Genre Magazine Interview, July 1997

The most important thing you need to know about Bettie Serveert is that there is no such person. The woman you see singing and cavorting in photos and videos ain't no Bettie--that's front gal Carol van Dijk. And those guys around her? Well, none of them are Bettie either.

Translated, the band's name means "Bettie serves"--taken from the title of an instructional guide featuring Dutch tennis star Betty Steuve (why not?). But the more famous Bettie Serveert is an alternapop quartet out of Holland with a couple of solid, critically praised albums under their belt and a brand-new one, Dust Bunnies, out now from Matador/Capitol. This latest album mines familiar territory for the band--deliciously crunchy guitar hooks coupled with confectionary pop moments and the air vocals of van Dijk. This Bettie serves well, too.

Stateside in Minnesota to shoot the video for their latest single, "Rudder," van Dijk, Visser, and Bunskoeke talk to us about their new album, live sex acts, and Dutch must-sees for gay tourists. But not until after Bunskoeke, the designated band extrovert, takes the reins and poses the first question himself.

Herman Bunskoeke: So what is your genre?
GENRE: We're a gay men's magazine. Any comments for your gay audience?
HB: Gee... Most people seem to think that Amsterdam is the gay capital of the world. But really it's not my scene at all. I don't know anything about it! [Laughs]

Still, it must be liberating to know that you can go to a bar and see live sex between many men any time you want to.
HB: Yes. You have that freedom, that's for sure.
Carol van Dijk: When people talk about the Netherlands in that way, they mean Amsterdam and other big cities. They're more open-minded to every kind of life. But the smaller villages--they're probably just like any village anywhere in the world.
HB: We once lived in a city where they opened a lesbian bar, and the night of the opening a member of the gay community came to their door with a big bouquet of flowers and said, "It's good that you're here in our city and we're very glad that you opened this bar." And they refused to take the flowers! The lesbians said, "Get the hell out of here. You're a male!" i thought it was extremely stupid because you're fighting for the same tolerance.

That is stupid. Carol, how often do you get called "Bettie"?
CVD: All the time, of course. Nowadays, I just say "Yeah, sure, and he's Bettie, and he's Bettie and he's Bettie as well!" [Laughs] I mean, it's our own fault. We stuck ourselves with a stupid name.

Well, it seems to work. Compared to your previous albums, what's different about Dust Bunnies?
Peter Visser: The songs are tighter and shorter and more uplifting.
HB: They're still very serious, but it doesn't have that dramatic tone that our second album [Lamprey, 1995] had. The way that one sounded was very bombastic and over the top. This album is more: Life can be fun! Let's jump around!

Now that you've made three albums, is being a band everything you all dreamed it would be?
CVD: I never had any imagination about it. It just happend to us all of a sudden. I guess you can make it as crazy as you want to. All of us find it very importan to have a stable home life. Most bands are a lot younger than we are but we were in our late 20s when we started. If we had been 18 in the same situation, we probably would have done all those dumb things other bands do. But we got to do them in private at home, and not have all the tabloids on top of us.
HB: Being a rock artist is not as romantic as it seems it is. Most of the time you are just waiting. You are waiting for the sound check to be ready. You are waiting for the show to happen. After the first two years, traveling is like waiting to arrive at the next city.
CVD: It's sort of a test of your patience. You become a very patient person.

What parts of it stay exciting?
HB: For me, the live shows and recording are the most fun part of being a rock artist.
CVD: I like being at home and writing the songs and then getting together and practicing and recording in the studio. I always get a little--well, very nervous when I go onstage. I don't know what to say. As long as we're playing it's OK--it's more in the spaces between the songs that I get a little lost.

So how did you land in rock-star existence if you're and introvert?
CVD: I don't even know! It was an accident! [Laughs] I was very comfortable when I was a sound engineer, spending my time in the back of the venue in the dark. And when we were first jamming and writing songs, we never thought that people would like our stuff. Our only goal was like, "Well, maybe if we make a demo we could get a gig maybe once a month or something--if we're lucky."

Anything else for your gay fans?
HB: We have a gay monument in Amsterdam. It's a pink marble stone. What's a driehoek, Peter?
PV: A triangle.
HB: It's a triangle, a pink triangle--and it's big. You can sit on it with six people. It's built on one of the canals in Amsterdam. And it's a monument for gay people. It's cool!