Smells Like Quarantine Spirit: Cees

Cees is the singer and guitarist of his own band Steve French, but you might also know him from playing in Canshaker Pi and Personal Trainer.

Cees is currently also stuck at home, where he is focusing on his master degree in Philosophy and making music. When he feels like the walls are closing in on him, he escapes to cinema 'De Uitkijk' in Amsterdam where he works. The small cinema is closed right now, but the students who run it can still flee inside to do chores and take care of the building. Sometimes he goes in by himself to watch movies, which is something we would all love to do, let's be honest.

Hi Cees! Are you still able to make music from home? And if so, what does your set up / room / studio look like?

Cees: Luckily I can! When I just started making music, I would create demos by using my guitar and I would record myself with the microphone on my laptop. Some of my music friends felt really sorry for me, so they started lending me some of their gear. I got the Focusrite interface from Abel, the Sennheiser microphone from Doortje, the Fender bass from Darek and the Yamaha synthesizer from Jorne.

When I'm working on demos, I mostly focus on writing down initial ideas and then fine tuning them as a starting point for when we start rehearsing and recording with the entire band. I currently have a very limited set up, but it's perfect for what I want to do with it.

I do want to make my demos sound a bit nicer, so I have been watching YouTube tutorials on how to mix music at home. Although I must say that so far I'm still making pretty bad sounding music during this quarantine.

Are you still able to make music with others? With your band members or friends?

Not really. The idea was to send each other ideas, but I think everyone is just working on their own music at home.

Do you find it more difficult to make music right now?

Some things I find more difficult, but other things have become easier to do. Abel, who is part of Steve French, and I often write songs together. I really enjoy doing that, but we can't really write together at the moment. We also can't really rehearse with the rest of the band, or come together to work on ideas.

On the other hand, because I am stuck at home, I can spend more time with the set up I described earlier. Because I am now able to already work on ideas by myself on my computer, I've started looking at my writing and recording process more from the perspective of a producer, instead of a singer songwriter. Which I have thoroughly enjoyed so far, and it's also a skill I can still develop.

Where do you get your inspiration from? Do you find it difficult to be really creative during this pandemic??

What I'm trying to do right now when I am creating demos, is to record something as quickly as possible. Whether it's good or not, and then see what I can turn it into. Sometimes I am able to think of something new during the recording process, to turn a very uninspiring guitar riff into something completely different and create a whole new song. But this doesn't always work, often I am stil stuck with that uninspiring guitar riff. But it's also something that I enjoy doing, just to spend the time at home.

Do you have any tips for other musicians that are currently stuck at home?

If you want to buy new instruments for at home: now is the time. There are probably a lot of people trying to get rid of their guitars or synthesizers. So I would do some research online to see if you could buy some nice second hand instruments.

Thanks for all the tips Cees! How can fans currently support you and Steve French?

You can always stream or download our songs, buy our merch and follow us on the internet. But only if you really want it.

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Follow Cees + Steve French:

@stevefrenchbay

Steve French - Lightning Tiger Running LP