November

November Bio:

The Music: Autumn Music

We call our music Autumn Music because we think that this name gives the right feel and mood to the music we play.
Our music has the melancholic atmosphere of a month in autumn (guess you figured out why we are called November) with all its different moods and colors.
From a soft melancholic morning to a dark and stormy night, from colorful and bright to dense and foggy.

Guess its always kind of difficult to give a description of any kind of music so well tell you about our influences.
As you can read in the history section our influences come from very different sources.
Our musical preferences vary from classical music, to eastern influenced music, to psychedelic sixties and seventies rock, to doom/wave, to jazz, to pure rock and metal but also to just the genuine pop song, and always with that nicely flavored melancholic sauce.



Inspiration and other influences

Of course we dont just get our inspiration through music alone, like any autumn minded human being we like to get inspired by the philosophy from the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Some of us like to read the poetry and literature by authors like Rainer Maria Rilke, Charles Baudelaire, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Thomas Mann, Oscar Wilde, Sylvia Plath, Stephane Mallarme.

Every now and then we have to sooth our autumneyes by watching paintings of Egon Schiele, Fernand Khnopff, Francis Bacon, Felicien Rops, Alphonse Mucha and all those other great artists from the pre-Raphaelite, symbolist, art-nouveau and expressionist movements.
Of course there are a lot of other things that also inspire us.
For example: religion, eastern philosophy, occultism, war-time literature, movies, photography, travelling and yes every now and then some of us even enjoy the sun!

A list like this can sound a bit pompous, but for us its just a way to share whatever inspires or interests us and its also a way of giving you, the reader or listener, a better perception of where our music comes from.



History of the band

The story of November starts where the story of a group called "The Emerald Tablet" ends.
Stef formed This band in the winter of 1995 and the musical wish of Stef was a mix between melancholic slow-core and progressive rock.
After a while of searching for the right people the band was completed and existed of six members. Due to all kinds of musical and personal struggles The Emerald Tablet stopped existing in 1999 and split up in two groups: November and Gardin.

In 2000 Martijn and Stef formed November and Michel (guitar and vocals) formed Gardin (a slow-core trio).
November was completed by Patrick (bas) and Allan (drums) both ex-Emerald Tablet members. Through an add on the internet we found Jos, our vocalist.
Jos also sings in Tunnelfist and Zahnfleish, groups with a more punkish/wave flavor.

After a couple of sessions Allan left the band and was replaced by Remco.
Stef and Remco had already played together in Defender, a heavy metal band from the eighties (City ad mortis-CBS records). At that time Remco was also playing in a power metal group called MAC-11, but he decided playing with an old friend and a musically more refined change was welcome, so he joined November.
Remco is also the owner of Autumn Music, an alternative music company where he records, promotes and distributes alternative bands. Here we have been recording our first 5-track cd.

In this line-up November started writing new and rewriting old material.
By the end of 2003 Patrick decided to leave November and was replaced by Roel in the beginning of 2004.
Roel had been playing in several progressive and metal bands. He also played in a King Crimson cover band called Thrak.

Aside from November Jos, Martijn and Stef also have a project called Day is Done (yes, after Nick Drake) in which they play acoustic piano and guitar songs, more in a chamber-like atmosphere.
Martijn and Stef also played a guest role on the debut album "Minor Setbacks" of Gardin, which was released in 2001.

So, here you have the history of November in a nutshell.
Currently November is recording a full-length double-cd.