User talk:Hunekop

DE HÛNEKOP

It were the years 2008 and 2009 that hardcore/punk mucisian Emiel drove an old car across Australia .He was spending his time working , drinking and making new friends from all over the world. Before he started his trip, a friend gave him a cd for on the road. It was the album "straight to hell" by Hank Williams the third. Emiel played the cd over and over again .In some town somewhere he bought an acoustic steel string and started to practice all the songs from this album .He even started busking in the streets to make some extra money while practicing .After being away from home for a long time Emiel started to develop a deeper appreciation for the place where he grew up .Fryslân .A province in the north-west of the Netherlands with a lot off history and its own language. He started to make up Frisian lyrics to some off the hank-tunes. "de hûnekop" was going to be the name off his project and a brand new Frisian singer/songwriter was born.

Back in Fyslân de hûnekop didn’t waste any time and looked up two off his best friends in their local pub. After hearing Emiel out about his plans to start this frisian working-class band, the boys got eager to start this thing. Bart was going to do percussion and Rik standup bass(that he had lying around ,very coincidently).These boys had known each other for years from the hardcore/punk/metal scene ,but had developed a taste for country and rockabilly as well. After a few jam sessions at barts living room in the middle of the city center of Leeuwarden (Fryslân's capital), a style was created that lied somewhere in between this broad taste for music (later described by a newspaper as "bluesy countypunk"). Together with rough frisian working-class lyrics they created something which hadn’t been done before and would have a lot off impact on Frylân later on.

In a short period of time enough songs were written to start doing gigs. Although de hûnekop started out with basing songs on Hank Williams tunes, the band from now on strictly wrote their own. Inspired by a broad range of artists like; Hank sr. Hank3 ,Roky Erickson ,tiger army ,the misfits ,cro-mags ,normaal ,strawelte ,well let’s just say they were inspired by music in general. But despite many sources off inspiration all the songs have their own unique hûnekop sound .Which is simple, but effective. The lyrics are very straight forward and handle very recognizable topics in a humoristic way. Topics like; booze ,love ,story's off the working life and the rough image off the Fryske Wâlden (an area inside Fryslân where Emiel was brought up).While writing these lyrics there were no compromises made to reach a mainstream audience or to get airplay. Ironically this turned out to be a key to success. Radio stations didn’t seem to have a problem with rough language and Fryslân had seemed too been waiting on a band with balls.

After a couple of gigs and a lot of unexpected media attention the phone didn’t stop ringing. From the beginning of 2010 until this day the hûnekop played shows nearly every weekend at festivals, bars or barns. In march 2010 they released their first cd. A full-lengt halbum counting 13 tracks .Having no record label, the first intension was to just distribute the album at shows, but it wasn’t long before record shops and web shops all over Fryslân got in touch, cause of a great demand for this album.

Today de hûnekop has built up quite a reputation for making a crowd go nuts. While the audience starts tearing the place down, the owner will have a smile from ear to ear knowing he just made a fortune selling beer. Their fan base is known for drinking loads of it. Less appreciated is often the noise from their tour bus .An old mobile home, which has built up quite a reputation off its own, for long afterparty’s.

Although not intentionally, hûnekop is helping to promote the culture more than any other band on the face of this earth. Cause with the language fading, they step up and show multiple generations, in and outside if Fryslân, that the Frisian culture and language is something to be proud of!