Interview: The Klittens

After building a dedicated global following through their beloved EPs Citrus and Butter, Amsterdam’s five-piece indie/post-punk outfit The Klittens officially step into their most ambitious chapter yet with the release of their debut album, Have A Heart—out today self-released via Cargo Records.

Known for blending dark sentiments with jangly pop sensibilities, deadpan wit, and an uncompromising DIY ethos, the band has crafted a record that paints a heavy picture with pastel strokes. From tackling “know-it-alls” on the jangly final single “Nothing to Teach” to exploring apathy, powerlessness, and the stubborn pull of autonomy across ten distinct lyrical stories, Have A Heart is a triumphant milestone for the Dutch scene’s most charming misfits.

We caught up with the band on release day to dive deep into the making of their debut LP, the stories behind their singles, their five-voice songwriting dynamics, visual inspirations, and what lies ahead as they take this new music on the road.

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Hello, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions. How have you been?

Laurie: Super excited, stressed, hyped, feeling it all! I’m very relieved that we sent out the first pre-orders and vinyls for the record stores last weekend, now it’s all really out of our hands and slowly being launched into the world. 

Winnie: You know what I am looking forward to? Being on the road instead of working from our laptops. I have been good, though! The laptop-work gives much ‘voorpret’ (translation from Dutch: ‘pre-fun’)

Laurie: Omg, me too!!

“Nothing to Teach” tackles self-proclaimed “know-it-alls” through deadpan wit and jangly post-punk guitars. Yaël, you described it as a “reimagined preach”, what inspired that specific angle, and how do you use humor to deliver a sharper message?

The song is meant as a preach in terms of both content and form. The inspiration mainly comes from traditional African American gospel preaching. I’m amazed by the power these sermons exude, despite the predictability of their structure. I had the pleasure of visiting Al Green’s church in Memphis and witnessing a sermon in person. The cadence, tone and repetition resulted in a persuasiveness that extends beyond the words. I wanted to experience delivering a text in that way, although our message is about the joy that lies in a lack of submission, certainly not the other way around. The humor is then perhaps a way to make the message a little less poignant. Nobody likes a cynic.

The music video for “Nothing to Teach” plays out like a personal DIY scrapbook of handycam footage. Winnie, how did it feel looking back through all those moments on the road and in the studio while editing it together, and how does it capture the band’s growth?

Winnie: I’ll allow myself to be cliche: making this video made me feel very proud. We started from scratch, having no connections to the music industry at all, and having very little experience making music at all. And now some years and two EP’s later we have our first full length album. Pinch me, am I dreaming?! The video captures that growth but also everything else that leads to an album. Maybe the only thing missing is the many many hours of online meetings, writing emails and writing subsidy applications.

The previous singles “Have a Heart” and “Taxi” touch on apathy as a defense mechanism and the repetitive grind of inertia. How do those emotional themes tie into “Nothing to Teach” as the final preview of the record?

Yael: After two songs that are quite earnest in their message we felt it was good to lighten up a little. Nothing To Teach is not completely lighthearted, although it might be within our discography, but it’s not so much about feeling helpless as it is about mocking the dynamic another person can impose on you. Where I have to listen and accept what you say, where perhaps the other person assumes a meekness that’s not actually there.

Your debut album title, Have A Heart, is described as “painting a heavy picture with pastels.” How does that contrast between soft surfaces and dark, heavy themes define the core identity of the album?

Laurie: I think it’s also a bit of the core identity of The Klittens in general. Our songs always end up quite happy, soft, despite the fact in the beginning we always tried to write loud punk songs (at a certain point we gave up). However, Yaël’s lyrics are always quite dark, but very subtle and metaphorical.

Yael: I think it’s also a reflection of the different ways in which we derive joy from playing in a band. Writing lyrics is a way of processing emotions and communicating your inner thoughts, and writing helps me especially with the more difficult aspects of life. At the same time, playing and creating with this band is a very joyous thing which has allowed us to discover and explore new parts of life in a very natural way.

With each track on Have A Heart serving as a distinct lyrical story, what central thread or feeling holds the ten songs together as a full body of work?

Yael: I misread this question as threat instead of thread, that already might be telling. We didn’t agree on a general theme before we started writing, still it was quite easy for us to see what it was when we put all the songs together after recording. Almost all of the songs seem to reflect on the concept of helplessness, although not all from the same perspective or on the same scale I have certain rules for myself when writing, and one of those rules is that you shouldn’t write from your own perspective too much, don’t overuse “I”. I think the rule was broken for this album but that has resulted in almost diary like set of lyrics, where you can hear me cope live on your stereo.

The title Have A Heart acts as both an accusation and a plea regarding powerlessness. Was writing this record an exercise in processing that sense of powerlessness, or more of a way to fight back against it?

I think in the past we were too unclear in our messages, even though I really like a straightforward sentiment. On this album we try to be more clear in our intentions, and in that sense it feels like a more clear way of fighting back. At the same time, being that straightforward can feel strange since yes, the writing is mostly a way of processing that helplessness. And helplessness is basically another face of fear. And being honest about your fear where everyone can hear it makes you feel fragile as well as strong. And it is very tempting to make that fragility a bit more cryptic.

Your musical palette stretches across country, pop, post-punk, and indie, pulling inspiration from artists as varied as MF Doom, The Ronettes, Kate Bush, and Dry Cleaning. How do five people with such divergent individual tastes combine those styles without losing the cohesion of the band?

Laurie: I think we are somehow blessed that we are mostly self-taught musicians, or we never reached the point where we were geeking out on guitar pedals, what kind of wood there is in my drum sticks and what our fav chord progression is – with all due respect to people who love geeking out on that kind of stuff, I really admire your knowledge and dedication. Therefore it is a lot more difficult for us to really recreate a sound or a songwriting style of a certain artist, even if we try. Sometimes I’m at home making a demo and I’m like: ‘I really want to create a The Ronettes kind of song’ but how hard I try, it just ends up sounding completely different. Sometimes it’s frustrating. I’m lucky enough though to play in a band with people that have equal knowledge about music theory and gear and stuff, and somehow that really works. Also because I feel like there’s already too many bands that are really obviously imitating established bands. It’s a great tribute, but also very boring. Again, with all due respect. 

Besides from that, I also think there’s a lot of trust in the band. There were a couple of times when I heard a demo from someone else and I really didn’t understand the intention of the song, but after playing it together it only started to click. There’s even a song on this album where it started to click during the mixing stage, and it’s now one of my favourite songs. 

Yael I think it helps to see every song as a completely singular piece of work, with its own particular needs. The cohesion lies in your individual accents that bleed through into everything we make but we are just as eager to make a song inspired by Marvin Gaye as by Babymetal.

With five vocalists in the band, you have a lot of room for harmonies, call-and-response, and dynamic vocal textures. How do you approach arranging vocals when building a track from the ground up?

Laurie: Sometimes the other vocals are there from the very first beginning of a song, sometimes the other vocals just come up when we are in the studio and adding some extra layers like percussion. For Have a Heart for instance, Yaël for came up with the call-and-responce for instance, but the repeated backing vocals in the bridge ‘all the birds were there but they’s the only ones that cared’ were more of something that came up on the spot, because the mic was still on and as long there’s a mic on I feel like I have to shout in it. 

Your instrumentation is deliberately lean, four instruments and five voices. How does working within those self-imposed structural boundaries challenge or sharpen your songwriting?

Winnie: Having a world of possibilities in a DAW where you can choose any synthesizer or orchestral instrument you can think of can be fun, but it mostly puts me in this hyper mood where I keep on adding layers that don’t add much to the music. Having only four instruments pushes my creativity much more because I have to make conscious decisions. It also gives Yaël enough space to add a vocal melody to it, and it gives space for everyone to shine.

The Klittens started as a creative and political outlet before mutating into a full-fledged life mission. How has maintaining complete autonomy over your music, releases, and tour management shaped the band’s bond?

Laurie: I think we’re very happy to have a band with members that not only enjoy making music, but also really enjoy doing stuff like directing music videos, booking shows, discussing what color we want on our artwork, picking stage outfits and experimenting with different kinds of marketing. This has led to some very serious discussions, sometimes small fights, but for me it is absolutely worth the autonomy we have now. I think we’re somehow also a bit too stubborn to work with people who tell us what to do, because we are all individuals who have a very clear vision for what we think works for this band and what doesn’t. Since this album, we’ve very cautiously let our friend Arie from the band Lewsberg (I know he doesn’t like getting credited but I will do it anyway) into our world  – strictly in an advisory role, acting as a sounding board when we’re truly stuck, letting his network get to know The Klittens and handling the most tedious aspects (label services) – but we still keep a firm grip on things ourselves. 

You’re a vital part of the booming Dutch indie wave alongside bands like Personal Trainer, Pip Blom, and Lewsberg, and you even run your own festival, Klitfest. What makes the current scene in the Netherlands so supportive and creatively fruitful?

Yael: I’m not sure, it might be hard to oversee the circumstances in which a certain scene is allowed to be born. I think for us personally, we received a lot of support and experienced a lot of warmth from the moment we set foot on the stage. I remember us being very excited the first time we played with each of the bands you mention, and over time you form a bond. It helps that you all devote your life to something you deeply love, but there is also just a boom of really great Dutch bands.

Laurie: I think mostly because it is a very dense scene. Somebody once told me: “In the Netherlands, if you don’t have a specific interest in music but do listen to it occasionally, the default is often very simple Dutch-language pop music that you can jump around to – and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, by the way – so listening to guitar music means deviating from the norm. In the UK the baseline is guitar-driven music, which is why guitarbands are doing so much better in the UK in comparison to the Netherlands.’ This might sound really snobbish – and I don’t know how else to put it – but I think that when you ‘deviate from the norm’ in the Netherlands, you quickly find like-minded people, exchange ideas, and support one another. It also helps that we’re all a bit of a cynical bunch, which is an easy language to speak and to connect with other people.

Having shared stages with bands like Otoboke Beaver and BODEGA, how have those extensive European and UK tours influenced the energy you bring into the studio?

Winnie: For this album we wanted the sound to be much more like our live shows, less polished and less produced than our previous EP’s. Both Otoboke Beaver and BODEGA are high energy bands, and even though we are not, it worked really well as a combi package. This instilled a confidence in us that we don’t have to change who we are. How this translates from the stage to the studio is mostly in understanding how we (want to) sound live: sincere, honest. 

Following your EPs Citrus and Butter, Have A Heart marks your first full-length album. What did the longer format allow you to explore creatively that wasn’t possible on a shorter EP?

Laurie: For an EP I personally felt more pressure to make a mega-hit of every song. With an album it feels like there’s more room to experiment. Not that some songs on the album didn’t have the attention they needed, but I felt less of an urge to mold all the songs into a classic pop-song.

Yael I agree, there is more space for the songs that are less easily translatable, therefore you can widen your range without alienating the listener.

With the album being released self-run via Cargo Records, how are you planning to translate Have A Heart into your live shows?

Laurie: I think we’re gonna play the songs from the album during our liveshows. Surprise! All jokes aside, it feels really weird to now have to scrap classic Klittens-songs of the setlist because we now have more than enough songs to play live and we can really create different kinds of setlists for different kinds of shows! I’m really excited to play our new songs, but it also feels a bit bittersweet to have to choose now between our babies. 

Winnie: I don’t really get what this has to do with Cargo lol, we’re going to rehearse the songs and play them, not much translation needed.

Once Have A Heart is out in the world and the album release celebrations wrap up, what lies on the immediate horizon for The Klittens?

Laurie: We have a debt that we have to pay off lol. Recording and releasing an album as an independent band is a real privilege; I think we – and music consumers – should be more aware of that, and that artists should talk about it more, even though it doesn’t make you look cool or nonchalant. Some bands have to deal with fans constantly asking when they’re going to release a debut album, when in reality they simply can’t afford to do so. I find that truly painful. We’re lucky that there are plenty of grants available in the Netherlands – and we’ve made good use of them – but we still had to rack up significant debt to release the album the way we wanted. I honestly think the entire music industry system needs a radical overhaul – the “come play on the other side of the country for a bit of cash, a crate of beer, and ‘exposure’, you want to play, right?” and “you’re doing huge numbers on streaming, here’s 5 cents” mentality – but unfortunately, given the current cultural policies in the Netherlands (and the UK), that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. So, all I can say now is: stop begging for guestlist spots – just buy a ticket if you can afford it, buy merch, and support your bands (I’m also telling this to myself). Not just our shows and merch, but the same goes for other artists too. After we’ve paid off our debt we will definitely go back to the studio for a new album, EP? We have loads of demos that are ready to go. 

Yael: Yes, but first we are going to play a shitload of shows. Most of us really really really missed playing live so I am excited to be able to have that energy in our lives again. We’ve been really contemplative this last year, it’s time for some more dumb adventures.

That’s it! Thank you so much. Anything you would like to say to our readers before we wrap this up?

Laurie: We love every single person that listens to our music, writes about it, talks about it, likes our silly social media posts and puts our music in their playlist. It sounds fucking corny but we really do.