Netherlands – Last summer the 3JS were announced to be the Dutch representatives at the Eurovision Song Contest. At the beginning of the year the Dutch people could choose their entry out of 5 songs. They went for “Je Vecht Nooit Alleen” which was later translated into “Never alone”. Here is our interview with them:.
Hello guys, could you please introduce yourself (the 3JS) to our readers?We are 3JS from a little fisherman’s town in Holland called Volendam. Our town is well known in Holland especially because of the big amount of musicians and bands out here. My name is Jan Dulles and I’m the singer of our band. My collegues are named JaapKwakman and Jaap de Witte (3 J’s) and they both play guitar. All kinds of guitars actually. We’ve been together for more than fifteen years and in the last five years we released three albums in Holland. Three albums that reached the golden status. We have our own studio here in Volendam and we write, arrange, play, produce and record everything ourselves.
The music we usually make can be described best as ‘Dutch folk-pop’ although ‘Never Alone’…the song we will be doing at the Song-contest is a bit far from that.
What convinced you to enter the Eurovision Song Contest for the Netherlands this year?The thing that convinced us the most to enter the contest was the Belgian rendition from last year. This boy called Tom Dice who sat there alone with only his guitar, just like the song was called: ‘Me and my guitar’. As I can recall he won the semi-final and ended up in sixth in the final. We thought: ‘Well…If there is some space again for small beautiful songs and single guitars in the Eurovision Songcontest… then maybe there’s room for us as well’.
What can you tell us about your entry “Never alone”?‘Never Alone’ was originally written in our own Dutch language and it was called ‘Je vecht nooit alleen’ which means ‘You never fight alone’. The song is kind of a dialog between two people (lovers). One is a bit sad and negative and the other one tries to cheer her up with words that can also be seen in a bigger perspective.It’s an up-tempo pop-rock song with various electric guitar parts, so arrangement-wise it will be a bit distinctive, but the positive message fits perfectly well into the ESC-principle. The song was written in France. We have a house there and go there twice a year to write our songs. For the Dutch Songcontest-selection we wrote five songs and the Dutchtv-viewers picked ‘Never Alone’ to go to Germany.
You never recorded in English before, why did you decide to perform your song in English at Eurovision?Actually we wrote and recorded a lot of songs in English before. About fifteen years ago we started writing pop-rock songs in English with a band called BlueBus and we recorded a whole album. We just never got a record deal to release it so it stayed unreleased until today. Five years ago we started recording some songs in a more folkish style with Dutch lyrics and that happened to be the right move for us. The reason we translated this song into English is because we want a bigger audience to understand what we are trying to say with the lyrics. Nobody understands Dutch except the people from Belgium.
How will your performance at the Eurovision stage look like? Can you reveal any details?Our performance won’t be too flashy. It’sjust ‘rock’. Three guys and two guitars…one acoustic, one electric….me on the mic.
Our clothing will be ‘rock ‘n roll chique’.
And we have three backing vocalists. Two girls and one boy…. All good-looking!!
Have you followed the Eurovision Song Contest recently and do you have a favourite Eurovision song?
And what about this year’s entries, your competitors?When I was young I followed the ESC closely every year. The last few years I became less interested because we were too busy ourselves with our own career and because we just didn’t like the songs our country send to the contest. My favorite Eurovision song is ‘Hold me now’ by Johnny Logan because this was in a crucial period of my youth. It was during the school-prom this song was played over and over and we slow-danced with the girls on this song. It’s not the best song ever but it’s the emotional value that makes it my favourite.
Do you have an aim that you want to achieve in Düsseldorf?Our only aim is to make it through the semi-finale and reach the final round. This hasn’t happened for Holland the last eight years so in fact to the people in Holland we would be winners if we only reach the final.
What will you do after the Eurovision Song Contest?After the contest we will do lots of lots of gigs in Holland. Too many to be honest. So it will be ‘working’ for us, all through the year.
And what would you do if you actually won the trophy for the Netherlands in Düsseldorf?Haha… We just don’t dare to dream about that. We wouldn’t know what to do. We would have to cancel some activities in our agenda’s to visit some foreign countries for promotion I guess… and then….
I really don’t know. We just haven’t given it a thought yet.
And finally: Do you have a message to our readers?Well… I’d say: “Vote for The Netherlands” and please tell us what to do if we actually win the trophy.
Thank you for the interview and good luck in Düsseldorf!
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http://eurovisiontimes.wo(...)erview-with-the-3js/