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ARID

Young and talented emotional rock-band centered around the vocal talents of Jasper Steverlinck.

 
Songs
 

"Keepin' Up With The Jones's"
1 min 33 sec. - 182 Kb.
Year : 1996

from "Little Things
of Venom" (99)

"Too Late Tonight"
58 sec. - 114 Kb.

"Little Things of Venom"
1 min 16 sec. - 149 Kb.

"Believer"
1 min 7 sec. - 133 Kb.

"Dearly Departed"
57 sec. - 111 Kb.

"Me and My Melody"
1 min 5 sec. - 128 Kb.

songs : Steverlinck, Du Pré
Producer : Dave Anderson
Year : 1999
Record co. : Double T Music

 
   

This band was formed in 1995, when David Du Pré and his group were looking for a singer and knocked on the door of Jasper Steverlinck. As their first sign of life, they sent in a cassette for the Rock Rally. In this contest for beginning Belgian bands, Arid ended up in the final, but didn't make a big impression there. The jury said about them "The sound of the seventies (Led Zeppelin) and that of the nineties (Metallica) clash together in their songs, and in the middle of that hell is a singer with Jeff Buckley-allure. Youthful class from Lembeke". (Listen to "Keepin' up with the Jones's", the song that was put on the Rock Rally CD of that year, to hear what that combination sounded like).
As the guys said themselves, this contest had come a bit too early : "David was playing his music, and I was singing my lyrics, but those two things had little in common. We wanted to make songs together, but hadn't come to that yet. In hindsight it is a good thing we didn't win, because if we had done so, we wouldn't have been able to retire into or rehearsal room and develop a style of our own".

After these first battles, the band took a step back and quietly started working on an own repertoire in the rehearsal room. When they came out of there again after some two years, a lot had changed. For starters there was a new drummer, Steven Van Haver of the well-known Flemish band Gorki.
And as Jan Theys of record company Double T explained in Humo : "In 1996 we had only noticed one thing : a good singer with a bad band. We have spoken with them then, but let them go eventually. A year and a half later Reinhard d'Haene, the drummer of Ashbury Faith, said to us he had seen Arid live and that the group was hardly recognizable and that we should go see them. We went to a rehearsal and knew immediately that this was it. We have signed a deal with them the week after."

 

In 1998 the group recorded "Little Things of Venom", the debut album, in a production of Dave Anderson (has worked before with Edwyn Collins, Fine Young Cannibals etc.) and with guest appearances of Piet Goddaer (see Ozark Henry) and David Dewaele (see Soulwax). Even before this album had hit the shops in Belgium, it procured them an international breakthrough in America. This came about by Howie Weinberg - who did the mastering in New York - who introduced the album to Rachel Felder, on of the A&R managers of Columbia who thought it was "fucking magical". The group even got to choose between Epic and Columbia for a record deal in the USA.
In Belgium and Holland, the group was introduced to the public by opening on a few important gigs for K's Choice. The deal with Columbia also didn't miss it's effect ("America falls for unknown Belgians" was a headline in Het Nieuwsblad). The CD was received almost everywhere with very good reviews after it's launch in April 1999. The recurring themes in the reviews where the comparisons of Steven's voice with that of Jeff Buckley & Freddie Mercury, and the praise for the emotional music & lyrics. All this was certainly enough give Arid a place at the Torhout-Werchter Festival and make their first single "Too Late Tonight" a hit in "de Afrekening".

About a year later they made a breakthrough on a slightly bigger scale when they did a succesful tour with Counting Crows on the British isles.

In March 2000, Arid did a contribution for the "Glittering 2000" project, on which Belgian bands covered songs from the glamrock era, with a version of "Killer Queen" of Queen.

GroepsLeden :
- Jasper Steverlinck (vocals, guitar)
- David Du Pré (guitars)
- Steven Van Havere (drums)
- Filip Ros (bass)

Buy CD's of this band at proxis

Albums :
- Little Things of Venom (Double T Music, 1999)

Websites :
- My review of "Little Things of Venom"
- AridCentral dot com, the official site
- Flashy Arid site at Columbia Records
- Arid news appears often on the Double-T-site
- Lipstick Notes, the Belgian management of Arid & Gorki
- Fansites : apestaart.org, fly.to, welcome.to, clik.to and come.to Arid
- Arid at Leidsekade Live
- Marooned, a Arid mailinglist (in dutch mostly)
- Haunted Castle, 3D-film with "At the close of Every day" & a Arid performance
- Tabs for a number of Arid-songs at guitarfiles.be
- Lyrics on Waltertje's Lyrics site

Forum :
- Read the messages/questions about Arid
- Add your message, question, cd- or concertreview ... about Arid

 

   

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Last update to this site : December 2001.

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