Ok, so Colin asked me to put together my top 10 punk rock influences, which got me thinking. I never really listened to the bigger punk rock bands when I was growing up and only started to appreciate them in the last couple of years. So I figured this is about my influences that got me playing in punk rock bands, so they are punk rock to me. I’ve kind of put them in order of how I started to know them… or just how they popped in my head thinking of how I started listening to and playing music.
Suicidal Tendencies
I took guitar lessons for 2 years from when I was 13 and the guy who was “teaching” me, was a big fan of Suicidal. I had never heard anything like it – it was fast, loud and shouty. I bought The Art of Rebellion and started to play the songs. Playing punk rock started there for me.
The Offspring
One of the big punk rock bands. I remember a friend of my brother coming to our house and bringing either Ixnay or Smash, can’t really remember which because I bought them both shortly after that. I went to see them years later, in the biggest venue in Amsterdam, about 10 years ago it was still awesome!
Peter Pan Speedrock
Growing up in Roelofarendsveen, a small town between Leiden and Amsterdam, Peter Pan Speedrock was a band you couldn’t miss. Every year they came to our local venue called Splotsz and the first time I saw them there I was blown away. It’s rock 'n' roll, it’s punk rock, it’s metal, it had something I was looking for in the music I was trying to make, it had that rock 'n' roll feel but was still loud and really heavy. They were also known as the Netherlands' hardest working band as they toured relentlessly. This was a real inspiration to me to start pushing my band at the time (Noctophyle) to start touring and I started to put all my free time in getting us as many shows as possible. We ended up supporting Peter Pan Speedrock a couple of times, and they were really supportive about us trying to tour more and gave us a some tips and contacts. Last November they called it quits after 20 years unfortunately.
Zeke
My favourite band to this day! Their sound is truly amazing! They can combine fast and slow and it never gets boring! I must say this is my biggest influence in music, from the first time I heard Dirty Sanchez till their last album Till The Living End. They are playing a show in Rotterdam in March and I’ve never been more excited for a band to tour the Netherlands as they haven’t toured in years!
Motorhead
Peter Pan Speedrock and Zeke are both influenced by Motorhead, so it wouldn’t be right to leave them out of my list. I like the combination of rock ’n’ roll with any loud kind of music and Motorhead is just that. After watching the documentary “Lemmy” I really got the idea behind Motorhead / Lemmy and that’s the feeling I always looked for in music and playing in bands.
Psychobilly
I think it’s the rock ’n’ roll thing combined with loud music. Mad Sin, Nekromantix, the Meteors, Kings of Nuthin’. I listened to a lot of them. I’m just not a big fan of the whole horror theme stuff.
Herman Brood and his Wild Romance
This is the greatest rock ’n’ roll artist the Netherlands has ever known. I only started to listen to his music later. He made rock ’n’ roll in the 60s and 70s and after that became more famous because of his artwork and drug abuse. He could play jazz and blues and still it was interesting to me.
Dropkick Murphys
Dropkick is a band that has influenced me over the years. Their live shows are great and there is always a good atmosphere. Basically it’s not just Dropkick Murphys but a whole range of folk punk bands that I really like and I keep discovering new ones – well to me new ones. Recently I've been listening to The Rumjacks and The Mahones a lot. I always like the unity thing they've got going on. Plus I really, really like anything that sounds piratey to me! I wouldn’t say Alestorm is a big influence, but if you don’t know them and you like pirates you have been missing out!
Municipal Waste / Iron Reagan
The thrash party vibe is amazing! The energy that goes around at these shows is something I really love. The way thrash bands act on stage is something that has influenced me as well. For me, playing music live is about trying to get the energy across to the people who are there not just listening but also watching. I think the visual part of a band is half of the performance – I’ve seen bands live that played brilliant but were still boring because nothing was going on. Iron Reagan gets the vibe across and gets a mass moving, that is something Black Volvo always tries to accomplish at a show. Even if it’s just one person who starts to move, that’s a success to me.
TNS Records / UK punk scene
I’ve been touring the UK for over 10 years now, I’ve played tours in mainland Europe as well, but most tours I’ve done were in the UK. It always amazed me how enthusiastic everybody is and how friendly and willing to help. That motivated me to put on more shows in our hometown as well and help out as many bands as I could. But it wasn’t until we met Andy and Bev from TNS Records that we really felt a part of the UK punk scene. I know it sounds weird as I’m Dutch, but since they helped to put out Black Volvo’s first record we’ve played more shows in the UK than we have in the Netherlands. I still don’t really remember how we ended up being a part of the TNS family but we are and it opened a lot of doors for us. Through them we met loads of new people, got to play great festivals – this really kept me going when the shows in the Netherlands were getting harder and harder to book.
Well that was 10… in no particular order I guess… Our new record will be out on March 17th on TNS Records and Make-that-a-take Records, so go and check out if you can find any of these influences.
Pre-order Black Volvo's new LP Bad Driving from TNS here: https://tnsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/bad-driving-2
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