing in my head, images of situations and the reasons why I wrote them.
Back in the late 80s – before we started Bettie Serveert – Peter, Berend Dubbe and I had a music project called De 3 Annika’s. Between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, we would gather all our music instruments, and write and record the songs on cassette tape. Each one of us had to try and come up with a song as quickly as possible. “Balentine” is one of the songs I wrote around ‘89 at Berend’s home in Amsterdam for this project, and it was one of the first songs for Bettie Serveert. Summer 91 we re-wrote “Balentine” for the Betties and recorded it on our first demo in December.
With its quite divergent sonic passages, “Brain-Tag” now seems like two separate songs combined and duelling it out for dominance. Would you agree to some extent?
Carol: To be honest, I’m not sure what you mean. I don’t hear two separate songs. On November 25th 91 Peter, Berend and I went to see Nirvana play a legendary concert at The Paradiso in Amsterdam. I went home early, right after the show, and wrote our song “Brain-Tag” in about two hours and recorded it on a cassette tape.
The very next day I played “Brain-Tag” for Peter. He liked it a lot and came up with his beautiful guitar solo very quickly. Just to be clear, the song is not about Nirvana, but I did get inspired by their concert. The line “Have I ever laid my hands on you before?” is sort of my wordplay on “Have I ever laid my eyes on you before?”
The first time we played “Brain-Tag” with Herman and Berend was during soundcheck at Willemeen in Arnhem on 4 Jan 92. At the time Herman still lived in Arnhem. Because they never heard the song before, Peter and I played it a lot slower and that’s the way it stayed.
Later that evening we performed “Brain-Tag” live for the very first time ever. By the way, that’s the reason why that song was not on our first demo, which included “Tom Boy”, “Kid’s Allright” and “Leg”, because those were recorded in December 91.
What led you into choosing to cover Sebadoh’s “Healthy Sick” on Palomine, at the expense of including another of your own songs?
Peter: As being a fan of Sebadoh, I let Carol listen to The Freed Man and that’s how it came about. With practicing for the Palomine shows we are glad that there is at least one song that is not so complicated to play or to remember in terms of chord-structures.
Carol: On our first big tour in the USA, we played “Healthy Sick” at a club in Boston. After the show Lou Barlow came to the dressing room, we were both very shy. He later told us that he occasionally played our version of his song, meaning like a waltz.
“Kid’s Allright” and “Tom Boy” certainly both bear the warm influence of Buffalo Tom. Was it strange to end up with the same manager as them for a while and is “Tom Boy” actually a part-lyrical homage to the band?
Peter: I don’t think Carol was thinking about Buffalo Tom when she wrote “Tom Boy” – no disrespect to the band, we love them dearly. The opening riff of “Kid’s” was definitely influenced by Buffalo Tom. And it was great to hook up with Tom Johnston – [their] manager – and become friends with the Buffalos. We even did a ten-week tour with them!
Carol: “Tom Boy” is about me being a tom boy. Berend came up with the opening guitar riff. And it was quite a welcome coincidence that we got to know Buffalo Tom after releasing Palomine. Like Peter said, we were fans of their music. We had already met their manager Tom Johnston, because he was going to help De Artsen, the band that Peter and Herman used to play in, do some support shows for Buffalo Tom in Germany late 1990. We’re still close friends with both the band as well as Tom Johnston.
“Kid’s Allright” is mostly about the time when I lived with my grandparents, after being brought to the Netherlands when my parents got divorced. Regarding the part about “we find a cat, and beat ‘m up with a baseball bat”, I would never do that! It’s a homage to The Ramones song “Beat on the Brat” because I’m a big fan.
You shared many live show billings with likeminded US bands from the early-90s, who hailed from places like Boston and New York. Did you enjoy more camaraderie with them, than with other Dutch groups in this phase of Bettie Serveert’s history?
Peter: In those days, most of the music we listened to came indeed from those places and we were very lucky to meet some of those people and tour with them. We did not feel to have a lot in common with other Dutch bands, although there were a couple of exceptions like Hallo Venray and Claw Boys Claw, who we still see and sometimes do shows with.
How important was signing to Matador, in bringing you to an audience outside Europe and giving you opportunities to connect with other artists? Was it a complex situation also being signed to 4AD’s sub-label Guernica in the UK and Brinkman for the Netherlands at the same time?
Peter: Playing at the Matador showcase during the New York Seminar and signing to them was the most important move we made in our career. Connecting with Fred Maessen from Brinkman Records was another significant thing – he lent us the money to buy decent guitars and drums, and with that money we could also record the album. So, he had a tremendous belief in the band. Signing with Guernica was taken care of by management when we were on our – as it seemed at the time – never ending tour, so I don’t remember much about that, except that Ivo Watts-Russell seemed to know what he was doing and most of the bands on Beggars Banquet – of which Guernica was a sub-label – were cool, so we got to know a bunch of them, like The Breeders.
Looking back to what came after Palomine, why do you think that 1995’s sequel LP, Lamprey, seemed to lose some of the initial momentum behind the band and isn’t remembered as well?
Peter: I guess our fifteen minutes were up by then. Also, a lot of people got involved when it came to making and releasing the second album. It became really hard to be in our own bubble when everybody was giving us advice and we didn’t know if that advice was good for them or good for us. Also, the pressure, especially on Carol, was enormous. For her, being shy and an introvert, it was really hard. And she had to come up with ‘the goods’!
Although it’s perhaps a trivial matter, do you regret the odd front sleeve to Lamprey after the much-loved iconic Palomine cover, and do you think it might in fact have contributed to the record being overlooked in comparison?
Peter: Oh, I don’t know. Everything on and around Palomine was a hard act to follow.
Carol: The strange looking thing on the sleeve is my arm, it was cut out of a promo photo made by a famous British photographer Steve Gullick. We thought it looked like a lamprey. You can find that word in the song “Re-Feel-It” – “The sucking mouth of the lamprey say…”. At first, we were thinking about calling the album The Wicked Lounge – also part of the lyrics of that same song – but then Voodoo Lounge by The Rolling Stones came out in July 94, so we felt we had to come up with another title. Our fan club released a compilation with demos and such in 95 called The Wicked Lounge and in that same year some musicians in Portugal used it as their band name.
Is there any prospect of further reissues over the next few years? In addition to Lamprey, 2000’s John Parish-produced Private Suit also feels like it is due the expanded CD treatment, as well as a belated first-time vinyl edition.
Peter: Let’s see how this goes and after that we’ll look further. Releasing vinyl is a risky business and very expensive too. You have to be darn sure that you sell all of it, otherwise you’ll end up in debt and with the attic full of unsold LPs.
I’m assuming that Palomine is one of your collective favourite Bettie Serveert albums, but which other releases are you most fond of?
Peter: For me it is Log 22 and Damaged Good. Log 22 was a playground, made in our ‘sabbatical’, again with no expectations, mostly made at home and with [the] great singing of Carol. Listen for instance to “Cut ’n Dried”, “Captain of Maybe” or “Certainlie”. And Damaged Good I like for a variety of reasons, especially for the song “Never Be Over”.
Carol: We love all our ‘brain-children’, so please don’t ask me to choose between them. But we know which albums are favourites with the Bettie fans – Palomine and Damaged Good. Our fan club leader Ron told us that our fan club had been hoping we would make an album like Damaged Good as a ‘follow up’ for Palomine.
It feels like you could do more with your archive material. Could, for example, some of your previous fan club releases be put on Bandcamp? Your Me & Stupid side-project album – that I only just discovered in researching for this piece – would be a welcome Bandcamp addition too.
Peter: Yeah, maybe!
Carol: Me & Stupid was an Australian music project, set up and sponsored by a Dutch team of music lovers called In a Cabin With. It doesn’t exist anymore, but we’ve asked them if they could put the album on Spotify or Bandcamp. They’re looking into it, but there are several companies involved who would all need to give their okay.
Do you have any special plans in store for Palomine’s thirtieth anniversary live shows in the Netherlands later this year, such as playing the album in full and/or persuading Berend to temporarily rejoin the group on drums?
Peter: We are doing two shows where we play the album in full and also do favourite songs from other Bettie albums.
Carol: We want to keep the content of the two shows a surprise for now, but we are playing Palomine in full!
Retrospective activities aside, what else do you have in the pipeline for Bettie Serveert or any other creative ventures?
Peter: In Holland there’s the saying, “Don’t sell the skin before you shoot the bear”. So, we won’t say.
Carol: What Peter said…
With thanks to:
Ron van den Boom
Matador Records
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