‘My father first took me there when I was six,’ Joost Zweegers says. ‘I still have the tiny toy soldiers he bought me back then, they’re on the mantle piece in my bedroom. I’ve been going back ever since. And every time I go, I go to my fairytale’.
The fairytale Joost is talking about, are the white cliffs of Dover, the south of England, and Brighton in particular, where for the first time in his illustrious career he has recorded a Novastar album with the same team of people.
Writing and recording began straight on the back of the exuberant, wide ranging work that was ‘In the Cold Light of Monday’. Joost just kept on writing, and going to Brighton to record with Mikey Rowe (Robert Plant, Noel Gallagher & His High Flying Birds) and Andy Britton.
You can hear the result on ‘Holler and Shout’, a record that feels like a resurrection and sounds like a feast. ‘Every time I go to Brighton, Mikey tells me to take the train,’ Joost says. ‘Because it’s faster. But I don’t wanna go fast, I wanna go slow. So I take the boat, ‘cause the fairytale begins with the seagulls in Calais. Fantasy is important’.
‘Holler and Shout’ is not a change of direction at all. It’s an affirmation of a direction that has been there from the beginning. ‘I finally feel free,’ Joost concludes, ‘but maybe that sounds silly’. It doesn’t. And it shows.
Listen here:
