Sometimes a band contacts me directly and ask for exposure. If I have time and like what I hear I agree to do it. This time mentioning Thundermother got me hooked and as the album was absolutely worth my time I even decided to go for an interview as I feel this is the hottest female fronted Dutch band of the moment! I hope they get booked more often and wish to see them one day on stage! And message for Airbourne: read this one too. Enjoy our nice chat with the leading lady of this magnificent band!
My classic starter: from Where the name The Dirty Denims?
“We always sweat like hell on stage, so you can imagine…. Haha. No, it’s from the song Dirty Denim by The Donnas. When I started The Dirty Denims I was very inspired by this American all girl band so I looked at the song titles. And like every cool band in Hard Rock / Rock’n’Roll just put ‘The’ before and ‘s’ after it.
It’s weird that I don’t wear a lot of denim on stage actually. But the boys in the band do! One time with did a tour in Spain when it’s was quite hot, so on the stage it was also very warm. I think Jeroens jeans could stand up straight by itself at the end, so he lived up to our name then haha.”
What did you all do before getting in this band?
“Pfff that’s a LONG time ago haha. I don’t know anymore exactly, I can’t imagine it without it. I was in a more poppy band before this band. Jeroen had some other bands before. Suzanne was in a coverband and Sebastiaan had several other bands too. So we all had some experience before going to play in The Dirty Denims.”
Funny thing is that I got contacted with the words, hey I noticed you interviewed Thundermother … One of the nice things is that would love to hear you cover one of their tracks called: Borrowed Time as it describes the life on the road perfectly and keeping the balance with a private life. Will you do that for me if it’s possible? What made you pick up Thundermother?
“We love Thundermother, since we got to know them a few years ago. We also love the newest line-up with bandmembers. I think we match with them very well, but I also think we are quite different. We get compared with them a lot though, which I understand, and much of our fans love them too. So I know the audience matches, that’s why I wrote you with that sentence. I love that song Borrowed Time but I don’t think I can sing that haha. I tried singing Driving in Style before but it was quite hard, I’m a different kind of singer.”
I feel like you are the perfect mix between Thundermother (it’s not the same band as before) and Crucified Barbara (they called it a day at their highlight). What do you think of it?
“I know the band Crucified Barbara from name but I will go listen to them more because I’m not sure. Don’t know why I haven’t listened to it already, but maybe because I’m most focused on bands that still exist. But I will make an exception for you because you make me curious.”
You wrote a song Party on, in stead of covering the famous track. Why this approach?
“We didn’t know that song actually haha, before a fan told me about this song. Never heard it! I need to say that answer a lot right? I think we are living underneath a ‘rock’ 😉 It is a little inspired by ‘Party on, excellent!’ from Waynes World. Hope you don’t tell me that you don’t know that haha.”
You are young yet you launched a single Too Loud, too old. What did I miss?
“The text is about people in the audience who think bands are playing too loud. Most of the time older people complain about that haha. So if it’s too loud, you’re too old!”
Is getting on stage the best way to unleash the devil in you or is there another reason why you wrote and launched this one as a single?
“It wasn’t released as a single but Devil In Me is a track of the new album indeed. I think getting on stage unleashes the (happy) beast in me indeed. Normally I’m not very loud and present, but on stage I am. When people from work see me for the first time on stage they are surprised haha.”
How hard is it to do yourself the promo? Are you looking for a record company or do you want to keep full control over every single process yourself?
“I like doing the promotion, so that makes it easier. Of course it’s still a long way to the top. But I like the building of the fanbase a lot. It takes a lot of hard work and we do it for a long time now and still aren’t famous, but for me it’s fine when I still feel the growth. One fan at a time! A big record company would help of course. We also love (and are used to) the control, but I’m sure there is a way to work with a record company haha. But for now it’s okay to do it ourselves. I love to do the business side of it as well and I’m proud where we are now, doing it DIY.”
You just launched the album, but as you are not an average band you decided to create a whole festival around it in Bree? What was the basic idea behind all of this?
“Yes, Sunday June 16th we organize our ‘album release party’ with Denim & Lightning festival at Ragnarok Bree Belgium! I always wanted to organize a festival with underground bands we love ourself, and we thought it would be a great combination with the release of our new album. Besides us these bands will play: Small Jackets (IT), WildHeart (BE), Sweet Electric (DE), Foxy Venus (NL) and Dirty Toy Company (BE). All info here: https://thedirtydenims.nl/pages/denim-lightning-festival
Did you get easy in touch with all the bands that will perform at Bree? Any favourite band you absolutely wanted to perform with you on the same stage?
“The bands were all very enthusiastic about the idea immediately so that went quite easy. We wanted to play with them all actually! With WildHeart and Dirty Toy Company we already played before. Can’t wait to finally share the stage with Sweet Electric and Small Jackets!”
If you would just have to make one phone call or send out a mail to one band to join the stage and go on tour with, who would it be and why? Let your fantasy go and try to respond all.
“That would be Airbourne for sure. We played their support one time and the bandmembers were very nice. Singer Joel even told us that he would say to their manager he wanted us to play support more often. Nothing happened yet, so I would love to make one phone call to their manager that we want to go on a big tour with them.”
What will happen next?
“In 2023 we worked hard with writing, rehearsing, recording, touring and releasing singles. We are very happy the album is out now so we make use of that and want to benefit from the work we did, with playing cool live shows in 2024 and 2025. So that’s the focus for now!”
Any special dreams or wishes for the future?
“Yes, tour with Airbourne as I said before haha. And would love to play with other great bands like Danko Jones, The Darkness, The Lazys. And of course my dream is that we could do a headline tour in Europe with sold out venues!”
Check the album review:
SNOOZECONTROL - The Dirty Denims – Party On
Check them on stage:
