Ruud Voesten (1987) is a drummer and composer currently living in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His new single, 'Clickbait Merchants," was released on April 21. When COVID-19 hit in March 2020, Ruud took the mandatory free time to dive into one of the world's most famous literary works from the Dark Ages: Dante Alighieri's Inferno. In this first part of the Divine Comedy, which is very critical of society, Dante researches his own humanity, his society, and his position therein by descending through the ten rings of hell and confronting the seven capital sins. With Inferno as his guide and the lockdown as a catalyst, Ruud reviewed his own personal connection to the capital sins. Refecting on themes like lust, anger, and betrayal brought him a wide range of connections, motives, and emotions, which he put to music.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
Kamil) Hey Ruud Voesten, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What first got you into music?
Hey Kamil, thank you for having me!
My parents put me on music lessons when I was young, doing the standard education learning notation and recorder. I continued with piano till I was forteen, but lost interest. It was around this time I started listening and discovering music for myself. I became a huge fan of Blink182 and other poppunk bands and picked up the drums a year later.
Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of music?
I really enjoy training boxing a few times a week and playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Your latest song is 'Clickbait Merchants'. Can you tell us more about the making of it and if there were any unusual things happening during the process?
Clickbait Merchants is part of my upcoming record ‘Ambrosia’, which I composed to Dante Alighieri’s poem Inferno. In this Italian literary work from the Medieval era, Dante describes how he descends through hell and encounters the capital sins, sinners and punishments. Clickbait Merchants in particular deals with the sin of fraud. Connecting this theme to our current times, reminded me of the strategy media use to grab our attention. By using headlines consisting of bold claims, inflammatory words or flat-out lies they try to capture our attention for clicks. The music reflects this by having a constant brewing tension and big but short melodic gestures.
The bassline formed the starting point of the composition, combined with the general energy and feel. I wanted the melody to reflect the empty promise of the clickbait titles, so while putting the bassline on repeat I improvised melodic gestures with some medium intervals. I ended up picking the ones that suggested there was something bigger going on / about to happen, but in the end, didn’t really deliver.
For the B part, I put the focus on the horns rhythmically alternating and weaving together. At this point, I was experimenting with writing lower parts for the alto than the tenor saxophone and I really like the way this sounded. The solo seemed to need a shift in energy, so we ended up with this open feel followed by an extended B part to develop the composition a bit more.
Can you reveal the recipe for a musical hit?
Sadly, I haven't found any yet … One thing that improved my composing over the years though, has been implementing limitations at the beginning. This could be anything, a certain scale, meter, intervals or the instrument on which you're (not) allowed to compose.
What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop as an artist?
I'm trying to keep a schedule where there's time to work on my own projects. Life gets very busy quickly and time moves fast.
On the other side of things a look for ways to enhance my artistry in everything I do. Because of the importance of coordination and timing in boxing, my drumming and improvising improved a lot. I believe the roleplaying element of D&D helped me with composing and telling a story. And teaching is a huge oppurtunity to understand music better, but also work on the human element.
What inspires you as an artist? Could it be the sea, the weather or something else?
Mainly other art, artists and people. Hearing or seeing other people being passionate about something and sharing it with the world motivates me to create and share more myself.
How do you spend your free time? What makes you feel relaxed?
Practising drums relaxes me a lot, especially when it's not work related. Boxing helps a lot with getting out of my head and relaxing. Besides that I enjoy playing games.
Do you have a mentor or coach?
Not at the moment, but there have been many important people, related to music and other things, for me in the last decade. My drum teacher were of enormous importance, some high school teachers, and a little more recent a coach who helped me take responsibility of getting my music heard.
Do you think it's easy to become established in the music world, or is it difficult?
I think it's a very difficult proces, but it can be more or less hard depending on how quickly you understand how you work. Every artist has stronger and weaker points and some will be a bigger help or burden than others, but as soon as you understand what yours are you can get way closer to establishing yourself the way you want to.
What accomplishments do you see yourself achieving in the next five to 10 years?
I want to continue on my current path of creating new work and putting it in to the world. A bigger stage or a bigger audience would be fantastic, but I'm trying to find a way to stay inspired and keep on creating. There's two more parts of the Divine Comedy I'd like to put to music and I'm working on a new project called 'Genius Loci' which will kick of this summer.