Infected Brain

Present yourself to the readers

Hello, readers! We are The Dame: a new progressive rock band from The Hague, the Netherlands. The Dame is:
Marian van Charante – Lead & backing vocals, guitar
Stephen de Ruijter – Lead guitar
Michel Krempel – Bass
Thijs de Ruijter – Keyboards
Ruben Meibergen - Drums

Who composes ?...How does it work in the band ?

Our guitarist, Stephen, writes most of our music. With the 5 of us we work on his ‘ideas’ to which everyone contributes. For the songs Thy Fathers Bidding and Two Rivers, keyboard player Thijs wrote most of the music.

Who writes the texts ?..What are they talking about ?..How does inspiration come ?

Marian wrote the lyrics on the album. When asked what it is about, or how inspiration comes, she just says, “I can’t afford to wait for inspiration. That hardly ever comes spontaneously. I need to have a stern deadline. When that deadline arrives, I can write a bunch of lyrics in 20 minutes if I have to. When you just start writing and tell yourself it’s now or never, it starts flowing.”

Why the name THE DAME ?

This name makes us reminiscent to the day when men were still ‘gentlemen’, and ladies were mysterious and classy; the romantic, but also naughty, era of the roaring twenties. Progressive Rock is a male dominated genre with mostly middle-aged men as fans. We wanted to divert from this and add a bit of sexiness to the genre. Sexy chic, if you like.

What are your personal musical tastes and your influences ?

These differ a lot within the band. We all like guitar music, but preferred musical styles range from indie rock to Prog and Metal, and from Electro to Surf. Or classical music! Between the five of us, we like just about everything except uninspired music that was just made to get rich fast.

What's your opinion about the current music scene in Holland ?

The Netherlands always had a good music scene. When you think back to bands like The Golden Earing, Focus, Eksepsion, George Baker, Within Temptation, The Gathering. We must not forget the Dutch dance scene; Dj Tiesto, Martin Garrix. The Netherlands are also famous for the
Wisseloord Studios where bands as The Police and The Rolling Stones used to record.
We’re privileged to fit in to this eclectic scene.

What's your best live memory ? And why ?

That has to be our album release party. Held in the classic art-deco cinema of The Hague. The show sold out within 2 weeks and was a huge success. The whole entourage of the venue, guests who dressed in roaring twenties outfits, it all culminated in a great show. The entire show was filmed by a camera crew and used for our video clip for the title track of the album.

In studio, what was the ambiance for the album LOSING SIGHT OF WHAT YOU WANT ?...etc.…

We were very lucky to find one of the best Dutch producers available: Chris Muller from HollandSpoor Studios. Apart from getting every single bit of our music to a higher level of quality, he is a genuinely great guy we all love to work with. We felt a lot of freedom and creativity to compose new pieces into our songs on the spot. It was an invigorating experience!

How does it work for the design of the CD ? and why this title ?

All the artwork, for the album, merchandise, website etc. is done by our very talented friend Ruben Tomeï. We devised a concept for our band identity around our own version of the roaring twenties style. So all artwork, music, lyrics, website and merchandise are designed following the image of black and white photography, art deco drawings and pin striping, with of course a leading lady as ‘The Dame’.
Why this title? It came from the title song “Losing sight of what you want”. Marian isn’t too sure, but it might mean something along the lines of how life can get in the way of what truly matters to you. We all wanted to make this album years ago, and now we finally saw the opportunity to take a stab at the thing we always wanted, and went ahead and did it (well, except for Thijs, that is. He’s 15 ;-)).

What are your projects ?

Right now, we are busy writing scripts for the next two video clips that will come out in summer and around Halloween. All we can say is; those will be quite interesting… also, there will be more live performances by the Dame this year. Stay tuned!

What do you expect from the future ?

Having more fun together, growing individually and together as a band. Promoting the album, playing lots of gigs and continue making badass rock music!

What's your motto ?

“If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.” We like to play, work and goof off together as a group. It feels like family to us.

Website to remember

www.thedameband.com

What would you like to say to the readers ?

Every day is a good day to get together with the people that matter to you. Goahead; drink that expensive bottle of champagne and dance on the table. Let’s misbehave!