ROLAND VAN DER HORST, CHRIS JONKER, PIETER DROST, JOOST HAGEMEIJER, Beyond Reality

Mangrove are a four piece prog band originating from the Netherlands. The band was founded in the late nineties by guitarist and vocalist Roland van der Horst and drummer-vocalist Joost Hagemeijer. Fairly quickly bass player Pieter Drost was found, but only when keyboardist Chris Jonker joined in 2001, the ultimate and still existing line-up was formed and the first steps to national success were made by the release of the album Touch Wood (2004). Reviewers from both the Netherlands and from other countries critically acclaimed the next album Facing The Sunset (2005), for which they received the Prog Award from iO Pages, the leading magazine on progressive rock in the Benelux. All expectations, and even more, were met when the quartet released Beyond Reality (2009), considered by many to be the band's major breakthrough. On a somewhat misty Friday night, your correspondent drove off to the farm of Pieter Drost in Zeewolde, where the band would be rehears that night. Walking past a giant machine and an old Datsun, the band and their manager Henri Heijink were waiting in the back of the barn. A nice coffee-soda-beer corner and a lovely brand new PA system were the striking features of this well insulated part of the barn and there was plenty of room for each member of the band. After a cup of coffee this was what the band members had to say about who they are, what drives them and of course their comments on the making of Beyond Reality.

Would you please introduce yourselves?

Chris: "Well, I'm the keyboard player for Mangrove. What more is there to say?. From the age of eleven until nineteen, I have been taking classical piano lessons. I've studied lots of classical pieces and my favorite composer was J.S. Bach. I just loved his preludes and fugues. When I quit taking lessons I stopped playing music from sheets altogether and I don't think I would be able to play the stuff I used to play at the age of nineteen anymore. Anyway, that's when I started improvising and playing in several local bands until in 2001 Rommert van der Meer, a friend of mine I used to play with, saw this add in iO Pages Magazine: Mangrove were looking for a keyboard player. Rommert pushed me to go for it and instead of trying to put something together with Rommert I became the fourth member of the band. My interest for symphonic rock started with Genesis, albums like Invisible Touch. From there I travelled back in time and discovered the Peter Gabriel years. I discovered Marillion and later on Yes, Pink Floyd and other bands in the genre, but Genesis has always been my favourite band. A band I listen to these days is Kansas, they're still one of my favourites. Although I have albums by bands like IQ, I find myself listening to the old stuff like Yes and Genesis most of the time."

Roland: "I started to play guitar and piano when I was twelve years old. I had a brother and a few sisters who played guitar and every time it was somebody's birthday, they picked up their guitars and that pushed me to learn to play too because I wanted to be part of such a celebration. So I started banging the E-minor chord on the guitar for hours, the next day the A-minor and so on, then I was totally lost: music would be my life. I locked the bathroom door and practiced for hours with a cassette recorder, trying to play Harry Sacksioni songs. At the same time I tried to learn to play the piano by myself, but started taking lessons only when I turned sixteen. At the time I had serious thoughts about going to the conservatory. I could play both guitar and piano but couldn't read a single note, so I had to start learning all the theory from scratch! During secondary school I met Joost and played in a lot of bands, partially with him aboard. That's how Mangrove got started because Joost and I got together at a later stage and recorded some pieces of music under the moniker of Brainstorm around 1997/1998. We still play some of those songs! This was the time Joost and I sat together and had to decide if there was to be another project or that we would try to form a band. So at first there was singer called Eric Holdtman and he knew Pieter Drost. The first line up of Mangrove! After a long search for a suitable keyboard player we finally found Chris in 2001. My first heroes were Yes, later I found out about King Crimson, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd and Genesis. I still listen to Genesis albums but also to classical music."

Joost: "My interest in music started from early childhood. My mother told I could sit still on a couch and listened to Mozart from the age of three. I was taught the general principles of music and I started to play the organ because my main interest was 'weird sounds'. Unfortunately my parents chose to buy a piano. I held out taking lessons for another two years but then, when I was about eleven years of age, I quit. My brother, whom I slept with because we had quite a large family, introduced me to Genesis and Deep Purple. One day I woke up to the sound of Dancing With The Moonlit Knight and from that moment on, I was enchanted. I wanted to unravel all the lyrics and found they actually had something to say. I still play those records with joy. When I met Roland on secondary school because he was taking music classes too, I found out he could play quite well even back then and then there was this urge to pick up music myself again. However, Roland was interested in jazz-rock at the time and I didn't like that genre very much. A few years later we met again on the higher level secondary school and Roland played in the school band. When the drummer decided he'd rather wanted to play bass, they asked me if I was interested to become their drummer. As a coincidence my parents had saved some money and I was able to go to the city of Haarlem and buy myself my first drumkit! My first stokes in some attic and my first collaboration with Roland. We're talking 1985 or so. Then the schooldays and the relationship were over: less time so temporarily I quit drumming but picked up playing the piano again. I bought myself a Yamaha and started writing my first compositions. A bit later on came the first Korg and I was writing even more music. That's when I met Roland again. It turned out we both worked for the same employer and we got together, exchanged ideas and that's how Brainstorm came about. I don't listen to music often, most of the time I'm working on my own stuff but if I'm in a listening mood it's still Genesis!"

Pieter: "At school I learned to play the flute but only by watching how other schoolmates put their fingers. I never learned how to read notes but this approach was just enough to get me a grade up to the mark. One time when I was sixteen, hanging out with a bunch of guys in some bar, I was asked to come and play in a band. I had pretty much to drink at that time and not thinking clearly, so I answered them yeah sure, give me a call. I never expected them to call me, but they did! They told me they had arranged a bass and that they expected me to come and rehearse. The first song I had to learn was a Bruce Springsteen song. Anyway, that's how I got started. I was able to use that bass for a few weeks more and went looking for my own gear and managed to buy a bass plus amplifier for just 150 guilders, about 68 euros. At some point I bought an instruction video and the guy in the shop recommended me one by Billy Sheehan. It turned out that many of the techniques he was instructing, I already used but I became a huge fan of Mr. Big and started collecting all their albums and playing bass lines of all the songs. From one coverband to another, I climbed my way up until the band I was playing at that time split up. Luckily, Erik Holdtman, singer with Roland and Joost remembered he saw me play live once and he made the connection. On a Sunday afternoon I joined these guys for a rehearsal and I enjoyed it tremendously, although I had no experience in playing original compositions and I had never listened to prog. I still don't by the way! In spite of my 'non-prog' history we decided to give it a try, and guess what... I'm still here!"

Almost ten years in the same line up, which is quite a remarkable accomplishment, but per year 'just' between five and ten shows. Does this mean you don't spend enough time together to argue or would you rather be touring half the year and still think you would be able to get along just fine?
Chris: "Of course we would be delighted with more shows, but compared to other bands in this genre whose members have a regular job, we play live rather often and surely more frequently than many of our colleagues. Don't forget we rehearse here in Zeewolde almost every single Friday night and we did so year after year, so I would say we are quite a disciplined band and we do spend a lot of time together. Furthermore we do a whole lot of things ourselves for the band too behind the screen, so I would say Mangrove is undoubtedly a big part of our lives."

Ronald: "We write our own music, we make all of our arrangements ourselves and we did most of the recordings, except for our last album Beyond Reality. This time we used a professional studio. We also make our own cover designs, photos, website, you name it! Everything, even the distribution of the CD's is under our own control. Another peculiarity is that Mangrove still plays the old stuff. The arrangements might change a bit but we keep on rehearsing songs from the very first demo of Joost and me."

Chris: "If you look at our gig-record, you'll notice that the venues we play are getting bigger and nowadays we only play more in the renowned places. We tend to pay more attention the quality than the quantity of our performances. We have been climbing up the ladder and promoted ourselves from support act to co-headliners and have already proof our new album is opening new doors for us. Based on Beyond Reality, Arie Verstegen granted us the first show as sole headliner in November in Cultuurpodium Boerderij at Zoetermeer, and we will make sure it will be a gig to be remembered! Another difference compared to previous albums is, the sales of Beyond Reality just keeps on going on."

Many bands eventually achieve international recognition by playing European venues as support act of a well know band. 

Chris: "Yes I agree, that could be a good way of making a name for yourself, but as said, we all have regular jobs so touring for a longer period of time at this point, is still quite difficult to realise. That's what Riverside did: they felt they were close to international fame and they went for it, gave up their jobs and conquered Europe successfully. We may consider to do the same."

Being influenced by for example Genesis so profoundly, how can you manage to refrain from 'sounding too much like?

Ronald: "Obviously we try hard not to 'sound like' but here's where our manager Henri comes in: he is our conscience and he helps us to rearrange or rewrite bits and pieces that 'sound too much like'."

Chris: "It doesn't matter if there's an occasional riff or fragment that might sound a lot like other bands. People might appreciate it because they can relate to such music. What's more importan: we try to let the music flow naturally and we try very hard to avoid a song consists of unnatural melted bits and pieces. We take it as a compliment if reviewers or fans say to us a that twenty-minute track sounds like only five."

Ronald: "In a way we think we picked up where bands like Genesis or Yes changed their sound. We don't mind to read in reviews that we create the same atmosphere as those legendary bands but I like to read that we are no copy cats!"

Chris: "The term 'progressive' I always find very confusing : we make music where we are extremely proud of but I would be inclined to call it regressive music!"

Why a quartet and not a quintet with a genuine front man/lead vocalist?

Joost: "When Eric Holdtman left the band we had some shows already planned so we had to improvise. That's when Roland and I started to sing but based on the response of the audience this didn't seem like the ultimate solution and we really searched to find a suitable replacement."

Chris: "Looking back, this was a great time, all those so called lead vocalists auditioning. Man oh man, we had some good laughs!"

Joost: "For example we auditioned a guy who pretended he was usually compared with Peter Gabriel and Peter Hammill, but when he was done we thought the comparison was only for one percent..."

Chris: "I can't even remember why, but we even looked for a second guitarist..."

Ronald: "We thought we could do even more with our music using two guitar players as one could imagine."

How do you determine what a particular instrument should sound like? I'm a bit surprised by the sound of the bass for instance. Pieter sounds more jazzy than comparable to either Rutherford or Squire? 

Ronald: "Such things we leave up to the one playing the instrument. We have our own ideas and we can make suggestions, but in the end it's the individual instrumentalist who decides what sound he prefers, because he is the one that should feel good about what he hears."

Pieter: "Sometimes it's quite difficult to establish the sound you have in mind. Playing live is in no way comparable with the sound in the studio and we have to bear in mind that the sound you record must be played live as well. I'd like to sound like Sheehan most of the time but it doesn't always work out like that."

Joost: "Actually sometimes it's really funny: for example I read in a review that Roland plays his guitar sounds like Steve Rothery (Marillion). I don't think Roland has ever listened to a Marillion album in his life! It's very easy to look for references in our music but everything we play is strictly honest and with no intention to sound like any band in particular."

Yoy play between six to ten shows per year. Does that mean you rehearse even more frequently before a show or is once a week enough? Any comments about the shows abroad in the UK and Poland?

Chris: "Usually once a week is a solid base to go on stage without being nervous. For major gigs such as the one we have planned in November, we will certainly get together more often not only to rehearse but also to talk about special effects, lights etcetera."

Roland: "Poland has been really awesome. Two shows we played there and a massive response from the audience. Really nice. You almost feel like a rock star there , because everyone wants to have his photo taken with you and that sort of stuff. Very touching."

Chris: "It's amazing how the audiences respond in different countries. When Roland plays a really nice guitar solo, in the Netherlands people would start to clap their hands during the solo, while in Germany people would tend to wait until the last note has faded away and in Poland people just go crazy! In the UK we visited London and Oxford and when do you get a chance to do so? After the show in The Peel someone came to us and said: how on earth is it possible that I've never heard of you guys?" It's a bit of the same kind of question we ask ourselves, when we realise we are playing progressive rock for about ten years now and we never had an interview for DPRP until now. We also visited the boarding school were the members of Genesis met and guess what: the atmosphere, the dresses, they haven't changed in thirty years!"

Joost: "Verviers in Belgium was an extraordinary experience for us too. Some 250 people were there and we played Beyond Reality and the part where the music is really soft, everyone seemed to be breathless.... not a single sound!"

Chris: "I agree, in just one hour we got such a great response and we sold many CD's after the show that night!"

While surfing the internet I got the impression that most of the Dutch magazines are quite positive about Mangrove while the reviews from abroad are more diverse: what is your experience?

Chris: "Well that's odd, because we feel the response outside of the Netherlands is more enthusiastic than in our own country. Possibly the reviewers are a different 'breed' than the people attending the live shows? Our live performances used to be a whole lot more powerful than the previous albums and we noticed this by the critics. Fortunately we have managed to catch that same power and energy on our latest album in the studio as well."

Joost: "It's always flattering when you read a positive review about your music, but to be honest: I like reading the reviews on prog sites or magazines, but most of the times these are written by people who like the genre and they are not particularly critical. I'm even more interested what reviewers have to say who are writing for different genres like metal or from the Music Forum. These people are music lovers, connaisseurs with no particular interest in prog. When I read a raving review from these sources, that's when I rejoice even more!"

Chris: "Another great way to find out what people really think about your music is when you play in the open air, like we traditionally do on the Queens birthday in Apeldoorn on April 30. Real music lovers don't come out to see us, they just happen to walk by, are touched and stop to keep on listening and - most of the time- buy a CD and send us a mail a few days later, stating they had a great time listening to the album as well."

Are there plans to make efforts to gain more popularity outside of the Netherlands?

Chris: "Definitely. Our manager Henri is very busy to try and get us more shows abroad and the sales of the CDs to other countries is one of the time consuming activities I'm responsible for. Marketing our albums and keeping in touch with existing distributors, but also finding new ones is one of my major assignments. In fact it takes up so much of my time that we decided that I would be working my regular job for one day less to be able to handle all these things. I think there is a tendency that a lot of bands are taking over that part of the business themselves and even the major labels are copying the policy of the smaller independent labels because they found out the old concept isn't working anymore. Recently I have been negotiating with a distributor from Italy, so these marketing related things are an ongoing process for me. We've talked about this a lot but after careful consideration we have chosen not to look for a record label, but to try and do everything ourselves, as we have been doing all along."

Ronald: "Well, another point is that our popularity is growing, our network has been expanding over the years and at present we have several albums, a good website and many positive reviews to support us. Every year we have found new doors opening for us! You just need to have contacts everywhere and the internet is a nice medium but to do things the right way it's very time consuming as well."

About your compositions: do you compose as a band, strictly individually and arranging in a later stage or do you send files to each other to work on?

Joost: "It's all three I suppose, although sending files to one and other mostly happens when we have been taping stuff, often jam sessions. Chris is our computer wizard and he listens to the recordings, takes the best parts of it and sends them to Roland, Pieter and myself and then we go over those and try to improve, adept and arrange to our best knowledge. The instrumental part on Facing The Sunset was the result of a jam session, only the acoustic guitar part by Roland was added later. Using files is also very useful when we have solitary parts, a solo or a nice chorus but we need to implement those in order to melt them to a complete song."

Chris: "As we discussed in the article in Interface Magazine: what we do is custom made, carefully crafted by hands, not computers. We are really a very old fashioned band because the majority of our songs are composed in the rehearsing room! Because of the dynamics we refrain from using the computer as an aid for composing. It's absolutely on purpose we have named our site Mangrove, the art of progressive rock, because we feel our music is art, not computer made."

Joost: "Gigging is fun, the mixing process is very challenging but fun to do in its own right, but being part of creating the music we like is the ultimate joy for all four of us."

Chris: "There are exceptions, however. I wrote Love And Beyond at home behind a piano. Reality Fades was an almost complete song delivered by Joost. The beauty of composing during the rehearsals is that you can influence each other and inspire one and other to a higher level of performing. The individual wouldn't have been able to realise sitting at home, making music on his own."

Joost: "A track like Time Will Tell took us about a year and some 36 versions before we finally decided which of all the takes we would pick for the recordings. The weird thing about that song is, that if you would listen to take three, you wouldn't even recognize the song from the version on the album! The title track Beyond Reality was recorded in just two sessions, so there can be a huge difference between the songs as for time and place of their origins and the time it took for us to be satisfied with the result."

How do you decide whether a demo is ready to be recorded as definitive version?

Pieter: "Either the long road or the short cut where we need only one or two sessions: it's always a band decision when we say this is enough, this is it! We have yet to encounter a moment where we don't agree on what ends up as the 'final version'."
Joost: "We are very keen on details. We want the music to flow in a natural way but we also try to realise that each fragment of a song has something to draw the attention of the listener and keep her or him focused by changing the key for example or using a different arrangement. Each member of the band has to be one hundred percent satisfied with that final version."