“As long as we’re writing, there will be Fetish.”

 This interview was first published in Perdeby on 4 March 2013.

“Everything that ever involves Fetish always nearly falls apart,” says frontwoman Michelle Breeze, tilting her head back in nervous laughter. She’s talking about the band’s tour to promote Little Heart, their first album in ten years.

But fall apart it didn’t, and as Fetish finish the Pretoria leg of their tour at Arcade Empire, a fan comes backstage to proclaim his adoration for the band. He wants a photograph with them and a signed CD, of course.

“On the cover or on the disc?” asks guitarist Dominic Forrest.

“Wherever. Just sign it. Please,” he says emphatically, as if the question is frivolous. He’s probably been waiting for this moment for years, much like everyone else who worshipped Fetish at their peak in the 90s and who genuinely mourned when the band crumbled in 2002.

Before the internet democratised music, before Belville spawned artists like Fokofpolisiekar and before Jack Parow made kommin cool, there was another band with a cult-like following: Fetish.

The band burst onto the local music scene at the same time that alternative rock erupted in South Africa. There was a music revolution in the pop-dominated market and Fetish was at the forefront of it. They offered something different, a sound that was dark, edgy and contemplative.

Along with that came unmatched live performances with the gamine-like Breeze intoning the most undisguised lyrics. You would find yourself just standing at a Fetish gig and listening. Listening, and watching. No dancing. Breeze’s commanding presence wouldn’t allow it.

The band’s success snowballed after the release of Fetish in 1997, So Many Prophets in 1999 and the Shade of A Ghost EP in the same year. They opened for bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, Lenny Kravitz, Goo Goo Dolls, Skunk Anansie and The Cure. It seemed as if they were destined to go far or, at least, as far as a local band can go, and that was exactly the problem.

Fed up with the tiny South African market that saw their music career plateau, Fetish decided to give the overseas one a go. Breeze and Forrest made London their home and, with band members scattered all around the world, that was the supposed end of Fetish.

Now, years later, after getting an offer from Cape Town’s Digital Forest Studio to record again, Fetish have made a much anticipated comeback. “We hadn’t written together in about five years, but it took on a life of its own, really. There was nothing forced about it, which was nice,” says Forrest about the band’s reunion.

All the tracks for Little Heart were written in London in the two-month period before the band started recording in Cape Town. The recording process was also quick, with the entire album taking just two weeks to record. This brought about a more stripped-down, gritty, guitar-driven sound that still sounds like Fetish, just minus the electronic sound that underpinned their sound in the 90s. “It’s rawer than the earlier ones because it was done in such a compressed space. You also get a bit more of a live feel to it. I know everyone says that,” says Forrest looking at Michelle and laughing, “but it’s true.”

That’s not the only thing that has evolved about Fetish’s music, though. Breeze’s songwriting has, inevitably, also taken a slightly different direction. “I think my perspective is more outward-looking instead of that much inward-looking. There’s more of a consideration of the world that is going on around me,” she says. And this shows, especially in “Paper Skies”, a collaboration with Shadowclub frontman Jacques Moolman about the London riots that Breeze experienced in her adopted hometown.

Johan Smith from Muse magazine once argued that Fetish were never able to reach their full songwriting and musical potential. He said that glimmers of their promise could be heard on 2006’s Remains, an album of unreleased songs and demos.

Do Fetish think that they have lived up to their potential? “I think it’s a continuous thing,” says Forrest. “We always think we can write newer, better songs. Every song we write just evolves naturally.” Breeze adds, “We’ve already been talking about the new album and how we’re going to approach it and we want to express different things this time and probably take the music direction slightly differently. You want to keep changing things, otherwise it becomes boring.”

Does that mean there’s a future for Fetish? “We definitely want to continue making music and I think the chemistry is really good for us as a band. That’s not really easy to find just anywhere,” says Breeze. “As long as we’re writing, there will be Fetish,” adds Forrest.

Perhaps the best way to understand Fetish’s journey is by listening to “Merry Go Round”, the second single off Little Heart. “Merry go round / merry go round / everything changes / pity we got off so soon,” sings Breeze in the song’s chorus.

Everything has changed, yes, but one thing that has undoubtedly remained the same is Fetish’s ability to create more than music. They create art and Little Heart is a perfect example of just that.

Watch Fetish covering Rihanna's "Diamonds" below. It's so much better than the original, you guys.


Fetish - Diamonds (Rihanna) from Ross Campbell on Vimeo.

New music: Al Bairre release "Solid Gold"

My favourites, Al Bairre, have released a brand new song, "Solid Gold". Can't wait till they come visit us in Pretoria. I'm told it's going to be soon, very soon.

A Jakkals expedition: who's new in the zoo?

I visited Joburg's Puma Social Club for the first time to interview Jakkals. Published in Perdeby on 25 February 2013.

Jakkals at Puma Social Club.

“We’re from Cape Town, but the funny thing is, by the end of this tour, we will have played more shows in Jo’burg,” says tousle-haired Jakkals lead singer and guitarist, James Boonzaier, to a rather rowdy crowd at the Puma Social Club. Some are playing table tennis, some foosball, but as Jakkals launch into another one of their syrupy spoonfuls of indie pop, the crowd slowly starts paying more attention.

Boonzaier, drummer Tim King and bassist Mark de Menezes are venturing up north for the first time as a mere three-month-old three-piece. The popular venue in Braamfontein is the third stop of their tour and, having played only two small acoustic shows so far, tonight’s considerably larger audience will be the barometer for how well their new sound is received.

Truth is, Jakkals has seen many incarnations over the years and with so many members coming and going, it’s quite tricky keeping up while Boonzaier tries to explain the band’s history.

Boonzaier and King first did a few small shows with session musicians before putting together a formal line-up for a gig at Purple Turtle in Cape Town. That’s when former bassist Patrick Skuce and guitarist Johnny Kotze (popularly known as Johnny Neon) came in. The members eventually went their separate ways for various reasons, leaving Boonzaier and King in the company of session musicians once again.

Fast-forward a few months to where popular alt-indie-rock band The Dirty Skirts was winding down and drummer of the band, Mark de Menezes, was keen to try his hand at playing the bass guitar. Boonzaier, who had been friends with De Menezes for years, invited him for a jam session and the rest, as they say, is history.

Have all these changes in Jakkals’s line-up affected the band’s sound? “Profoundly,” says Boonzaier. “The energy, the song-writing process has changed. Jakkals 1.0, let’s call it the first Jakkals, was very simplistic rock. I would call it less intricate, less interesting, perhaps. I think with this set-up, there’s been a lot more push and pull, a lot more people bringing in their opinions, rather than going along with what’s happening. There’s been a bit of a tug to and fro and that’s resulted in a more intricate and interesting sound, something I’d like to call a bit more fresh,” Boonzaier says.

King agrees. “I think this time around, we’ve all grown up a bit and become a lot more mature. Our whole process has been a lot cleaner and it’s resulted in a sound which is, I suppose, more mature,” he says.


Jakkals went into studio mid 2012 to record a three-track EP, Trifle, at Teejay Terreblanche’s Coffee Stained Vinyl Studio in Cape Town. “We had a discussion about it and we kind of feel that albums are possibly a bit in the past. People want singles,” says De Menezes, explaining why the band decided to record a mini-EP.

Another reason is that an album would be inappropriate to the style of writing that Jakkals is working on at the moment. “An album would just be a collection of songs rather than a themed collection of songs,” says Boonzaier.

So are there any lyrical themes on the EP then? “The way I often write lyrics, no individual song seems to be about a particular theme, but over a period all the songs I write are mixtures of current themes. I think those songs are deeply rooted in being love songs, but not in the generic sense. Love songs in the sense of relationships and your life reconciling, transition periods, coming of age, reaching adulthood and juggling things, changes, and making it work,” says a contemplative Boonzaier.

Their new set-up seems to be suiting Jakkals well, with the band gaining momentum quite quickly. Last year they were chosen as one of 12 bands to have a music video commissioned by the MK Music Video Project. They teamed up with Kelsey Egan from production company Crave Pictures to make a video for their track “Rum Trifle”. “She [Egan] is very passionate and has a lot of drive. I mean the team that she put together was completely insane. We were very lucky,” says De Menezes about the experience. “It was a hotshot crew, hotshot equipment,” adds Boonzaier.

Back at the Puma Social Club, Jakkals have just completed the final song of their set. Boonzaier props his guitar against a speaker on the side and heads straight to three girls who have been standing in front and who are easily the band’s most vociferous fans. He wraps his arms around each of them, whispering a soft “thank you”.

As the crowd erupts in a call for an encore, another group of girls head to the stage for a photograph with Jakkals, followed by another hug-seeker who squeals with delight when she gets what she is looking for.

If the Puma Social Club gig is supposed to be Jakkals’s likeability barometer, it’s safe to say that the forecast looks good.

Bittereinder: die masjien wil dans

I chatted to Bittereinder about their new album, Die Dinkdansmasjien, at the launch of Party At. Published in Perdebyon 18 February 2013. 

Jaco van der Merwe at Hatfield Square                                                                      PHOTO: Hendro van der Merwe

“Ek rap vir die eer van eerlik wees, elke lyn soos die pyn van `n geweer teen jou neus / ek weet dis als te hectic, maar ek skryf wat ek sien, Bittereinder vat jou orals soos `n dink-en-dans masjien,” says Bittereinder’s Jaco van der Merwe as he spits out the lyrics of “Die Dinkdansmasjien” to a sea of smitten gangster arms in Hatfield Square.

It was the launch of PartyAt, a new mobile application that shows you where all the events and specials are happening in your area. It was also the start of RAG weekend and the audience, which consisted mostly of cherub-faced first years, was being schooled in fat beats and thought-provoking lyrics.

It’s exactly what the Afrikaans hip-hop trio hope to do with their second offering, Die Dinkdansmasjien: make you ponder their expressive lyrics and have a good time while doing so.

“Instead of it being very intellectual, conscious rap, [some] people can come to the show to party and not get into the lyrics, and other people can get into it. It offers both without detracting from the other,” says Peach van Pletzen, one half of Bittereinder’s beat-making part of the machine.

This idea of the multi-faceted machine has taken on a presence of its own, almost as if it is the invisible fourth member of the band which has steered Bittereinder’s sound into a slightly darker, more menacing direction.

“There’s this machine presence, which kind of has a deep voice and I think that was kind of a running theme for a lot of the stuff we did. A lot of the stuff is kind of hard, gritty and industrial, and a lot of it is also quite fast,” says Louis Minnaar, the other cog that drives the beat-making piece of the machine and the man responsible for all the band’s visual elements.

“I just think it often makes for us, as producers, more sense to make a texture for lyrics that are slightly darker as opposed to quirky. We did the quirky, happy thing with `n Ware Verhaal and I think now we’re looking for something more dramatic,” says Van Pletzen.

Like `n Ware Verhaal, Die Dinkdansmasjien boasts a number of collaborations with music-industry heavyweights. “Jaco always says that part of hip hop is collaboration. He loves collaborating with people who are not particularly in the hip-hop genre,” says van Pletzen.

Cue Shane Durrant, the charismatic front man of indie band Desmond & The Tutus, the man whose loony stage antics have been described as “what Mick Jagger would be capable of had he grown up listening to kwela,” and probably the least obvious person to appear on an Afrikaans rap track.

But rap he does, under the alias of Kwaad Naas, the man who skops the track dood as he explains, “I grew up in the Moot, but my Afrikaans is limited to net `n paar woorde.” The song “Kwaad Naas”, which is about how Afrikaans and English people both slaughter each other’s languages, has become Bittereinder’s cross-over song of sorts into the English market, explains Minnaar.

Van Pletzen agrees: “It wasn’t the plan, but it’s important for English people to just take note. What they do with it is up to them. A lot of them are now listening to the album and some of them are getting into it and some aren’t, but at least they’ll give it a try.”

Another striking collaboration is an almost eight-minute-long track which features eight well-known South African writers’ thoughts on a particular subject. The impressive list consists of The Buckfever Underground’s Toast Coetzee, Hunter Kennedy, Ilze Ontong, MJ du Preez, Andries Bezuidenhout, Mavis Vermaak and Tom Gouws.

Were the Bittereinder boys worried about the risk involved in making a track so different to anything they, and anyone else really, has ever done before? “If you make an entire album of three-and-a-half-minute singles and hits, three, four months later, there’s nothing to hold onto. I felt ‘Regstreeks’ gave the album a certain depth and that’s very important,” explains van Pletzen.

One thing that certainly hasn’t changed is Bittereinder’s ability to put on an unmatched live performance (they have been nominated for Best Live Act at this year’s MK Awards). How can Bittereinder convince their fans to vote for them? “We’ll come to every little town and play a personal thank-you show, whether it’s to 30 people or 300 or 3 000,” says Van Pletzen with a smile.

Now if that’s not motivation, what is?

Turns out I'm back

You will notice that I've started posting articles that I've written for Perdeby again when, in fact, I bid my sad farewells on this here blog last year. Truth is, I've decided to stay on for another year. I more or less made the decision on New Year's Eve while watching The Plastics' incredible set. I found myself reminiscing about the interview I had had with the band a few months before, and just how much I enjoyed it. I absolutely love my job and the thought of not being able to do another interview was almost depressing and, I must admit, a little bit frightening. At the end of the year, I'll be looking for a job that won't necessarily involve me writing about music. It's something that I adore doing, so while I have the opportunity to, why the hell not?

Review: Beast's "Smoke Swig Swear"

Here's the review I did of Beast's debut album, Smoke Swig Swear for Perdeby. Published on 18 February 2013.

Taxi Violence drummer Louis Nel and guitarist Rian Zietsman wondered what a rock band would sound like if they ditched the electric guitar and had two basses instead. They plugged one of the basses into a guitar amp creating, rather ingeniously, a quick, formidable punch of grunge-laden rock ‘n’ roll.

They needed an indispensable backbone for their sound and so invited drummer Sasha Righini of The Plastics fame to join them. Knowing they wanted a female vocalist, Nel and Zietsman then approached Lark’s mesmeric siren, Inge Beckmann, to polish off their creation.

The result of this deliciously dark sonic experiment? The musically brazen creature that is Beast was unleashed.

Now, after teasing audiences around the country with their ferocious sound, they have finally released their free debut album, Smoke Swig Swear.

“And all the idols will topple over / And the fair maidens will be reformed / And all the men will know their worth when earth implodes,” intones Beckmann menacingly on “Hand of God”, an ill-omened foreboding about the wicked ways of mankind.

On “Fill The Hole”, we are introduced to a boisterous Beckmann who masterfully manipulates her usual operatic voice to scream and howl, to yelp and shout. The song also uncovers the hypnotic front woman’s impeccable songwriting skills in a series of chilling commands that are set against an aggressive force of guitars.

Title track of the album “Smoke Swig Swear” takes you on a contemplative stroll through town while “Walls” is a vertigo-inducing guitar frenzy that speaks of a self-consuming desire for freedom as Beckmann incites, “Kick down the door. Make space for more and rise.”

Make no mistake in thinking that you will find sweet songs that encourage a forest of swaying lighters on Smoke Swig Swear. It’s all about frenetic slabs of raw, unadulterated music that grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you savagely before delivering a stinging slap across the face and heading for the door.

Beast is the sound of brooding in a bar that smells of stale cigarettes and beer-infused sweat, the sound of waking up in a bizarre place the next day, and the sound of no regret.

It’s hot and it’s dirty, and best of all, it’s a command to let loose and indulge in some guiltless abandon.

RATING: 8.5/10

I want:

All images found via my latest obsession, Fancy.