Pip Blom – not only the name of the four-piece from Amsterdam – but also the name of the singer of the band, knows what she wants. It is to play at Glastonbury. The 20year old musician even set up a blog called ‚The Road To Glastonbury‘ to help young bands playing at the biggest music festival of the world. Her passion for music already began in the cradle, with her dad being in a band, her mum being their sound person and them starting an online platform about music. A name that often comes up when talking about Pip Blom are The Breeders, a band they also toured with.
Even though Pip Blom are based in Amsterdam, they played often in the UK and also toured Europe this year. With being away a lot, having British directors shooting their music and English producers, I’m keen to know how the Amsterdam scene feels like and if it has an influence on your music if you’re so well connected abroad.
‘I’m not sure if it really has an influence on our music. The music sounds more like its from the UK than from Amsterdam. It sounds like it comes from a big city. It’s not music from the countryside – its city based music. Amsterdam could be any city. We’re closer to the UK scene, we don’t play much in Amsterdam, we play more in the UK. It goes naturally.’
She continues: ‘Amsterdam has a great music scene. It used to be not that great, there was a certain period of great Amsterdam bands doing good outside. After that it felt like it died a little bit, now it feels like there are young bands doing stuff outside the Netherlands, doing stuff together. It’s definitely starting to get back on track.’
Originally, Pip Blom started out as the solo project of Pip in 2016, the project has now grown to be a full band with three other members joining her on stage: Tender Blom – Pips Brother (guitar and vocals), Caspar van der Lans (Bass) and Gini Cameron (Drums).
‘Because I don’t really think the songs that I write don’t come across when I do it alone on stage. I always wanted to be in a band, it didn’t really work out as I didn’t find people to join me. But it was the first thing when I started out that I wanted to do, so yeah. I want it loud.’
Like everywhere at Reeperbahn Festival, the question of the big Keychange debate also plays a role for the Amsterdam’ band. While they don’t have much too say on this topic though, they definitely sense that there’s a difference in being an all male band or having two women play guitars in a band:
‘I definitely think that some festivals book us because we’re two girls in a band. But I hope they book us because we’re two girls and they like what we do. But you’re never sure.’
The band has gained some fame in the Indie scene with having garage rock darlings Shame and Goat Girl starring in their video for Babies Are A Lie directed by Holly Whitaker. While they don’t know the bands personally (even they would have had the chance to meet Goat Girl at Reeperbahn Festival) there’s definitely an artistic concept behind the videos being made for them. While it’s definitely not DIY, there’s a lo-fi atmosphere in the videos, definitely something that you can sense in their music and live performances as well.
We don’t do our videos, there are other people who do it. They can always do what they want to and we’re never in the videos. They’re always in the UK so we’re not around when they film. I also think that people who do videos are creatives on their own.
So what are the next steps for Pip Blom? While the band definitely drew in the audiences at Reeperbahn and gained some reputation through being featured in various blogs and stations such as KRCW or BBC Radio 1, the band is eager now to release more material soon. And who knows: Maybe fill a spot at Glasto next year?
‘There’s going to be an EP in October and there’s gonna be an album next year. We just recorded the album in Ramsgate, in the Big Jelly Studio. Dave McCraig and the two guys on the studio helped out with the technical bits. We’ve been working with Dave for quite a while now and he knows the studio really well. He knows the studio really well.’
The band’s EP Paycheck was released on 5th October.