Drowning in success

Published May 27, 2015

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Karen Zoid is looking to reconnect with her English fans, writes Diane de Beer

 

As is her mien, she wants to rock the boat. She’s a rocker, after all! That’s what drives Karen Zoid’s new album, Drown Out the Noise, the first English album for some time.

“It’s tough times in the music industry, albums aren’t selling and many performers are going acoustic,” she says. But not Zoid.

She has a new electric guitar, one she has always admired and longed for, one light enough to carry to gigs and that’s what she wanted to celebrate on this album – the noise.

“I wanted to go over the top,” she says. “I want it all.” But she’s also about tweaking her guitar playing. “I am 37 now. When I turn 40, I want to do a guitar solo on stage! I’m almost there,” she says.

“I know people are doing smaller gigs, but I think when money is tight, the economy slow, people will rather go out less, but need more.”

She’s tired of playing smaller gigs in sad venues where the sound and lighting isn’t always up to scratch. She has paid her dues and wants to be more choosy about where and with whom she performs: “I want special venues like the forest on Paul Cluver’s farm or the caves in the Clanwilliam area.”

From now on it’s full tilt for Zoid: “I want all the bells and whistles. I want to stand out.”

Apart from the album that’s doing well, an Afrikaans collaboration with Francois van Coke, Toe Vind Ek Jou, (who is featured in a song on this album, too), went straight to No 1 on iTunes . And her album has been doing well on the local charts.

She needed to hit the English market again because she’s been touring Afrikaans festivals these past few years. “I wanted them to know I’m not dead. I needed to reconnect,” she says.

And she wanted to do it with lots of noise – even if the name says it differently, we know what she means.

Writing Afrikaans or English, either comes easily to her as she was schooled in both. She started her high school years in Afrikaans and wrote matric in English. She has also loved her collaborations with Zolani Mahola from Freshlyground as well Van Coke.

“We had loads of fun,” she says.

Her next collaboration is with Mahola and Zanne Stapelberg. It’s a knockout mix because all three are dynamite on stage and also have very specific and beautiful voices. It’s one to check out.

Zoid tells stories when she’s writing, but they pierce the heart and are about everything around her that’s part of her consciousness and country, and with this one in particular, she was writing for fellow South Africans.

“We spin everything out of control,” she says, “into the scariest scenario. World War I was just yesterday, it’s not that long ago and we’re doing okay. Everything has to be instantaneous. We have to distance ourselves, stand still and listen. Drown out the noise.”

She knows that when she doesn’t allow herself just the teeniest me-time, she’s in trouble: “I have to do something for myself daily, even if just for 20 minutes.” Cry halt, is her admonition, as often as possible.

Everything she does musically is designed around performance and anyone who has witnessed this rock queen on stage, will know that’s where her music comes alive.

“We’re announcing a few big concerts,” she says, excited by the future because she knows they will come. If the music is good, nothing can stop people from coming.

“There’s less expendable income, but people are more circumspect with their choices.”

She also knows that live performances are the key to a rocker’s income, so there’s selfishness built in there, she concedes. But she promises excellence and when you listen to the new album, it’s all there; the songs, the lyrics and the band with everything red-hot, but not quite as loud as one might expect. That bang should be experienced live.

Getting hold of Zoid was a tough ask. Not because she didn’t want to speak, she was out of live action for a week while filming the next series of KYKnet’s Republiek of Zoid Afrika which will be screened from July 2. It’s something she produces herself and has created this country where she is the president and gathers people she admires around her to talk.

It’s a huge thing, she says, because the crew and the guests all have to be fed, quality food, and she tries to make it all quite special – like a party.

 

l To celebrate the Karen Zoid and Francois van Coke success with Toe Vind Ek Jou, the Afrikaans solo that’s red-hot, they will stage three shows: July 12 at 6pm at Artscape; July 24 and 25 at 8pm at Atterbury Theatre. Tickets R200.

 

Karen Zoid on the songs on Drown out the Noise:

 

1. Drown Out the Noise: “It’s the title and opening song and very laid-back, quite an unusual way to open an album,” she says. “I’m experimenting with rock and blues because blues is something I want to explore more thoroughly.”

 

2. Secrets and Lies: She describes it as a mix between metal and country, again a combo that’s deceptively close to one another with lyrics that tell a story South Africans will sadly recognise.

 

3.Troublemaker: It’s the collaboration with Zolani Mahola and deals with Mandela, but Zoid believes it’s prophetic and that the next great leader is now between five and six years old. “He will be a born-free,” she says. And he will be there, she’s convinced.

 

4. We’re all Gonna Die Someday: It’s one of those funky, fun numbers, says Zoid, where audiences can recharge and take charge. “It’s asking everyone not to take life and themselves that seriously. It’s a moment in time, we’re a moment in time.”

 

5. Smile: This is a love song and her collaboration with Francois van Coke which she really enjoyed, so expect to see more of these two in future. “It’s just the beginning of our musical relationship,” she says.

 

6. Where There’s a Will there is a way: This song is also the theme song of her chat programme, Republiek in Zoid Afrika. It’s again a feel-good party type song, the rocker explains.

 

7.You Can Show It: A love lament with a plea for people to share, to talk, to communicate, but most of all to show it.

 

8. Justice Justice: This is the song that has had the most public attention because it is Zoid’s plea, following the rape and killing of Anene Booysen, the Bredasdorp teen, that so shocked the world, for justice. “I wanted to turn away when this case started,” says Zoid, but she became fascinated especially by the young accused who was already emblazoned with a gang number and seemed to show arrogance rather than remorse. “But in the end, you have to remember that this is the story of a little girl and a little boy,” she says. And that’s what compelled her to write this song that resonates with anguish. It’s about dysfunctional families because how else do children end up this way?

 

9. Nightingale: It’s a song for her best friend Jackie Nagtegaal whose mother died of cancer recently and when you hear the words, it’s a song of softness and gentle noise to soften the harshest pain.

Found your nest in my garden

Held your home in my hand

We watched the sky as it darkened

Where are you now my little friend?

 

10: People Never Learn: It happens over and over again and while it seems as if we have no control, we have all the control. But they don’t learn...” she wails.

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