Maastrichter Meisjes
Interview Lucas Vroemen March 2021

Welcome to the second Maastrichter interview in the beautiful Lutherse Kerk. Today, Chantal will be replacing Christina and we will be talking to Lucas Vroemen, drums, percussion and keyboard player for the Limburg band, “The Liberators”. 

The Liberators formed in 1979 which makes them one of the longest existing rockbands in the Netherlands. They had a very active European touring schedule and were even invited to join the tours of stars such as Robert Plant and Gary Moore.

Lucas details the history of the band:
The Liberators started in 1979 and played until 1993 followed by a sabbatical until 2016. They stopped playing due to the tragic event of the death of their singer. Wouter Post died of throat cancer in 2015. The band wanted to do something for his family and raise some money at the same time. So former band members organised a performance in a concert hall in Maastricht. 
“We played for 500 people and then we thought, yes, this is why we do this”. 

Since then, they have been recording and performing regularly and released their fourth album in 2019 (nominated ‘best blues album’). Unfortunately, this release came just in time for the pandemic, so their tour plans were cut short.
They have continued rehearsing, recording and releasing music on Spotify, where they have an impressive 30.000 listeners.

Present day:
With this new formation of the band, all the members have their ‘ordinary’ jobs but found a new pleasure in playing without the focus being on money. 
“If you play on a high level and then you don’t do it anymore, either you play with amateur bands or bands that play full time. There’s nothing in between”.
Despite this new formation of band members, they also found that the ‘magic’ was still there. 
“We played again and after half an hour it was like we never stopped. It’s like riding a bike. We have this synergy and we even found this again with two new people”.

In the 1980’s, the Liberators were in the unique position of being signed with a record company. At some point they were touring so much that they didn’t have time to write new music so they rented a house in Scandinavia. After 10 days of focussing solely on new music, they released another album.

Lucas muses that his children listen to 70’s bands now but as a teenager, he would never have listened to the music of his parents. 

What is the one thing that you would change about the music industry? 
For more money to be spent on the artists and for people/governments to stop seeing culture as a ‘cost’. 
Culture is a profit. Not only money wise, but also, what’s the value of a smile?

The band is also involved in making a culture centrum in Maastricht. 
“We raised money and built a building, a studio where musicians can rehearse and record. We are trying to create circumstances for artists to develop their talents. We built a whole new business plan”.
They would like to challenge the idea that it’s always about how much culture costs.

What can we as public do to support artists better? 
Come to live gigs, have interest. Show up.

What was your best gig ever?
We once played on a street in Copenhagen. We made so much money. Before we started it was already crowded with people. Like 600 people. Everyone opened their windows and offices. 
It brings people together, right? They threw money from the offices.

The Liberators have also toured with Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin): 
“I never met such a nice guy, so friendly. After every performance he was like: ‘well played boys’. Clapping for us. One time the audience wanted an encore. We were afraid he would not want us anymore because of that. But he said: ‘when you join I don’t have to do anything anymore!’” 

“Our goal is to play on stages as much as possible. Last year we would have played on festival Bruis, unfortunately that was cancelled. We hope to do that this year. If this happens we will invite a lot of Maastricht artists to join us.”

The future looks bright for the band. Their recent rise of attention has brought them agencies in the Netherlands and Frankfurt who are organising tours for them and they are also signed with a record label in Sweden.

Be sure to check them out online and when it’s possible again, try to see them live…where the real magic happens!