My husband was playing with his other band at a festival. Some musicians came up to him and said: “Hey! I know you. You’re playing in that band with that Asian looking singer.” I think he was a bit irritated, because people always recognise him because of me. Even when we were teenagers and he played in the Neo Rockabilly band The Scam, people on the street said to him: “You’re from The Scam right? I recognise you because of your girlfriend. She is always there when you’re playing.”
Custom Made Trio
Now back to the first musicians. So I asked who they were. Custom Made Trio. That was the first time I heard of them. And that’s a shame! Time to get to know these guys (who apparently knew me first).
Arnoud
Custom Made Trio is a Dutch Rock’n’Roll / Rockabilly-band from the central part of the Netherlands. The bass player and the guitarist both are the lead singers. They have the traditional sound but in a wild cat manner. They play songs from artists of the legendary SUN-label: Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison en Johnny Cash. But also songs from the rockabilly-revival of the 1980’s The Stray Cats and Crazy Cavan are a part of their repertoire.
Arnoud van der Veen (vocals and guitar), John Houtveen (vocals and upright bass) and Gert van Baren (drums) are no Rock and Roll newbies. Arnoud traveled around the world with his former band The Red Shots.
Not much yet, but we wrote one instrumental called Custom Rock !
Is there any place you would really like to play?
If we could, we would play in Tennesee (USA) but only if it pays. We don’t want to bring in money, like other bands do, just to be able to play there and leaving us empty handed. It sounds a bit arrogant maybe but we don’t mean it like that. It’s just, when an USA band comes to the Netherlands, they get paid more then when a Dutch band plays in the USA. But we like to play in our neighborhood as well, where ever we play, there’s a party.
John
You seems to have a lot of fun guys.
That’s because our motto is “It’s only Rock’n’Roll but we like it’!”
If you could play with a rock and roll artist, who would that be?
The artists we would like to play with are from the fifties and are dead already. But we would like to play with well known Dutch rock and roll artists too!
Do you like other music styles too?
Mainly Rockabilly, Country, Rock and Roll. But John and Arnoud also play evergreens and Dutch songs in another band. With that kind of music people are more willing to interact and sing along.
It’s a duo and we play for a complete differen audience. Young, old. People in their forties and fifties really join up the party. (But you know that already, because your husband has band like ours too). We play for a broader audience.
Gert
Gert, you’re drummer for not so long. How did you get to it?
Our bassplayer was looking for a drummer and it had to be me. I never sat behind a drumset, so never played on one either. I took drumlessons, but that didn’t help me. Then I met Max de Vries the drummer of Lost Hound. Het tought me all I needed to know and more. We became good friends too. And now we play with Custom Made for some years with a lot of pleasure. I don’t have drummer heroes but Max de Vries could be one.
What are your future plans?
Playing as much as possible and writing some more new songs. But most of all, having fun.
[…] you can really hear. We would also like to stop by The Custom Made Trio (also from the Netherlands http://www.karto.nl/?p=1474#more-1474) a very enthusiastic trio with a traditional sound. They play a lot of songs from the great […]