PLUS INSTRUMENTS

Did I say that? Ha ha… well if I may be so bold, you can maybe compare me to the energy of Nick Cave — he's my age — or Iggy Pop for that matter. When I am on the stage I do get quite a bit of energy, adrenaline; it's a magic place where stuff happens.

I still do! I had my own Crackle type Synth built. I will have that with me at the show. What is interesting about it mostly is that it is unpredictable, so you really improvise whether you like it or not each time you touch it. It challenges you! Endless surprises! Un-tunable. Sounds are just different, it has an organic quality to it since the current runs through you and overall it's very unstable. It runs on batteries so it keeps evolving, which I love!

Impractical, because you are not able to personally enchant them. Sometimes it takes many layers of people to get to the one who actually makes the decisions. And now they do not want to take any risks. It has to generate a certain income for these venues. Which is a pity because they end up always booking the same shit. Case in point: in my own hometown of Eindhoven there is a great venue, De Effenaar. They have two huge banners with me on it — kinda like a hall of fame thing. It shows a quote from me and all the dates I have played there (there are more, but OK). The other two are The Birthday Party and Sonic Youth. Yet… they will not book me. No way in hell. Hey, I can rent the venue. It makes me quite pissed! You get the picture.

Well, yes! Totally. But maybe I am not assertive enough.

It injects a lot of raw energy and Richard is amazing!!

Frustrating, but it was fun to do it for a few events. Not my cuppa tea though. I am much more into improvisation and certainly minimal rehearsals, if any. That is hard with a 4-piece band.

Fit like a glove actually. In fact, I had been playing noise guitar myself in earlier Plus Instruments line-ups, so it was a thing. Also my electronic rhythms were very analog, messy and crude. Most came from the Putney synth, so it was not a sequencer but more an oscillating pulse, sometimes pots and pans and of course the Crackle synth. Later on I got another home-built sequencer that generated slightly cleaner sounds, but still quite messy. No BPM in sight!

Absolutely amazing! I am so honored VOD did that — and a great product in the end!

Both.

Funny enough it does not matter where I am, I generate in my own kind of world wherever I am. Having said that, certain big cities or strange environments do inspire in a certain way. But I believe how I work anywhere is more thematic, not geographic.

It just happens, and I don't listen to a lot of music — certainly not that kind of music — so I have nothing to imitate. I think doing this so long I've got it down as a trademark Truus Groove?

I thought it was outside? I think the audience will find enough rough sounds in our set, with mean grooves and beats. I aim to please!

That you can't control it! That makes it fun!

Much later. I did what I had to do, still do — not much has changed.

Well, Lee came from a certain time where that type of noise playing became a thing — that all flowed from No Wave maybe? I would dare to say that it was also inspired by my Dutch and German band friends, like Suspect and Sprung aus den Wolken, who we jammed with and who took screwdrivers and drills to their guitars already. Then the freedom of playing so abstract might be inspired also by Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham. Lee could actually play though, so he played noise guitar but with a touch of Rock & Roll. The fact that Sonic Youth became so big was perhaps a matter of great timing. But they struggled many years, it was not always easy and not easy to stick with it, but they did and it paid off!

Yes, it always evolves! But I don't only play with my older backing tracks, I often re-make them and then they are re-born yet again — and of course a lot of new material all the time.

Because that is how Plus Instruments is — it's me, my own formula! It has been since 1978, so why stop now?

From improvisation come the best ideas, of course. However, I do put quite a bit of effort into finishing songs once I feel I have something good. Sometimes a song is never finished and keeps evolving, but you have to be open to that.

To be honest I think that NY No Wave hugely inspired the Ultra Scene, but it took its own form. Most important is that you could just do it — you did not have to really know how to play anything. That came from the No Wave movement. I took that into Ultra and went back with it to NYC. There it morphed into more of a minimal electronic dance thing, to counter the overproduced dance sounds of the 80's.

I just like the words Plus Instruments — and in fact that is what it is: humans Plus Instruments.

A world hit? Ha ha ha… No, but really, I am intrigued by what makes a world hit. It can even be quite abstract. And all it takes is one hit and then you can make the world better. As far as gear, my curiosity never stops discovering weird instruments.

I am not interested in clean digital sounds. That is why I always search for the dirtier sounds even on clean synths. My arsenal of instruments is pretty low brow and still quite a few toy things and self-built stuff. I had a great time recording 50's / 60's test and measurement equipment at Willem Twee studios in Den Bosch (NL). I am incorporating some of that in my forthcoming album.

Always forward. Never go back. I wrote a song about that too…

But in all seriousness, I also collaborate with other people like Cosmo Vitelli, Miguel Barella (Blue Beast), Woody Veneman and now with Richard van Kruysdijk and Golden Bug. It is hugely inspiring. All of this keeps me growing as an artist and vice versa, always learning more.