VIDEO: Straatligkinders on their new album, exotic fish and 2019 tour
“Music is strange, it chooses you more than you choose it. We had an amazing career up until 2013 so we took a break to pursue different things. This year we just felt like it was the right time again. It’s like falling in love, hard to explain but you just know it’s the right thing to do.”
Straatligkinders started back in 2006 when they emerged as a top Afrikaans rock band with a unique and fun-inspired sound. They lit up the streets of Potchefstroom with their popular rock tunes and soon became a nationwide phenomenon with their creative strategies and relaxing attitudes.
The band had a successful run until 2013 when they released their fourth full-length studio album, Konings met Verskonings, which was extremely popular with fans and received multiple awards.
The group then took a breather for the next six years to focus on various other projects and career opportunities.
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Straatligkinders spoke to Rekord about their new album Verdwyn, their aspirations, plans and what they’ve been up to.
“This album kind of just happened naturally,” they told Rekord.
“Music is strange, it chooses you more than you choose it. We had an amazing career up until 2013 so we took a break to pursue different things. This year we just felt like it was the right time again. It’s like falling in love, hard to explain but you just know it’s the right thing to do.”
The band explained that like most things in life, the release of the album happened later than they had anticipated, but that 2019 promises to be an exciting time for them.
“We plan to tour in 2019. Our album came out on 16 November 2018, almost two months later than planned so it was difficult to organise a December tour. We wanted to keep everything a secret so we could not book shows before the album was out and the delay messed a bit with our December plans, but 2019 we will be hitting the road and we can’t wait.”
The band has in a sense, somewhat reinvented themselves from being young and in love with rock, into a more mature group of musicians who sing about life’s emotional elements.
“We really like the track Verdwyn on the album – it’s a very emotional song and very different than our usual rock stuff. Verkyker is also a fun one because it has a weird structure to it, not a typical rock song recipe,” they said.
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Releasing a new album always comes with its own complications and challenges. Straatligkinders has explained connecting with a new sound can be tough after six years with the band members doing their own things. Bouwer Bosch went on to create a successful acting career; Bennie de Jager runs a successful exotic pet shop in Potchefstroom; Ruan Kruger teaches drumming at two private schools in Johannesburg, and Hein Kruger works for Fender South Africa.
“Trusting ourselves with the songs was probably the biggest challenge in making this album. We wrote very different songs than usual. So when you write and record you fly blind, but we had a lot of discussions inside the band about what we wanted to say and sound like, so to trust your own ideas after six years was challenging.”
With regards to collaborations in the future, the band has two favourites they would want to work with.
“Massive Casper Nyovest fans here, he or Youngsta CPT would be amazing to work with. The best collaborations are those that cross genres and cultures.”
The band has expressed their passion towards creating this album and feel that people from all corners will be able to relate to their new style and sound.
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“People always relate to other people because of their humanness. So I think the lyrics will be one thing that listeners will relate to and then our producers did an amazing job in capturing these songs and making them better than how we wrote them. So just on a production level, I think it will definitely be something people are going to like,” the band said.
Verdwyn is the latest album by Straatligkinders and will be launching at Platteland, in Centurion on 24 November.
For more information on their latest album or events in your area, take a look at their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/straatligkinders/
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