The Kool Kids

When you have arranged a meeting with Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo a.k.a. The Bloody Beetroots, at first you do not really have an idea of what to expect: “How will he look like? What will he say? What will he think?”. Of course you’ve read interviews, seen pictures of half his face and seen him play live before, still it does intrigue you quite much.

The interview is done and you suddenly come to realize that Sir Bob is actually really normal, open and down-to-earth. Not at all as expected, but it felt even better. After being asked by Tommy Tea to attend the soundcheck of the band, you can hardly say no. It’s an experience that I would put in the genre “unique”, and it absolutely blows your mind. As the minutes go by and the soundcheck is done, the crowd is craving for its headliner. You can hear them going crazy; people yelling and screaming, ready to break stuff. Then you take a look at the persons who have now become your ciccio’s; Sir Bob Rifo, Tommy Tea right next to him and Edward Grinch standing a bit on the side. It’s amazing to witness this view, and to feel the attention heating up. At a certain point they get a call, saying they have to get up stage. When going with them, you will join the crowd, as the noise keeps getting louder and louder. As soon as Domino is starting to play, the crowd is going bananas and you at least have a little idea of how they must be feeling at that very moment.

While the band is playing, you look back at what you’ve experienced earlier the day. Hearing an artist’s opinion about Punk, Anarchy in relation to music, yet being fully free in the music and inspiration he has, is quite inspiring. Though when hearing these expressions, these feelings and these opinions out live right after, that is something that makes you think. There is an idea behind all what is being said and played, even if it only means that The Bloody Beetroots want to be free and doing so by making and performing music. This knowledge and these findings give you something special, an extra dimension in the world of a great artist and a great band, consisting of integer persons.

I’m proud to say that I am inspired by this interview and this day I was blessed to witness. Some experiences in life give you a good bounce, some will turn out to take you down, but some experiences will give you the feeling of being alive and having lived a whole day long. This was one of those days.
Here I present you the interview The Kool Kids did with Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo a.k.a. The Bloody Beetroots.

Why is it called “Death Crew 77″, with the emphasis on “Death Crew”?
It’s called Death Crew because it’s like the beginning of the end of The Bloody Beetroots. Basically I just want to destroy The Bloody Beetroots entirely as a of figure of speech. That’s why I’m saying “Destroy” in the Domino track for instance. It’s a new start, just like a cycle.

In what way do you think this band will bring The Bloody Beetroots to the next level?
This band is the next level. It’s a new step we’re taking. We’re not talking about working with Ableton or any of that. This is simply the next level in real life. You’ve got Edward (Grinch red.) being the drummer, I play keyboard, bass and guitar, whereas Tommy does all the effects live.

In 1998 you set up a band called “Cafeaudio” and later on a band called “Bob Rifo’s Gang”. What were these early years like?
First I had Cafeaudio, it consisted of a duo and we made Triphop. It was the first release I ever had and it was a good project. You should look up “Control Me” by Cafeaudio, it’s really good. At second I had Bob Rifo’s Gang, which was a Punk band. We were a bunch of fucked up guys and we totally destroyed it haha. I quit Bob Rifo’s Gang, because I quit the drugs and everything that went along with it. I became more responsible and then The Bloody Beetroots started.

Now back to Death Crew 77. You recently added Edward Grinch as drummer to the band. What can you tell us about him?
Edward is a pretty new character of The Bloody Beetroots. I’ve discovered him in Italy, when I asked for a drummer and through friends I got a video of this crazy guy, who turned out to be Edward. Yeah he’s great, he’s a good Punk drummer and played in several bands that have toured around the world.

What is your philosophy about your music in regards to Anarchy? Is it like “music will set you free”?
Exactly. I just want to expand the mind, let us be free in music. You can do and create everything what you want, in which you aren’t limited to certain genres or anything. Like it can only be classical or only be Punk. Music indeed sets you free and that’s where I believe in. My core intention is just to make music and nothing else. I don’t really care about other stuff and I want to be free in the music I create.

How and when was your philosophy created?
I think when I was young it already developed. I was studying music at a young age and then started to play, pop and rock and jazz. There wasn’t any switch from classical to other genres or any of such thing. The transition went well smooth.

It looked like since the release of Romborama your attitude suddenly became a whole lot rougher, as you were a lot more outspoken in interviews about your philosophy and your opinions. Can you explain this?
When I started The Bloody Beetroots I was being more responsible. At first I tried some experiments and later on I had a more clear view of what I wanted to do. I wanted more than a relationship and we are always open minded DJ’s. We look into it with a wide angle.

This summer you will be playing at big festivals like Rock Werchter and Rockness. How will the festival shows be different than the concerts in clubs and at smaller venues?
I have no idea in what way those shows will be different, and frankly I don’t really care. I don’t even know what to play tomorrow. I just live from day to day and we’ll see what happens. Tommy (Tea red.) is better known with the schedules we have. For me it’s the priority to play music and nothing else matters to me.

Will you be playing at Lowlands festival?
As I said, I don’t know about our schedule. Tommy does so you should ask him about that.
(We asked Tommy about it and got ourselves an answer)

What can you tell us about a “Best of” that’s being released at the end of the year?
Yeah, I want to release two more spares of Romborama. So those will be two EPs just like Christmas Vendetta and Domino. The short movie of Domino is the first step of a whole set of short movies, that will come with the Spares of Romborama. Besides that there will be collaborations with people like Peter Hook, Black Strobe, Mixhell and others. And after that there will be a release of best of the mixes from us. It will contain all kinds of unreleased stuff that we will put out with tracks like Dimmakmmunication and it will probably be a double CD!

What kind of stuff can we expect to be in the online Bloody Beetroots store? When can we expect it?
Well it takes a while because I have to do all the stuff myself. It’s only me and one assistant who take care of the stuff we put out, it’s not done by an industry or such. I want to produce new and quality shirts and therefore I work with the designer “Vendetta” in order to make quality t-shirts. And this just takes a while. The t-shirts are going to be something you can wear over day too, thus it can be seen as casual clothes, but it also needs to have a clear logo of The Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77 on it. Besides this I also want it not to be expensive. Thus you’ll be wearing quality, yet cheap shirts. I do think we talk about fashion in a bad way, as many people always tell me that fashion has to be expensive no matter what, but I reject that. Hence, I’m not doing this stuff for the money, I simply want to do the things I enjoy.

Define the message you want to spread.
Freedom. Just freedom. We don’t live in a free society, where you can do what you want whenever you want to do it, since you will always be watched and judged on your actions. Like with Romborama, all the critics and labels said like “21 songs, isn’t that way too much for an album?”. But with all the Spares together we will probably have even 40 tracks! I don’t give a fuck about what the critics say about it. I just want to spread music and want to play records. The Romborama album plus the Spares of Romborama EP’s will probably be released in a big box at the end.

I now have all these projects going and we’re already busy with the third step, which will be known in six months time.

As a conclusion, though it hasn’t been confirmed by Lowlands Festival itself, we can unofficially say that The Bloody Beetroots are going to play there. Besides this, there will be two more Spares of Romborama, a “Best of” double CD with unreleased tracks like Dimmakmmunication, collaborations with Mixhell, Peter Hook, Black Strobe and others and finally a new The Bloody Beetroots project that will be revealed in about six months time.