Interview with Rufusking: ‘I couldn’t sleep, so I started googling Blackbeard’

Rotterdam and The Hague-based bluesy rock band, Rufusking, brought out their lively, singalong belter, ‘Poor Mister Lee’, last month and are now working on their next single, ‘Motel Stardust’.

They comprise Timo Epping (vocals and guitar), Jan Dekker (bass), Gabriel Patrascu (guitar) and Sander Stolk (drums). Epping, Stolk and Patrascu are high school friends and Dekker responded to an ad they placed in 2017 for a bass player. Their name took a while to come up with: ‘There’s a story there,’ Epping laughed. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be Rufusking three years ago when we started. It was difficult to find a name. We had a night at a bar in The Hague and ended up with a piece of paper full of words we liked but no name! Eventually, we came up with Rufus King – both words were on the list – but on the poster for our first gig, the cafe owner misspelled it as Rufusking…’

‘The whole food pirate thing kept Timo going!’

‘Poor Mister Lee’ is their imaginative reworking of a night out they had a few years ago: ‘We had a small group with whom we went to a restaurant every 3-4 months,’ Stolk explained. ‘One time, there was a sign there about food pirates not being welcome, so we started to visualise the pirate.’ Epping laughs and cuts in: ‘It was a week after that and I wanted to do something with it. Some of the best things happen in the middle of the night. I couldn’t sleep, so I started googling Blackbeard and in 30 minutes I’d written the lyrics. Poor Mister Lee was robbed by the pirates!’ Sander nods: ‘There’s a Blackbeard quote in the song – “Damnation seize my soul if I give you quarters, or take any from you”.’

As the song makes clear, the thieving Blackbeard and his crew eat their meal without paying for it: ‘They were Blackbeard and his crew, ate all they could and before he knew, took all his treasures, poor Mister Lee. The tale was real and not a fantasy.’

Rufusking have 15 songs ready to go, according to Epping, and six lockdown songs. Next up will likely be ‘Motel Stardust’, which is also loosely based on a real place. ‘The idea behind it is a place on earth,’ Stolk said. ‘Timo brought it to our attention. It was a motel in the desert in Texas (the Chihuahuan Desert), the sign is still there. The song is a bit spooky because the motel isn’t there any more, so it’s about a non-existent place now and we mention lockdown. The song is more about a feeling, freedom versus the lockdown situation and how we cope with it.’ When I ask Epping how he knew about the place, he says that he saw it on Twitter.

‘We searched the Internet for historical sobriquets’

One distinctive feature of their songs is that they are very narrative-driven and based loosely on real events. This is certainly true of their previous single, ‘Vinegar Joe’, which is based on the American army general, Joseph Stilwell (1883-1946). ‘We searched the Internet for historical sobriquets,’ Epping said. ‘Actually, Vinegar Joe was also a cool band in the 70’s! The song is about his life and the fact that he never actually made it to the frontline in World War II. He wasn’t a very nice person, one of his students drew a picture on the board of a bottle of vinegar with him jumping out of it, so that’s how he got the nickname.’

As the song goes: ‘Two key assignments, preparations, circumstances snd fate prevente him from fulfilling his destiny. We’ll never know how history would have been.’

They’re always open to new ideas, according to Patrascu: ‘Everything is possible,’ he said. ‘We do record almost everything that we’re playing.’ Incredibly, despite his powerful voice, Epping still views himself as a stand-in singer. ‘I’m still waiting for the real one to start,’ he quipped. ‘I just stepped in at the beginning when we didn’t have a singer, I thought I was just a guitar player.’ Patrascu jumps in and sweetly says ‘But you’ve been singing for 20 years now, so you’re definitely a singer!’

They are huge Pearl Jam fans: ‘Gabi says we have a Pearl Jam t-shirt for every day of the week!,’ Epping said. ‘Gabi and I grew up with Pearl Jam, Led Zeppelin and Stereophonics.’ Dekker interjects: ‘Soon they will have to wear Rufusking t-shirts! We’re making some, there will be four designs. It’s just the logo to see how people will react and some variations of that.’

Psychedelic Dutch rock band DeWolff is also a firm favourite. When I ask who they’d like to tour with, they go quiet for the first time. Patrascu is the first to speak: ‘Led Zeppelin because it’s so difficult to find a band that’s similar. They’re very unique.’ Epping chips in: ‘The Rolling Stones. Keith Richards is still alive, isn’t he?!’ Sander joins in; ‘I’d like a chat with Kelly Jones, I’m interested in the guy behind the personality. He seems like a normal guy, so you could have a beer with him and talk all night.’ Stolk has picked someone: ‘I’m going with The Band because they can all sing and play multiple instruments,’ he said. ‘They just started out as a backing band for Bob Dylan, I think it’d be educational and interesting.’

(Photo from left to right: Jan, Timo, Sander and Gabriel)