I saw a video of Bitter Grounds and felt the need to find out more... So I was lucky enough to be able to ask the guys a few questions about their music and the music scene in The Netherlands.. These guys Rawk Hard!





Thanks for the interview.. Can you give us some background on Bitter Grounds?

Thank you! Well, Bitter Grounds is basically four guys from Utrecht, The Netherlands who have all been in various bands through the years, but for three of us a band called Beans was our first band. Beans played hundreds of shows in The Netherlands and throughout Europe. However, around 2005 we decided to call it quits, for all kinds of reasons, but mainly because somehow we didn't enjoy the band that much anymore. So we moved on to other (punk)bands, or pursued other interests. We all remained very good friends, however. We've known each other for over half our lives. And we simply decided to get together and play music again in the spring of 2015.

Now do I have this right you all played in Bitter Grounds then moved on and now you are reforming?

The thing is Sander, Ronald and Peter played in band called Beans until about 2005. We started playing around 1996, so we lasted about ten years. We recorded 4 albums and two split EP's (with The Filaments from the UK, among other bands). We played everywhere from squats to larger venues, from local shows to opening for bigger bands like Dropkick Murphys and US Bombs. We did some tours across Europe and even managed to tour Russia, which was a really interesting experience. At a certain point around 2005, just after we released our 4th album, we decided to give it a rest. Early last year (2015) we were thinking of getting together again, but under a different name and with a new bunch of songs. Then a friend of ours got married and asked us if we would do one last Beans show at the party. We said yes, so we started rehearsing for that show first, and started writing new stuff immediately after. But again, we didn't want to do this lame comeback/revival kind of thing and wanted to write and play new songs. So we decided to adopt the name Bitter Grounds (we never liked the name Beans anyway... we kinda got stuck with that somehow). Our musical style hasn't changed that much (although we hope it has matured some) and we all still love to play punk with some ska/reggae thrown in. Our last Beans abum never saw an official release - It was only released in small numbers in Russia, in support of our tour there - so we decided to take 4 songs from that album end release them as a digital download under the Bitter Grounds flag, as a teaser for our upcoming full-length. These songs are now known as our 'Remnants...' EP.


In the 2016 version of Bitter Grounds is it all the same members?

Sander, Ronald and Peter all played in Beans. Daan played bass in a band called Last to go and he was our stand in bassplayer for Beans a few times.

What made you decide to reform?

Multiple reasons, actually. We kinda missed playing together, but we also missed the energy and aggression in today's music scene.

Tell us some of your influences?

There's loads, but we suppose Operation Ivy, Rancid, the Clash, Bad Religion were some of our earliest musical influences when we formed Beans at age 18. But we also really enjoy bands like the Filaments, One Man Army, Against Me!, Cock Sparrer, Oxymoron... The list goes on, basically. And it's not just punk rock of course. We like all kinds of stuff, but punk rock is the style of music we enjoy playing the most. Lemmy from Motorhead once said in an interview that everything you hear is an influence, even the stuff you don't like, because that tells you what NOT to sound like. That kind of sums it up, which makes listing specific influences difficult sometimes.


Tell us who is in the band and what do they play?

Bitter grounds is Sander (guitar & vocals), Ronald (guitar & vocals), Daan (bass), and Peter (drums).

You have an Ep coming out tell us about that?

Well, it's basically a digital release that Ring of Fire Records from Germany helped us out with. As we explained, it's kind of a teaser for our upcoming full-length, and a way of finally releasing a few songs from the final Beans album that never really got to see the light of day.

I am really impressed by the video for Radio Silence that you released . Was it from a live show?

Thank you. We wanted it to be something that captured the energy of a live performance, instead of the three-minute reel of self-glorification that seems to be standard these days. But to be perfectly honest we shot the footage for that video in about 45 minutes in our rehearsal room, using a digital camcorder. Sander and Ronald then spent another 4 hours editing the video on a pc and that was it! It's pretty amazing what you can do yourself these days.

I love the vocals and how tight the band sounds. How long had you been rehearsing before you played live?

Thanks. Since that song was recorded at the end of Beans' life, we had been playing together for years at that point. Before we played our first show ever in 1997 it had probably been about a year, since we formed in 1996. But we likely weren't as tight back then. The vocal style also changed a bit over the course of Beans' existence, and because Radio Silence was one of our final songs it is somewhat representative of the way we sound today.


You have a full length coming out. When with who?

We're going to record our full length album this april 2016 at the Amsterdam Recording Company and release it on Ring of fire records, which is a small DIY label run by Claas König from Germany. But record labels in general seem somewhat less important theseb days. Its kind of easy to spread your music online. We suppose the difficult part is drawing attention to your album. But we've noticed that there are a lot of good people out there running sites and spreading the word.

Do you plan on touring?

Yes we do.

Any chances that you will be coming to America to play?

We would love to play there sometime! However, there are no concrete plans at the moment.

Tell us about the punk scene in The Netherlands?

Well the Netherlands is a small country, which means there's a small scene. Right now punk rock (in the underground way) also seems kind of dormant over here. There's things going on in squats of course, but those seem limited to crust punk and similar styles at the moment. The punk rock scene was really viable in the 90s and early 00s, but seems to have assimilated into a more general hipster 'movement'. Lots of beards, coffee and fixie bikes.


Did you tour Europe when you originally formed Bitter Grounds?

As Beans, yes, a few times. Our friends from Antidote took us on our first tour of Europe, which was absolutely great. We did a few more after that, usually with some of our friends' bands, but we also opened for larger bands like the Real McKenzies on small tours. With Bitter Grounds, we really wanted to play new songs, so we have been focusing on writing those since the beginning. Because we really love to record as well, we decided to release our record around the same time as playing our first shows. Having the songs out there makes it more fun for the audience as well, because they'll have something to sing along to during shows.

Tell us what is coming up for Bitter Grounds in 2016?

We're currently finishing up our record, which will be released around late spring/early summer, so there's that. We're also working on booking our first shows. There's a few great opportunities as we speak, but nothing's certain yet. Basically we expect to get things firmly up and running this year.


Do you have any Internet addresses you would like to share with the readers?

EP: https://bittergrounds.bandcamp.com/releases
FB: https://www.facebook.com/BitterGroundsBand/
Site: http://bittergrounds.nl/


Describe yourself in three words?

Down to earth' would probably cover it...

Any final thoughts for the readers of Punk Globe?

Thanks for reading, and hopefully taking an interest.