Pierre Vervloesem
by Mister Mime
3rd June 2021
A true artist makes the most of available resources and existing circumstances to create sincere and meaningful expression. Belgian guitarist and musician Pierre Vervloesem, who is known as ‘the Frank Zappa of Belgium’, does exactly this in his experimental album “Don’t”, where he channels his inner Jon Hassell and brings out a unique, avant-garde sound with the help of only his guitar, bass, a bucket, and a dictaphone. Read that again. In fact, the very same bucket also happens to be featured on the album cover, which shows the transcendental nature of art. Pierre is living proof that human creativity is not only boundless, and in fact, thrives under limitation.
MM: Why did you decide to call the album “Don’t”?
PV: In fact, I do not decide much. Things come and go and I take on the fly what happens at the time of the “choice". I guess given the style of the album, a title like "Stories from the Forgotten Lands" or something esoteric like that would have been more appropriate. But I was probably in a bad mood once again and a ‘Don't (f*ck with me)’ happened at that time.
MM: How do you name your tracks? Like ‘Wild Boar Dance’
PV: Once the album is finished, I listen to it once again and I find the titles while each song is playing. I have no idea where these names come from, they are the names of the moment.
MM: Can you tell us about the album artwork?
PIERRE: I wanted the bucket (the current bucket that I used as percussion) to be like a mountain, I took a picture of the bucket and I sent it to Thierry Mondelaers (who sang in X - Legged Sally and a Group) and he put it in a situation. Suddenly it doesn't look like a mountain anymore but more like a nuclear power station or something like that. I take what comes.
MM: What gave you the idea to make this record only with a guitar, bass, a bucket and a dictaphone?
PV: This is how I design all my albums, a concept that forbids me more than it allows me. Here I wanted to go into the Jon Hassell mystery; his music actually has as much music as it does mystery. There is the trumpet, yes, but the whole background is a mystery and must remain so. But all the same, I really wanted to put a foot in it, just one foot, and that would have been mission accomplished for me.
PV: I needed a trumpet but it's ridiculous. There is no shortage of Jon Hassell imitators on the trumpet. So for me, it was the guitar, which turned out to be impossible - but hey ... still something came out and that's what matters. The bucket is because I felt I had to play the percussions by hand. I don't have any percussion at home but my wife is a florist and she has metal buckets and since I just wanted to tap gently with my fingertips, it was perfect. The dictaphone is because the background of the painting (to make a magnificent pictorial metaphor) could not be white as there is no white background with Jon Hassell, just mystery! So I went to record things a maximum of 20 meters from my work chair to paint the background. On "Empty Stomach", the background sound is the dictaphone placed on my stomach and it's the jungle in my stomach! All these elements were decided in the evening, for the next morning.
MM: Can you tell us about your musical background, and how your journey began?
PIERRE: I already have 40 years of music behind me but there are very few steps in my journey:
-I started a band at school, we voted who would play what and I got the bass
-I heard "Elephant Talk « before going on stage one evening and decided I also wanted to make elephant noises on the guitar
-I had a reputation as a guy who does weird stuff on the guitar (i.e. not blues) and was enrolled in X-Legged Sally, which became a Group that became Flat Earth society, and thus remained in the same group for 29 years
-I left the group and now I release an album per month. I can't read or write music.
MM: Who were your biggest influences on this album and through your life?
PIERRE: For this album Jon Hassell ... and for the rest - in my early youth - German electronic music, music that I did not understand, was also very attractive. There was in my (big) village a bus that came once a week from the capital with vinyls, jazz, classical, and the rest. I unknowingly took things that seemed interesting to me (as long as there was no saxophone in the credits) and then one day I picked "Studio Tan" by Frank Zappa - finally, some music that wasn't a genre, just music. “Snakefinger”, then later "Memory Serves » by Material, then Naked City then Fantomas; the rest lacked a little flavour.
MM: What inspires you outside of music and what do you like to do apart from making music?
PIERRE: I work on my music 10 hours a day 7 days a week. At 5:07 p.m. I stop working and I go to the department store to buy food, always coming back very annoyed to have been in contact with the outside world (almost exclusively populated by morons). Then I cook. I watch an episode of "Rick & Morty", and then have nightmares all night (unrelated to the cartoon). Then in the morning, I'm ready to compose/play/mix. This is my life (with my lovely wife). It may be that between 2 albums, the following idea does not come immediately, so I take pictures.
MM: You are known for doing all of your own productions from head to toe (save the artwork!). Have you always been a DIY person?
PV: I have probably mixed more than 500 cd’s, at the beginning in the studio then with the computer at home. I can't stand going to the studio anymore and fortunately, I don’t, because my records have to cost nothing. That is exactly my budget: 0. If I had a budget, I would use musicians that I would pay, even possibly a large orchestra; I would have it mixed by someone with talent etc, etc. Unfortunately, money decides everything.
MM: I am curious about which guitars and what kind of FX pedals you use, for example at the start of track no.3 “Catania", and in track no. 4 "Bite One’s Tail”
PV: I use a Reverend Double Agent, but any guitar with a tremolo that stays tuned is good for me. I use a Kemper with any amp model that takes the pedals well (prescription electronics experience, EHX Cock Fight, Digitech Freqout).
The beginning of "Catania" is my garage door, then the river which flows along with my house with the birds that go with it. The sounds are then inserted into the Cubase sampler.
"Bite One's Tail" is the guitar with Kemper's harmonizer and Unfiltered Audio plugins. All my records are available on my Bandcamp.
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All Images courtesy of Pierre Vervloesem
