Home's acoustics
When Not lost sounds around one feels that having a cup of freshly brewed coffee in hand watching the rain beating against the window can be a great time. Vera Jessen Juhrend’s debut gives us this and many other sensations. She introduces herself just as Vera and her humility and good taste is a treasure to discover. One would like to think that life is to find places like her Leave a line (2009) where we could set aside the weight of our own contradictions and cry for all worthwhile things. Sometimes, it’s good to clean the wounds with a simple home, sweet home, and the songs of Vera embrace us as rarely happens in our daily grind. Life can be rough, especially when we forget the true priorities, like chatting with an author open to folk and jazz in the heat of a band that understands her better than herself.
Leave a line (2009) is your debut album and it has a deep homelike aroma. No place like home?
Definitely! I really think that there is no place like home. But home is also where your heart is! ‘How cliché’, you might say, but in this time we often forget that we can find comfort when we are at home. We are often chasing after so many goals and forget what really is important. To me a lot of that lies at home.
In that song your voice sounds tender while you say I’ve been everywhere but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. Do you really feel you’ve been everywhere?
Tender? Oh... ;-) You cannot possibly have been everywhere, it’s more about a somewhat ‘powerless’ feeling, like you feel that you have done what you could and don’t know where to go from there.
It’s easy to think that you need an intimate ambient to feel good and it’s probably the same thing in your creative process. Do you feel more comfortable playing in the studio or performing live?
Both are totally different things as far as I am concerned. When recording in a studio, sound is all you have to tell your story. While playing live you have so much more to work with (sometimes less, but that depends on the gig itself ;-)). In the studio you’ve got do-over’s but on stage you have to carry on regardless. I don’t have a favorite between the two. I like playing live because you can see the reaction from the listener immediately, but I do like the fact that people will play our CD at their home or in the car!
Always something is a hopeful song with an imaginative promotional video. It’s really lovely. Here you sing there’s always something new so your songs are as contradictories as life itself. If I say emotion, what do you think of?
Thanks for the compliment! We worked our asses off for this video!!
Emotion is what drives us to do what we do. It is how we feel that makes us decide where we go. Emotion means movement I guess.
What’s your most bedtime recurrent worry?
Right now it’s all the politics in Holland. I don’t know if you have heard, but they are planning to really cut back on culture. I’m wondering what is going to happen next…
High heels has a more obscure sound. Have you often feel lost in life?
I don’t see how an obscure sound means that I am lost in life...
I’m talking about its lyrics and its obscure sound.
Good question, pretty lost sometimes, even in my own songs.
I just really like a different sound sometimes. Also my band -especially my guitarist- bring out that side of me. They are awesome at translating what I feel into sound.
The sound of a trumpet gives a jazz style to that song. What kind of music do you prefer?
I like lots of music! I like to see big concerts of classical music but I also like to go to living room concerts. Different music, different places, the most important factor is that there has to be something authentic about it.
I guess I’m not ready is part of another deeply touching song, Bathroom door. Here, home is presented as a place where our own contradictions can hurt a relationship. And a trumpet leaves us alone with our fears. Is it hard to find a perfect balance in a life together?
I feel that life consists of the search for a perfect balance. Life together can be tough, but also very pleasant. I guess the trick is to be as open and honest as one possibly can, even if is means hurting each other’s feelings every now and then.
In Not lost your voice sounds most brilliant than ever and hope returns again in your songs. What’s the meaning of wondering for you?
Wondering... that is what I do. I ask questions, try to find a balance, learn as much as I can. Wondering means having an open mind to me.
Probably is again a song about fears. Solitude, loneliness...don’t you ever need to be alone?
I am born a twin and I hardly ever need to be alone. I can enjoy it though, but it’s something that I have had to learn.
She sings Always something from the hope of who sees life as an eternal challenge of learning. Its promotional video is a gem of craft directed by Dirk Pot Mark who has been honored thanks to this marvelous creation. And the Vera’s whisper is going away little by little from the interview to leave us alone with her songs and our own experiences with them. Second by second through her album, I have an increasing desire of seeing one of her concerts. That would be a very good reason to visit her native Holland. I hope there was always something of Vera’s music sounding around.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero
Photos by el Panouli
Video by Mark Dirk Pot