Dull Boy Johnny

It certainly didn’t get boring with Dull Boy Johnny in the studio of Muziekgieterij. Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, Sly Stone, Serge Gainsbourg, Willie Hutch: the Kempeners are indebted to all these greats. Their music seems to come from the soundtrack of a police movie. Deliciously slow, shimmering and sultry. Chords and melodies charged with tension and anticipation, as if a shooting could break out in the seedy nightclub at any moment. And that is exactly the intention, Rik De Bal tells Heaven editor Ludo Diels a little later. “We want people to see something in their heads when they listen to us, without the need for visuals.”

Photo: Hugo Thomassen