KRKV
The Power of Authenticity in the Performing Arts
Your craft will help you process and deal with your emotions. It’ll help you process being human. Often the most personal work you make, will resonate the most with others.
David Speed
Welcome 🖤
Thank you for being part of this exciting journey of artistic exploration.
These interviews are designed to forge a deeper connection between artists and their tribe. Whether you consider yourself an artist, a promoter, a devoted fan, or someone on the cusp of becoming one, get ready to delve into the fascinating complexities of the creative mind 👽.
Are you ready to uncover the weird and wonderful world of artistry?
For me, it’s all about sharing is caring. Just spreading good vibes, you know? Because the world is really polarised these days, and you can't fix that by pushing your own thoughts. It’s more about sharing and coming together.
KRKV
Say hello to KRKV, an amazing artist and producer from the lively city of Zwolle in the Netherlands. In everyday life, he goes by the name Joeri. Joeri has an exceptional talent for playing drum and bass, delivering beats that leave fans breathless on the dance floor. His motto is "sharing is caring," and with each tune he plays, he shares a piece of himself. KRKV's music can be both euphoric and dark, much like the opposing forces in yin and yang, creating a transcendent experience. Inspired by Artificial Intelligence, which he optimistically views as an enabler rather than a destructor, KRKV brings a unique perspective to his art.
I met Joeri through ANIMA. A decade ago, Stefan, Thijs, and Joeri attended the same sound design school in Leeuwarden, Friesland. With our first event last year, they reconnected once again. MMNTM is closing the loop, and I personally feel honoured to be part of this reunion. Here's KRKV's promo mix for the Kabelbreuk event from November 2023, giving you a taste of the musical power I'm talking about:
As an integral part of the firmly established Kabelbreuk residency and currently collaborating with the emerging MMNTM, KRKV is ready to bring his treasure trove of unreleased tracks to our event next week. Plus, he's not shy about grabbing the mic and diving back into his rapping roots with MDMA - Meer Dan Muziek Alleen!
It truly is More Than Just Music, so here we are, connecting digitally on an almost summery Tuesday evening—me with a whiskey in hand 🥃 and KRKV with a mystery soft drink because we’re not about giving free ads to giant companies. We opened up about our past, shared embarrassing moments on stage, and talked about our future visions and inspirations, all while enjoying the present moment to the fullest 🧘♀️.
Let's jump right in! 🚀
🌱 Success is a subjective concept.
What is success? Is it achieving what you desire or fulfilling what you believe others expect? Do you create something that brings you joy, or do you create something that makes others happy, which in turn makes you happy? In other words, are you building something for the stats or for the amazing people who show up and cheer you on, no matter how many of them there are?
A true artist must create no matter what. However, for someone striving to survive, the answer likely lies somewhere in between. You want to create because it brings you joy, but if what you create can’t support you, it won’t last—and you might not either.
Yet, there are many ways to sustain your art. In the context of MMNTM, there’s the main event, but there are also the interviews and the new connections we build together, which have the potential to blossom into something more 🌸. This mindset aligns perfectly with the philosophy of Sobanic, KRKV’s partner in crime, who embraces a nature metaphor: you never know what will come from the seeds you plant.
So I asked Joeri, who has long since lost count of the events he's performed at, whether he has ever experienced playing to an empty room. "Yes," he said with an honest laugh. "How was it?" I asked. "Fucked up," he replied, and we both laughed together 😃.
"One time in Hedon, back in the day with Paul [Sobanic], we booked Signal (now IMANU), who was already quite a known artist. For some reason, there was literally no one in the audience. We felt quite ashamed for him," he continued. This is something that keeps me up at night: the thought of artists playing to an empty room. "Well, actually, I played after him, and just as I started, Hedon decided to open the doors because there was another event. So, I had some crowd, but Signal didn’t, and we felt bad for him," he added. “We didn’t talk to him about it. It happens 🤷♂️.”
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🔍 Exploring the lesser-known facets of KRKV.
We shifted the conversation from the event to KRKV because, let's face it, that's where the real party's at! Then, just to spice things up, I asked Joeri to share something not many people know about him. After a moment of deep thought, he came up with the following: “I know something but it’s really stupid.” My ears perked up. “I found a picture of me horse riding, I went to my friends like look this is part of me that you don’t know yet!” 🐴
I continued to inquire whether Joeri had been horse riding for a long time, and he replied, “No, actually I got scared, I didn’t dare to go anymore.” Curious about his experience, I asked for more details. "Well, it was on the back of a horse, and the horse was unresponsive, that was the time when I thought - enough," he explained with a sigh. “When I was 12, my father lived in a village, here in the woods, and my sister, my brother and me we did horse riding there,” Joeri concluded, reflecting on his childhood.
Some twenty years later, Joeri isn't galloping on horseback, but he's serving up drum and bass waves for the audience to ride on 🌊. With the internet transforming the world of creation from push to pull, vibe becomes the magnetic force that draws us in. So, which vibe does Joeri associate his music delivery with?
“For me, it’s all about sharing is caring. Just spreading good vibes, you know? Because the world is really polarised these days, and you can't fix that by pushing your own thoughts. It’s more about sharing and coming together,” Joeri shared a piece of his life philosophy.
And what is it that Joeri is sharing? “Everything, if I feel bad, I’ll share that as well. There was this one time that I had to play, and I actually didn’t want to play,” he started recalling. “And the whole day I thought to myself ah, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to play. So you can complain about this, or you can use this moment to elaborate your feelings on stage, and that was what I did,” he continued.
“I was actually DJing at this one moment and the whole DJ set just died. Everything went off and suddenly it turned on again,” Joeri shared. Say what? Does the equipment feel our vibes? Maybe it just needed a moment to catch its breath, or perhaps it wanted to remind Joeri that every storm is followed by sunshine.
Then he went on saying, “I grabbed the microphone and said, ‘Everybody shut up! I’m totally done with this!’ And everybody was looking 👀 like, ‘What’s happening?’ Then I said, ‘Okay, it’s not that bad.’ 😆”
“Then I thought, okay let’s play a song of myself, and let’s see if it’s working now. So I played my track and people went totally mental!”It was a truly powerful moment for Joeri, as he connected with the audience in a very weird way through his frustration.
Joeri's authenticity and humour come through as he handles the ups and downs of live performance. When a technical glitch interrupts his DJ set, he turns the moment into a memorable experience by engaging the audience with lighthearted banter. This genuine response not only demonstrates Joeri's resilience but also strengthens his bond with the audience, showing the importance of being real in the performing arts.
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🎤 Navigating the "Outch" Moments
Despite already opening up about several vulnerable moments, I felt there was more to uncover with Joeri. Wanting to truly understand him, I asked for another setback, as I do with all the artists I interview. "There was this one time when I was MCing, and I was not really prepared for it. Black Sun Empire was about to play, and I was not mentally with them yet. So suddenly the music stops, and I thought 'oh now I have to introduce Black Sun Empire,' but that wasn't the case actually," he explained, recounting the unexpected turn of events.
As he continued, Joeri described the moment he realised something was amiss: "When I was introducing them, I was looking at this guy who was currently playing, and he was not pulling his USB stick yet, so I had the feeling that something was off," he said, his expression mirroring the surprise of the artist onstage at the time.
"The music starts again, and then I realised, 'Oh, shit, it was the last track of the artist before Black Sun Empire,' which was kind of awkward, so I said, 'Oh, sorry, my bad,'" Joeri concluded, reflecting on the moment. The artist looked at Joeri with a clearly incredulous expression, silently conveying 'not yet, dude.' In that instant, we shared a moment of healthy laughter, finding humour in the unexpected twist of events. “I’m sure this won’t happen again 😃,” Joeri added.
As we conclude our series of MMNTM pre-event interviews, I thought it only fair to share my own cringe-worthy stage moment 🤦♀️. Now, I'm not exactly an artist, but I do have a talent for ending up where you'd least expect, like backstage at drum and bass events in Bratislava, of all places. This happened about 15 years ago.
Picture this: I was having such a blast, like it often happens at these events, that I ended up dozing off 😴, leaning against the curtain right by the main-stage while the artist was performing. Everyone could see me—the audience, the artist. It took my friend's gentle intervention to nudge me away from the spotlight 😬. Outch.
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🧑🍳 From Mixing to Master Chef: KRKV's Culinary Tracks with an AI Twist
Joeri is teaming up with Ben from GENOME Rec. to craft some seriously cool debut releases for KRKV after this summer. "Of course, I'm never fully satisfied with anything, but since I've played these tunes myself, I thought, why not release them?" Joeri revealed with enthusiasm.
We all know that the things we create are never truly finished, so it's often perfectionism that acts as the ticking bomb. While a healthy dose of perfectionism can elevate our craft into something amazing, too much of it can also paralyse us, preventing us from achieving greatness.
"This was the first time, during the set on drumandbass.nl (which will be uploaded to YouTube soon), that I felt it really worked well. I was a little bit surprised by how well they matched with the music being played," he mentioned, his voice tinged with a hint of pride. Before I forget: A huge shoutout to the folks at drumandbass.nl for hosting the MMNTM takeover at their facilities! 🙌 Marc and his crew are wholeheartedly invited to join us in celebrating the event next week! 🎉
I was pleasantly surprised when Joeri began elaborating on the sources of inspiration for his music: “I think if you hear my tunes, you’ll quickly learn that there’s some sort of connection between all of them, and it’s mostly about the rise of AI. And of course I do like different themes and this one was called the Essence of Purpose, which is sort of a dark scenario, where AI takes over everything, and us humans are left with no important tasks. There’s many different angles to approach, and I like to visit all of them,” Joeri explained, sparking a flurry of follow-up questions within me.
How is this represented in the tunes? “I use AI vocals and a speech about the essence of purpose, where the vocal explores the idea that we created these machines and now face the question of what to do next,” Joeri elaborated. This sounds much like the soundtrack for the AI paradigm.
But there’s more: Joeri is on a mission. “A lot of people are scared of AI, but I think it can be pretty cool. It can only be cool if we allow it to be cool. People need to learn about the possibilities,” he continued. “I’m trying to get as many people involved as possible. I have really basic conversations with people, explaining what you can already do with AI. Sometimes the conversations are a bit difficult, but often people respond with, ‘Wow, I didn’t know this!’”
And this is where Joeri’s path and mine intersected, beyond our shared love for drum & bass. Like Joeri, I am on a mission to unveil the possibilities of technology, taking it out of the exclusive realm of engineers and tech enthusiasts, and making it accessible to everyone, including non-engineers and those who don’t consider themselves tech-savvy.
While AI doesn’t have ‘intentions’—the primary reason it can’t act on its own—people do, and some of those intentions can be malicious 👿. Despite this, as an optimistic person who trusts in game theory, I believe that the best way to win in life is by being nice to each other.
“It really depends on what we want to do with it. You cannot develop AI without people using it. The way it’s used decides how it should develop. People need to interact with it and cooperate,” Joeri concluded. I found myself agreeing completely. “This is the part many people misunderstand,” he added, “like my friend who deliberately refuses to use it just because it’s AI. I try to explain that your input determines the output, and it does what you want.”
With this insightful explanation and a touch of optimism, we concluded our brief discussion on AI. It takes real courage and an open mind for an artist to start experimenting with a technology that people worry might replace them.
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🔥 Late-Night Gigs and Unstoppable Passion
Every MMNTM interview concludes with a peek into the artist’s unique quirks and desires. One of my favourite questions to ask is: what would get them out of bed in the middle of the night? So, what would motivate KRKV to rise and take action?
His response: “If you have a gig coming, I’ll be there. Just invite some people downstairs and wake me up to play, and I’ll do it,” Joeri concluded our conversation with flair. When this goes down, hit me up immediately—I don’t want to miss it.
And that’s a wrap on our discussion! It’s been enlightening chatting with KRKV, and I’m Adriana. Connecting with Joeri has been a pleasure, and I can’t wait for his performance next week!
If you’re in the neighbourhood, secure your tickets here 🎟️, or hit me up and I’ll get you on the guest list. Because you obviously finished reading this interview, and I truly value the time and attention you gave it.
Let's Bring Premium Drum & Bass to Hilversum on June 22nd, together! This edition is to present the rich world of local producers📍, bringing together an eclectic mix of artists such as S.A & ANIMA from Hilversum, KRKV from Zwolle, Rueben from Utrecht, Sobanic from Varsseveld and Binary from Nijmegen.
In our quest for the extraordinary, we’re ecstatic to introduce an ultra-vibing artist from Bratislava - Huspi - to this year’s event. With his towering height, often mistaken for a Dutchman, he’s sure to add a unique touch!
We look forward to seeing you there!
Until next week,
ADRIANA
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