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ROCKNATION ISSUE 24
Hello VAN ARX and welcome to Rocknation. Congrats to your band on the release of your album “Stand Together
for Rock and Roll” on Perris Records. How long has the band been together and how did you form the band?
Thank you very much, we’re happy to get the chance for that interview. VAN ARX started as school band over 30 years
ago. Well, I should not really write that, because it reflects how old we actually are. We played some quite successful
concerts and then split up for various reasons. When you are young, priorities change every day and none of us was brave
enough to follow a possible career in the music business. While each band member followed his own musical career in
different local bands, there was this magic moment with Tyler’s birthday. He invited all the musicians he played with during
the last few years to be on stage with him and perform some songs. Since we could not really remember the old original
songs and neither audio material was really available, we decided to play some cover songs. It was a blast for us and the
audience, we decided to bring VAN ARX back to life! First it was just fun, nothing very serious. But when we started to work
on new songs, we all had the feeling that we want to bring this project to a more professional level. We started to record
rehearsal sessions, and produced new songs with the home studio. That way we were able to perfect the songs. We also
worked on our image and show. It was clear that we needed to be somehow special to stick out of the masses. That’s when
we had the idea to look like we actually looked like back in the 80s - just a bit more exaggerated. Success and enormous
positive feedback at concerts confirms that this is the way to go.
Please name some of the tracks and the story behind them.
There’s a funny story behind the song “Stand Together for Rock And Roll”. We had this crazy idea to apply for being
Switzerland’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. Maybe this event is not well known in the US, since it is a
European thing. It’s probably the largest and most famous music event all over Europe. About 40 countries send a singer
or a band to the event, a jury and the viewers vote for the best song. It’s a huge TV event and there are “ESC” parties
everywhere. As good as all entries are more like ballads or dance songs, seldom rock songs. But to get a chance, you
need to be different in any way. We went to the studio with a vague idea only. In one day, we wrote the song,
did the recordings and mixing. In a second day, we shot the
video and sent it in to the jury. They’ve got really very bad taste
and did not choose us. They took a very normal dance act for it
... and did not even make it to the final. We would have won that
thing ;-D We found songs from the original school band VAN
ARX on a Music Cassette. For the younger readers: A Music
Cassette was the only option to record something. It consists of
a magnetic tape where sound/audio gets recorded with
analogue technics. Actually it’s the same thing as a video
cassette - ok, you won’t know this thing either ... :-) However, we
chose “Rock Battle” and “Send The Devil To Hell”, originally
written in the years 1983 and 1984 and worked hard on them.
Many of the original parts are still in the songs. There were
arguments about it. Brew hated Rock Battle. He always stated,
that it’s a primitive school band song and for sure nothing
anymore for the grown up VAN ARX. But after recording it in the
studio and performing it live, he had to agree that it’s a classic
rock song and the fans love it. “It Is Over”, “I Want Some Girls”
und “She Did Anyway” is true stories out of the exciting life of
Tyler.