K’s Choice band members, left to right, Reinout Swinnen, Gert Bettens, (a very tone deaf me) and Sarah Bettens outside Rams Head On Stage in Annapolis.
Sarah and Gert Bettens always had the genetic connection common to a pair of siblings. They laughed, cried — and even made hit records together. But after the better part of a decade constantly in the recording studio and touring as K’s Choice, the songwriting team decided that the band needed to go on hiatus.
Fans of K’s Choice never thought 10 years would pass before they would hear new music, but that is exactly what happened. “Echo Mountain” was released in Europe in 2010, a full decade after the release of the band’s fourth full-length album “Almost Happy.” Sarah and Gert rallied the troops and now they are in the midst of their first U.S. tour since the Clinton administration.
“Basically, we just felt like doing it again,” said Gert, sitting next to his little sister Sarah at Rams Head On Stage in Annapolis following the sound check prior to the second stop on their 10-city tour. “When we decided to put the band on hold, we always knew at one point we were gonna make another album. We didn’t know it was gonna take us that long.”
The finished product — or products — was “Echo Mountain” and, true to Bettens form, a sister album of acoustic versions of some of the songs from EM, including a few covers such as Radiohead’s “No Surprises,” the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited,” and Damien Rice’s “Cannonball.” While K’s Choice fans may not forgive another decade-long hiatus, the new music is worth the wait.
“It wasn’t like we had some type of master plan (regarding a reunion),” Sarah said. “It’s just like, when the time feels right, you know, for (Gert) and for me, we’ll make another record.”
Sarah said one driving force behind the band’s reunion was the inspiration each sibling took from the other’s side projects. Sarah went solo, touring the U.S. in 2009, and Gert formed a new band, Woodface. Once they knew the other was staying sharp in songwriting and performing, Sarah said she and Gert felt being in K’s Choice would be fun again.
“It was kind of a feeling we didn’t necessarily have 10 years before,” she said.
Things certainly have changed for K’s Choice since the 1993 release of their debut album, “The Great Subconscious Club.” They’ve been on tours supporting Alanis Morissette and Indigo Girls, joined the Sarah McLachlan-founded Lilith Fair, and spent what Sarah called “a magical summer” touring with Tonic and Verve Pipe in the mid-1990s. But the making of the music is what has changed most dramatically for Sarah and Gert. TGSC was hastily made with studio musicians and K’s Choice had already been signed to a record deal by time they recorded the album. Also, now, they co-produce K’s Choice albums.
“I’s almost a blur how we made ‘The Great Subconscious Club.’ We didn’t even have a band,” said Sarah, who now lives in Tennessee. “We really didn’t know what we were doing and I still think there’s some great songs on there — a couple, definitely not all of them. But it had its merit when it came out.”
“Echo Mountain” is the culmination of 10 years worth of maturation and listening to the progression of worldwide pop music over that span. Gert said he’s been listening to a lot of Sigur Ros from Iceland and Bon Iver, and both siblings said Isvells are among their favorite bands at the moment.
“Their first record, it just kills me,” Sarah said. “Very pretty.”
“Echo Mountain” offers very few specific nods to early K’s Choice, yet it is unmistakably K’s Choice. Lyrically, the Bettens siblings have grown up — in yesteryear’s rear-view mirror are songs with such lyrics as “When you’re pubic hair’s on fire, something’s wrong” or “That’s a stupid hat you’re wearing / It doesn’t really match your hair / Did I ever tell you that your breath is worse than what you wear?”
“Killing Dragons” is a perfect example of where K’s Choice has been for the last 10 years. The Gert-penned track speaks to a person’s reflection on a life lived. The song starts solemnly enough with “Take my body, my shell / It’s old and it’s worn and it’s broken” and continues with the second verse’s “I see you and myself In the backyard we’re twelve / killing dragons with swords made of wood / We chased them away / but they came back today / and I’d fight them again if I could.”
According to Gert, “Killing Dragons” ranks among the best songs he’s written over the past 20 years. “I wanted to write about a certain topic, about somebody looking back at his life,” he said. “I think I made some lyrics I’m very proud of.”
Other triumphs on the record are the poppy “If This Isn’t Right” and the upbeat title track.
The band is moving forward with a soundtrack to accompany a documentary based on the arctic expedition of Belgian explorers Dixie Dansercour and Sam Deltour. Sarah said the soundtrack will be the first K’s Choice album that will fit within a definite style to fit the documentary.
“There’s a lot of instrumental, a lot of ethereal …,” she said. “We did have that conversation that we generally don’t have — this is where we’re going, this is what it all has to sound like.”
K’s Choice first gained its U.S. popularity with the release of the 1996 hit single “Not an Addict” which earned the band a spot in alternative radio rotations. The band was catapulted to brief stardom that resulted in playing the big summer music festivals, such as the HFStival hosted by the former WHFS 99.1-FM (now at 97.5-FM in Baltimore), and having their song “Virgin State of Mind” appear on the soundtrack to “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Album.”
The success the band had in the U.S. was short-lived, but substantial. While they remain popular in their native Belgium and all over Europe, Sarah said she would welcome a bit more of that success going forward. Hopefully, she said, K’s Choice has another “Not an Addict” in it’s future repertoire.
“It is thanks to that song that people get to know our other music,” she said. “We owe a lot to having a song on radio — that was great. I wouldn’t mind it happening again, having a second one like that.”
Gert came off a bit more cautiously optimistic regarding another, more enduring bout of North American success for K’s Choice.
“It’s still pretty early to know if it’s going to be successful in the states or not,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”
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jakedlinger 