‘Click Interview’ with Model Depose: ‘The New Romantics Of The Present Time’
Model Depose is a band from The Netherlands, which released their debut full length album “Splitting Light” on Dark Tunes Music Group and Trisol. This opus is a successful mix between good-old new-wave influences and a kind of electro/indie-pop music. I got in touch with guitarist Jobbe Holtes to get some more info about the band and this impressive album.
(by Inferno Sound Diaries)
Q: Who’s hiding behind Model Depose and what kind of band & sound did you had in mind when taking off?
Jobbe: Jobbe, David, Roeland, Mariët and Tim are Model Depose. We share a great passion for alternative music. Initially our music started as an electro project with new-wave guitars. Eventually, line-up changes and evolving writing skills change the way we compose. Our music became richer than we initially aimed for.
Q: You claim to be ‘the New Romantics of the present time’ so what does that mean and what’s the link with your music?
Jobbe: We never claimed to be ‘New Romantics of the present time’. The title was given by others just after the release of our EP “Nightwatch”, and it stuck with us. We feel that it is a beautiful way to define what kind of music influences you can expect.
We don’t necessarily claim that we’re the same or that we even have the same goals in our music, but people feel a lot of similarities with the way these bands sounded and gave way for their musical ideas.
Q: You’re already active for a couple of years now, but why did it take that long to achieve and release this debut album “Splitting Light”?
Jobbe: To cut a long story short; on the moment we wanted to start writing our debut album, we had some major changes within the band. Finally it all came down to the money; recording and other aspects of the music industry can be very expensive so it took some time before we organized ourselves.
We are very happy with the results we’ve achieved over the years and continue to write new music. We hope to release a new album in 2017.
Q: Let’s talk about “Splitting Light”; how did the writing happened and what are according to you the main strengths of this work?
Jobbe: We write our music quite intuitively. A song could start just with a great synth sound or riff. We compose a rough track and start to write lyrics. Later on we re-compose the song to match with our vocal ideas.
We think that the explicit vocals from Roeland are a great strength. The crossover between the polished new-wave sound and edgy rock riffs is another one. The variety of our sounds and contrasts within songs is something we’re pretty proud of as well.
Q: The last song of the album (cf. “Nightwatch”) is a look back at your self-released debut EP released three years ago now. Do you see any progress and maybe improvement in sound and production from “Nightwatch” till “Splitting Light”?
Jobbe: We’re constantly trying to improve our songwriting, the way we orchestrate or how we produce our music. We went from stripping everything to acoustic to full pull productions with many layers and synth textures in the details. From one man productions to group production sessions with collective lyric writing. This way, we learn from every song. But we still love the songs we wrote before, for different reasons obviously.
Q: Your sound clearly reminds me to bands like Depeche Mode, IAMX and Mesh… which I think says something about your potential sources of inspiration. What makes the fascination for some of these bands?
Jobbe: We’re very happy that people mention these great bands and you’ll find music from these bands in our collection although we never try to copy their music. We do what we please music-wise. That’s a quality we’re very proud of.
We think what we have in common with those bands is the interest in emotive music. A bit dramatic, or dark you might say, but furthermore intense.
Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries
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