Interview with Rockford: ‘We wanted to make as much noise as possible!’

Klundert, The Netherlands-based rock band Rockford have released their debut album Broken Records, showing us that heavy, slow riffing, detuned grunge rock is exactly what we all need.

The band comprises Niels Schmitz (vocals), Arthur van den Acker (bass) and Patrick Ripzaad (drums), who started out in 2019: ‘I was in various bands, Arthur played in in my previous band Cape Canaveral,’ Schmitz said. ‘Patrick, our drummer, sent me a message on Facebook, he said: “Now that Cape Canaveral is done, we need to start a new project!”.’ Their name is a reference to the town where Schmitz was born in the US, around 100 miles from Chicago and where he lived until he was four and his parents relocated to The Netherlands.

Broken Records is an intoxicating mix of grunge rock borrowing from Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains and could easily be straight out of Seattle in the 90’s: ‘The album is a real honest rock album, it’s not overproduced, it’s almost like a live album, just three guys in a room playing music,’ Schmitz said. ‘There’s a mix on there, three songs are five to six years old and ‘Walkin’ In’ is 20 years old.’ The title track and opener ‘Broken Records’, replete with a hooky, thuddy bass riff, pulls you right in. It’s a frenetic beast of a track, with Schmitz chanelling his inner Chris Cornell: ‘It’s one of the last songs we made, I’d had the riff for some time,’ he said. ‘I don’t have poetry but I had certain words. I came up with the words ‘broken records’ and some sentences that followed that part.’

I ask what pedals they’re using in it: ‘Arthur’s set up is pretty basic, clean or distortion or a Line 6 POD in the studio,’ he said. ‘Live, he just uses one pedal board with a flanger (an audio effect produced by mixing two identical signals together, one signal delayed by a small and gradually changing period that has three sounds). Me, on the other hand, I have 6,000 sounds in my Line 6 HX Effects (laughs). Every song is a different sound. That’s the nice thing, when you’ve found the sound for a song. We’re always writing. Before, I was in a four piece and a five piece band. This time, I wanted fewer players (laughs) and the most sound. We wanted to make as much noise as possible!’

As the track goes: “Everywhere, we all live in despair. Channels dialing in, can’t seem to tune right in. ‘Cos everything’s the same. No frequency today.”

‘It’s really altered with a lot of distortion, there are space echoes and everything!’

Another track ‘Noise In Your System’ turns out to have been inspired by Schmitz’s daughter: ‘I wrote it for the little one,’ he said. ‘It’s about when you’re a parent and they’re sleeping and you think: “Are they sleeping, are they crying, are they ok?” My daughter wouldn’t like the lyrics (laughs), I’m complaining! She’s six now.’ I ask him what they’ve used to distort his voice around 1.20 minutes in. ‘It’s really altered with a lot of distortion, there are space echoes and everything! We even used the intercom and megaphone like truckers use (laughs). Usually, when I write songs, I’ll have a riff, play the guitar and when I get to the chorus, I’l have some noise and combine the words. But with this one, I wrote it down in one clean go on two Post-its (laughs), it’s not just scribble. I always have the basics before I take a song to the others, it might be the break but something might change. Or with the guitars, we might do something else, but it normally stays 80% to 90% the same.’

As the song goes: “You pull the plug, but the sound won’t go away You pull the fuse, but everything remains the same. It’s the sound you cannot bear again. It’s the sound that keeps you up again.”

If he could go to any gig tonight, Schmitz picks Belgian rock band Triggerfinger: ‘They’re a great band. If you like us, you’ll like them,’ he said. ‘They play a lot in Europe. I’m a big fan of Pearl Jam. When everything started in ’92, I was 15-16, you absorb it and you like it. You get moulded at that age.’ I say that with his voice, he would do a great job of covering Pearl Jam: ‘Actually, we don’t cover them, it’s complicated,’ he said. ‘They’re something you don’t touch. But it’s a really nice compliment when people compare us to them. If we could also do their shows, that’d be great!’

I say that for me, ‘Run & Hide’ is their song that is most reminiscent of Pearl Jam: ‘I really don’t know what I’m running and hiding from (laughs),’ he said. ‘That’s the really nice thing about music because it’s so personal. When we recorded it, I didn’t get the same feeling as when we do it live but other people do. We had a version with a lot more vocals on it. It also started with a riff. I’ve got all kinds of guitars throughout the house. In the past, I had more time and I played a lot. Now, if I have an hour, I’ll try to figure something out. If everybody is out of the house, I grab a guitar and try to do something and record it. I’ve got four acoustics and five electronic.’ I ask him what his dream guitar would be: ‘Honestly, I still play the Telecaster I bought when I was 15, it’s still one of my favourite guitars,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘I’m a Fender person but I’ve also got a Gibson SG, they’re the go-to! I play the SG more live because it’s lighter than the Telecaster. That’s not very rock ‘n’ roll, is it?!’

‘I thought it was so much “rock, rock, rock” and I thought we needed something to catch your breath’

In 2021, Rockford signed a multi-album record deal with the new label Grunge Pop Records which is based in Seattle. This album shows that they’re capable of surprising us. ‘Tainted Glass’, the tenth track on the 11 track album is an unexpected bonus, it’s slower and more sparse, allowing Schmitz’s vocals to shine: ‘We finished everything, in the first session we did four songs and then a session with six songs,’ he said. ‘I thought it was so much “rock, rock, rock” and I thought we needed something to catch your breath. On the last day, I said: “Ok, I wanna record this song”, I played it to the producer, we recorded it in two or three hours. It’s nice to have it there.’ They’ve also got some clever effects on it, including an EBow, an electronic hand-held bow for the guitar: ‘There’s also a lot of distortion in the mid-part and feedback,’ he said. ‘I really like how it turned out, we mixed two versions of it. It’s about when you don’t see anything straight, everything is blurry, it’s a feeling you have. Sometimes, you can go left or right, you’re asking yourself what decision you should make.’

They’ve shared some funny moments onstage, according to Schmitz: ‘I almost never drink,’ he said. ‘Certainly before a show I don’t. The rest of the band will drink. So this one night we were competing with other bands to get a spot in a festival, I thought, fuck it… so one beer became two, two became three etc. The guys were really surprised and laughing all the time. After three hours, it was stage time. So I got on stage, leaned over to Arthur and said “I’m totally wasted”. We played a half hour set and guess what? We won that evening!’