Not on Knekelhuis Mark Knekelhuis

I grew up in the eastern part of Holland, a small province closest to the German border. It’s really countryside, in fact it is the center of the bible belt. Very conservative. My parents both grew up in this city with a religious history. My mother’s side is Protestant, my father’s side more Orthodox Reformed. In our home there was music, but it wasn’t secular music. My father had five CDs that he had for twenty years. I was, as a young child, always looking for sounds and books. I read as a child. Every day. My mother told me recently that she always had to take me to the library where I would spend half the day. I wanted to get in touch with other worlds. The world of sound and the world of books gave me access to the spirit outside our city limits. At that moment my parents had this record player, and I really liked the ritual to put records on. On Sunday, we would wake up slowly and would play the few records in the home.

When I was old enough, I think around eight or ten, we were walking around this small town every Thursday night. Many times in a row. Looking at girls, understanding that you are not the only being in this world. In this town they had one CD shop, it was called Pauls CD Shop. This was the time when the transition from vinyl to CD was occurring, and while I loved the vinyl ritual, CD was the future! There I started first to listen to things on the hit list, Ace Of Base… Euro-House, quite ugly stuff. I started to really enjoy it though because I began to hear so much and discovered Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Iron Maiden, back then from my perspective it was so evil and so heavy! So loud compared to other stuff I knew. From there on it was my gold mine. It was nothing special because it was my town, which was not pushing limits, but I had enough stuff to dive into.

What were you into?

For me it was very slowly building up. I felt the energy of pop music and later on punk bands with their energy, the burning flame and a nonconformist attitude that took shape physically into screaming out loud. The energy, the burning flame of touching and screaming. I got very into Refused, who were experimenting a lot at that time. I don’t want to jump so far ahead but at the time things were very segregated. Punks did not like electronic music, but some accepted Refused flirting with these “non-punk” ideas. I wanted to investigate the aggression. I understand where the need for aggression came from in my life now, it was not always so easy in my home situation with the Christian ideologies. I love my parents but the Christian ideologies and the rules which they rely on is something I never felt comfortable with. Back then I had a melancholy, I felt an inner flame burning, I was not happy.

At a certain point I liked the straight edge vegan politics of hardcore music after that. I was at the point in life where people started experimenting with drugs and music…

Clarity! Do you think alcohol is influencing your way of listening to music?

Hardcore and punk felt like this entry to a world that exist behind this one. They make their own rules.

Yes, very true. These rules at one point worked against me where I feel I have to break free almost from the social awareness and social culture of political scenes.

Me too! The rules in electronic music were less clear and a bit blurry. The moment I stepped out of that hardcore community, there is that social control where people feel the urge to judge others because they choose their own path. I just wanted to figure out who I am and what my minor spot in our complex universe could look like. So I was probably a dropout to them. That was a time when message boards were very alive.

I find myself gaining information in the podcast these days. I know which reporters I love and have free minds. Which reporters bring the story with passion. Even though it’s a politician, a philosopher, or a racecar driver—it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s a one-way communication from broadcaster to the listener. I prefer to select my sources and put them side by side. In message boards I found too much noisy communication. I got so bored of someone taking something out of context, then people jumping on top of it. It is now the same with messaging, Twitter, and toxic call-out culture that became normality these days.

I got in touch with old school hardcore bands, Battery or Chain Of Strength, it was all these CDs. Victory Records, Morning Again, Good Life Records… Back then the Dutch scene and the Belgian scene was very strong, it was unbelievably inspiring for me. I used to go take these long trains to see Catharsis, Converge, Spineless, all these bands. At a certain moment, I slowly grew into the political scene and would hitchhike to these shows and see these bands, to Germany or Czech Republic and visit political gatherings.

Then one day I decided I wanted to be in a punk band, and I was still into being at the library all the time. One day at the library I had seen someone walking around with a Gehenna shirt on. You know the band from San Diego back then I think. I was like “What the fuck, this is the most ugly ass music I have ever heard in my life.” Here I was in this little Christian town and I see this guy in this shirt. How was this possible?

This was the era when the internet was not alive yet. So I asked him about the shirt, and I found that this small group was taping these cassettes and passing them around. People in my tiny province were passing these tapes all around! His band was rehearsing in a ceramics studio on a farm on his mother’s property.

This guy moved to North Carolina to join the band Zegota playing bass, and I started to sing in his band.

Crimethinc. actually.

If I had to recall this kind of character I would say no, not many. It was a different time… If you go back to political activation in Europe and you look back to the intellectuals at the end of the sixties. People shaping freedom around existentialism, a lot of them got old. The academics, also in Holland, were looking for sexual freedom, intellectual freedom… They got older, 40 or 50. They live their lives in a slowly changing system with less room for ideals. You have to live your life and take care of your family. These free ideas become utopic, they lose ideals. Your life goes on, and you try to make something decent with it.

Many lost their ideals. If I look back to myself, I am super glad I am still super aware of where the world is going, what is my contribution to the world. I would describe it as more pragmatic, I feel it myself too. After 2000, post 9/11, we thought the west felt… a majority of political people felt “We tried our best, we lost.” This sounds a bit pessimistic, but I feel that was the state of mind back then. Gladly enough new generations are more activist nowadays and haven’t fallen asleep.

I am a vegetarian for more than twenty years, I think about my food, but I take flights for my work. Back then, these characters we were, wanted to dismantle the system from within somehow. We felt this strong feeling of purity and believed in truth and we did not realize how hypocritical we were at the same time. We had an energy and a feeling that felt so real and so true. But we didn’t realize we were not perfect. These kinds of figures got a bit lost in this navel-gazing.

A lot. A lot. I learned in punk rock bands I could shape my own world, whatever I wanted to present. Politics, music, emotions. Sharing my own records in the DIY community. When I made my first album I knew I didn’t want to be on any labels. I wanted to make it myself, record it, control everything. Know the person who can master it and press it at a punk rock plant. Silk-screen the covers and distribute ourselves. It was so important to know it from the bottom up.

Even though I thought I never wanted to do it again then… I mean it was so much work. I got so fucked up by mailorders, sending fifty records out and never getting paid. For me though, the beautiful part was the creation. It’s what I love about labels, I have released 26 records on Knekelhuis in four years. I can’t believe it, I have so much cool stuff to come and so much I want to try out still. The first is still there from when I was an 18 year old punk. I am not in it for the money, I am glad I can make a living out of making music. The fulfillment, though, comes from the creating. It comes from there for sure.