Johan Boere

Johan loves making great ‘grooves’ with all five of them.That is what playing with Slagerij Van Kampen is like. Five equal people up front instead of a single drummer behind a drum-kit accompanying a band, “which is lots of fun as well”. That you can be on stage with your favourite instrument, playing the lead, night after night, doing what you like best: showing your utmost on the drums, that can really be called unique. Especially when you bang away nicely and you notice that you overwhelm the audience with a great impact.

Johan really likes to do theatre shows. Especially when the band has developed a certain routine and he finds the peace of mind to enjoy himself. Then the stage-fright disappears and each evening becomes a party. But the most impressive thing for him is playing at the larger festivals, like the Mundial Festival in Tilburg. 55 thousand people in front of you, you encounter that, if you’re lucky, only a few times in your lifetime. Of course you know the images from television. But when you’re there yourself and live, and you see from your own perspective the dancing mass of people, then all of a sudden it seems as if you’re in your own TV-show. Strange and very exciting at the same time.

As the drummer of the band it is his task to make sure ‘to keep the band together’ musically. That the music is played completely and the band keeps going. Dance of the Dru[id] is his second best track, straight after ‘ A Room with Three Views’. Because of the different atmospheres within that single track and the overwhelming impact at the end. He doesn’t have a favourite drum: as long as there is a skin on it. Ethnic Percussion, Western or African acoustic drums, a drum kit. Johan enjoys playing on anything. Which is called ‘improvised percussion’.

Besides his work with SVK Johan runs his own drum school. He hopes to continue to be a band member of SVK for a very long time. Talking about ambitions, he says – very frankly- that he has been able to realise them already. Because what else is there to achieve if you can stand in front of sold out, enthusiastic audiences more than 100 times a year. If you’ve made it so far that people come especially for you and your colleagues. He sometimes finds it hard to believe that this is happening to him. So he hopes to continue for a very long time!