When Kraak & Smaak released their debut album Boogie Angst, there wasn’t a lot around that sounded much like it. And the world stood up and paid attention to their brand of electro future-funk: Radio 1 queen Annie Nightingale threw her support behind the critically acclaimed live act and before long, they were being enlisted to remix the likes of Jamiroquai, Richard Dorfmeister, Soul of Man, Junkie XL and more. They’ve finally dropped their new album Plastic People in 2008, with the first single Squeeze Me featuring a collaboration with Ben Westbeech. To mark the occasion, ITM speaks to Kraak & Smaak.
How did you all meet up?
We all met up in Leiden – our hometown in Holland – it’s a beautiful (if fairly sleepy) old school place and we all used to hang in the same bar. Mark and Wim started working together first, DJing and doing production then were joined by Oscar who we had heard about as being a keyboard genius. We checked him out and it was true – he came to the studio started jamming and Kraak & Smaak was born.
I’ve heard that you alternate between doing DJ sets and live shows? What factors determine which method you choose to perform with?
It’s quite a big production these days for Kraak & Smaak to go out live. There’s six on stage plus tour manager, sound guys, light guys, personal shoppers, masseurs, wives, girlfriends drunken hangers on, our label… Actually not all of those are true, but it’s a biggish thing for us to play live and if it’s overseas it’s a lot of money in plane tickets, so we tend to go out on a tour rather than just a date here or there. So if we are in a country on tour then we prefer to play live, but if it’s at a time when we’re not there with the whole band but there’s a great event happening then it’s a lot more practical for one or two of us to fly in and do a DJ gig. The great thing about being a threesome is that we can split ourselves up and do a DJ and live gig on different continents at the same time!
What does you live show setup consist of?
Oscar playing a bank of vintage and new keyboards – Fender Rhodes, Moogs, that kinda thing. Wim and Mark work at scratching in samples, playing percussion and dropping programmed FX, while Rose our lovely singer is out the front being a funk/soul diva, Ro Krom on drums and MCing on the mic and Marc Baronner on bass. We’re a tight little family, but we occasionally have guests too. We had a great gig with Ben Westbeech in Amsterdam just before New Years Eve last year, and we’re doing some European shows with the guy who plays clarinet on Cornered.
Your name… I can tell that it’s got Dutch origins by how it’s spelt. Did you intend on the cheeky double meaning stemming from its pronunciation?
Not really. In Dutch it’s not even pronounced ‘crack and smack’ which is how everyone else says it. Kraak is pronounced like ‘park’ and it comes from a well known Dutch saying roughly meaning ‘crunchy and tasty’ – not an exact translation I’m afraid. We think it’s funny that it has this double meaning, but it sometimes leads people to expect us to be something that we’re not.
Your album really does delve into a lot of different styles. What were your musical influences growing up?
A mixture amongst the three of us, and I guess that’s why it works. A lot of funk and soul, jazz, electronic and new wave. Hip hop was certainly a massive influence and still is as well as Detroit and Chicago house. Lately we’ve been listening a lot to minimal and dubstep
Who out of your contemporaries would you really like to perform with?
Mark has got a burning desire to work with Thom Yorke from Radiohead, but we can’t in all conscience call them our contemporaries as they are in a completely different league. We’re trying to nail a track with Larry Blackmon from Cameo, but he’s more of an influence than a contemporary. Snoop Dogg, Roisin Murphy and Gil Scott-Heron are nice names to fiddle with too. And who knows that will happen, as Ben Westbeech was high on our wish list on this album and we achieved that as well, which was amazing. I think on the production side we would love to work with Carl Craig just to see what goes through his mind and on the vocal side, Guru. When he’s on form there’s no one better.
What does 2008 and beyond hold in store for Kraak and Smaak?
2008 holds a lot of touring and festivals for us. Festivals are so important because it’s the one place you can win over a lot of new people who wouldn’t otherwise know you. We will be promoting singles from this album, and hopefully be back in the studio starting work on the next album by the end of the year. We really want to play live in Australia and Japan and we will be back in the states for another tour supporting this album. We love doing remixes and have a remix for Sam Sparro’s next single about to leave the studio so hopefully again we can win over some new fans that way.
How much time do you spend in the studio as opposed to on the road touring?
Not enough is the simple answer. It’s about half and half in actual time, but any of our down time or time off comes out of the studio half. We gig most weekends around mainland Europe when we are in Holland, which basically means you spend Monday unloading the tour bus and setting up the studio again before breaking it down on Thursday to hit the road again. Also when we are at home – there’s always a lot of promotion for press, radio and TV to do. Our album and single are in the main chart top ten over here which is great but means that we are in fairly constant demand. That’s definitely not a complaint, but again it eats into the studio time. Fortunately there are three of us so we can split it up a bit.
What’s it like doing film scores? How does it affect how you approach and listen to your own music?
Well there’s an art to it for sure. We haven’t been asked over to Hollywood yet but we’ve worked on some Dutch films and we really love it. It’s different to writing music for an album that has to work over and over again. In film it just has to work once and give maximum drama to the scene. It’s really interesting work but we’re a little light on time for it at the moment.
You’ve also managed to keep a record shop running in your homeland. This must be tough sometimes given the amount you tour?
Well we have great people in Leiden that can run the shop when we’re not around and it’s great being on the road because we pick up on a lot of music on tour that we then order for the shop, ha! It definitely gives us an edge over other shops.
You came down to Australia for the 2007 Good Vibrations festival. What do you think about the Australian festival scene?
It seems really healthy – we’d love to come back and play live. No ass kissing, but Australians just have a good attitude to living life to the full and it show in their parties and festivals. You also (generally) have a good climate for outdoor parties (though when it rains it really rains).
When can we next expect to see you in our land down under again?
We’re working on it right now. We hooked up with a really good guy Declan who brought us in before so hopefully we will be able to sort something out with him again. Soon we hope.
Kraak en Smaak’s Plastic People is out now through Jalapeno/Inertia. Check out the video for Squeeze Me...
