The up and coming art-rock/Americana Marvin Dee Band from Rotterdam, NL, is releasing a new album. The band speaks of a new chapter after a long period of change and growth on a personal and musical level. The new album is therefore called ‘Changes’. The name started out as a working title, after a song that didn’t end up making the final cut, but the name stuck and continuously came out on top as the most suitable title.
The band went through a long period of change and growth, which they are now wrapping up. With a new guitarist, new backing vocalists and a new drummer, Marvin Dee Band is truly reborn. The new album features 11 captivating songs that each reveal a little bit of the band’s story.
The band is starting off their new beginning in PAARD, The Hague on the 6th of October, where they will celebrate the release of the album with a spectacular live show with horns, strings and special guests joining them on stage. For now, the album will only be released on CD and Vinyl, so it will not appear in all the online streaming services just yet. On the 4th of October, the 4th single from the album ‘Sweetlake City’ will be released on all digital platforms.
In this interview spotlight, I chat with the Marvin Dee Band about the forthcoming release, technology, challenges and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
We’re from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, but we don’t really have a typical Rotterdam sound, I think. We make accessible, but not too mainstream, rock music with many twists and influences. For now, we’ve decided to stick with the term “Art Rock / Americana” in an attempt to touch on both our theatrical influences and our country/blues side. One thing you definitely can expect in all of our music though is big vocals and harmonies, that’s probably or biggest trademark. The whole band, even the drummer, sings live.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
Marvin, our frontman and songwriter, started out in musical theatre, acting in several big national productions as a kid. As he grew up and started to find his own sound, he realised he loved making music the most, and started a solo project with his own songs. But Marvin never enjoyed being on stage alone much, so he quickly gathered a band, and Marvin Dee Band was born. Taking inspiration from Dave Matthews Band and from his own theatrical background, we ended up here, somewhere on the scale of rock music, with our very own unique twist.
It’s a longer path making music that isn’t mainstream pop, especially in a small market like the Netherlands. But we’ve never wanted to make music for the masses just to be famous. For us, music is about telling a story, opening up and being vulnerable, and most of all making it together. We love sharing a stage and sharing our music with whoever wants to listen. We don’t use backing tracks or auto tune. We’re just a group of guys making noise the best we can. That’s what makes us happy, do we can’t really imagine doing it any other way, or doing something else entirely.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
The new album is much more personal than anything we’ve released before. The songs come from a deeper place, and the process of making it brought us all much closer together because it wasn’t always smooth sailing. We really had to work hard to make this album and we didn’t want to do it half way. We decided that we weren’t going to make concessions this time around, so we didn’t.
This album was made 100% by us. All the music is written by us, arranged by us, produced by us and paid for by us. No label, no A&R, no marketers. Just our vision. We hope that this album will show the world what we’re capable of with limited means and budget, and that it will open doors for us to work together with people that can help us take it to the next level. A sort of musical resume, an application to a life of making music for the long term.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
The digital age had helped us immensely to reach new audiences and to get out music heard. It’s so much easier to release music now, because you can record it all at home and upload it. You don’t need a label to get your release in the record stores. That also means there’s a lot more competition out there, and it’s harder to get noticed in the enormous catalogues, but we hoped that we bring something unique to the table that people will enjoy.
What was the last song you listened to?
Every morning I (Marvin) get an update from my Google assistant about my schedule for the day, and when she’s done telling me my appointments, the weather and traffic information, she automatically plays me some jazz music to start the day. It’s 8a.m. now, so, Oscar Peterson.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Quite a few of us listen to vinyl. CDs not so much anymore, but we do still have them. We still sell a lot of CDs, so they’re definitely not passé yet! Especially our older fans like CDs. We wanted to release this record on vinyl because we wanted to go back to the times when albums we’re still a proper product, with a physical experience and a fancy artwork. The cover of our LP is laminated with two different finishes, so touching it adds to the experience of the artwork. Listing to vinyl makes you listen more closely and actively, because you also have to turn the record every 3 to 5 songs. You can’t just put on a playlist in the background and forget what’s playing for hours. That’s the kind of experience we want to promote. We love listening to music and discovering new layers, parts, harmonies and subtle extras. There’s so many layers to the music we make, vinyl seemed like the logical choice.
But we also love MP3s because we love to listen to music on the road when we’re on the way to a show. You can’t play vinyl in a moving car! We release on all the mediums because we want to make our music accessible to everyone, in whichever form they prefer.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
In the Netherlands, most people have Spotify, so we pretty much all have an account there, but we don’t really have a reason other than that it’s just the most used platform. We know that in France for example, Deezer is most widely used, so we try to stay in touch with playlisters on there too. Pretty much all our Apple music sales come from North America. We just want people to enjoy the music, we don’t really care where. It’s not about making the most money for us, it’s about sharing. If we can make people feel something, that’s what’s important.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
You can find us everywhere and anywhere! We’re on pretty much every streaming platform you can think of. We try to make really personal music videos for YouTube, so you can check us out there too. In ‘little boy’ you can see us as kids, and in the ‘bolt everything down’ video you can see us recording in the studio as we are now. We also have a few really cool acoustic live sessions on there that we think came out really well.
You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Marvin Dee Band. We also all have individual Instagram accounts that we link to regularly from the band account. We try to be as easy to find as possible.
Anything else before we sign off?
Thanks so much for taking to time to get to know us better, and we really hope you enjoy the new album! We love making music and the only way that’s possible is if people keep listening. Our newest single “Sweetlake City” will be out on all digital platforms worldwide on September 27th, so do check it out!
