Raven van Dorst reclaims her own identity on the new album by band Dool. ‘You don’t have to adapt to me, just adapt to yourself’

Completely in black, of course. Raven black. Black dyed hair, black leather jacket down to the ankles, black shirt with jingling chains, black flared pants and black sneakers. During the interview last week, musician and presenter Raven van Dorst already wore his stage clothes for the photo, and the sports shoes were to “get fit for Roadburn”, the festival where the brand new album by his band Dool was presented on April 19.

And what kind of dog is it, the pitch-black cheerful one that comes for a pat every now and then? “Eeeh, dog.” Van Dorst laughs, don’t ask those difficult questions.

Not the Raven van Dorst show

Not an unknown dog by the way: Rita can regularly be seen wagging her tail in the popular TV program Farm Van Dorst . Van Dorst developed there – in addition to the program Nocturnal animals – to a real TV maker who just can’t derail a good interview like no other, full of (self)mockery, disarmament and charisma. But being interviewed on the farm itself? He didn’t like that. It shouldn’t be the Raven-van-Dorst show, it’s now about the band.

“The line between exploiting my fame a bit and letting the band stand completely on its own is very thin and I find that quite difficult,” says Van Dorst at a large wooden table in the café of Kasteel Doorwerth, a beautiful castle. from the 13th century in a picturesque beautiful part of Gelderland – a favorite walking area of ​​Van Dorst with Rita. “So when we talk about Dool, that farm doesn’t matter at all. Suppose I’m acting in one Star Wars film, then we won’t go on the set of Game of Thrones sit down for an interview?”

Fair enough. And The Shape Of Fluidity , Dool’s new album, deserves to stand alone. The band founded by Van Dorst, in which he sings and plays guitar, finally rocks on record as hard as they have done live for years, while the music remains incredibly compelling and infectious. Slightly heavier than its predecessors and at the same time sharper written with lots of good hooks and strong choruses. In Venus in Flames for example, with Van Dorst’s layered vocals in the crackling intro, until it ignites into bitingly poisonous riffs. Also songs like the dragging ones Self-Dissect goth rocker Evil in You the intense title track and the fabulously beautiful and powerfully personal Hermagorgon make this album their best yet.

Big, roaring middle finger on a stage

It’s been a journey, musically and personally. We last spoke to each other almost ten years ago, when Van Dorst announced that he was quitting Elle Bandita. That was certainly not an unsuccessful act, but was fueled by Van Dorst’s anger. It was a big, shouting middle finger on a stage, an outlet for the feeling of never belonging, and of being yelled at and spit out.

But then Elle Bandita was ‘murdered’ and Van Dorst was in the program Expedition Robinson had become a crowd favorite and suddenly received nice comments on the street, there was room for more than anger. And he could express that in Dool: heavy psychedelic rock with Van Dorst’s sharp, flexible voice as an anchor point over guitar riffs stacked in double layers, and moreover: finally a real band.

Birth with hermaphroditism

After two albums full of occult and esoteric lyrics, Here Now, There Then (2017) and Summerland (2020). The Shape of Fluidity much more personal. Van Dorst reflects on his birth with hermaphroditism, when a doctor decided to choose the female gender. For a long time it was ‘Ryanne van Dorst’ (‘Just deadname myself, fuck it’), but from Liberation Day 2021 it was Raven, with the gender-neutral pronouns that/them. “That’s hell, by the way. Doesn’t work for a meter. In any case, this generation will not completely take over that, perhaps the next one.”

If anyone doesn’t have a problem with this, it is Raven van Dorst, who suggested: ‘that/them/just look’. But that certainly doesn’t mean it isn’t serious. “The fact that people sometimes still say ‘her’ and ‘ze’ to me is not a problem at all. But the discussion about it is open and I think that is important. That we look for solutions as a society.”

Let me be that monster

For Van Dorst it is also about sending a signal: that he has reclaimed his own nature. This is most evident in the song on the new Dool album Hermagorgon the album’s centerpiece with one of the record’s most powerful lines: ‘For I am my father’s daughter, and my mother’s son / I am bound to the ocean’s current / but I’m strong as a God’.

The title is a combination of hermaphrodite and gorgon, a monster from Greek mythology. “Those doctors who mutilated me saw me as a monster. A hermaphrodite monster. That wasn’t possible, it wasn’t allowed, it had to be repaired. That’s why I wrote that text: you don’t have to adapt to me, just adapt to yourself. I am not your Adam or your Eve, let me be that monster.”

It is the next step in processing for Van Dorst, who does not want to be “victim” about it, but does say that it has caused a trauma, not knowing your place in the world for half a lifetime. “I always find it so easy to start crying, I just want to tell a powerful story. But yes, there is certainly quite a lot of trauma behind it. And pain, and a feeling of indeterminacy. From the schoolyard, where everyone got their first hormones, until now.”

All plans went up in smoke due to the corona crisis

This record was created by giving space to others. Because although Van Dorst actually did everything himself on the previous albums, stand up The Shape of Fluidity also writing credits for Dool guitarists Nick Polak and Omar Iskandr for the first time. This arose after the band canceled all plans regarding the then newly released album during the corona crisis Summerland had seen it go up in smoke.

Something had snapped at Van Dorst. “Everything was already going well. The good reviews were coming in, we got into the top ten in Germany, we were going to China, we were going to South America, good tours, big festivals, but hey: first lockdown. Everything gone. I just didn’t touch my guitar at all for two years, it hurt too much.”

It was Polak and Iskandr who got Van Dorst out of the valley. They kept sending ideas to Van Dorst: can’t we do something with this? Can you think of a song line for this? “That was so contagious and inspiring, then it happened again. They really pulled the shit out of me. Without them, my guitar would still be covered in dust in a corner somewhere.” But that does not mean that Van Dorst is not the one who makes the decisions when there is disagreement. “Someone has to do it!”

Not a good role model

Van Dorst is a blabbermouth who tells it like it is and always stays close to himself. When asked whether, as can be read here and there, he indeed lives with a permanent relationship – asked with the thought that a stable home base might be good for the creative process – there is a loud laugh: “What is this? Am I sitting here with Peter Santegoeds?”

Van Dorst is also careful with words. There is little point in starting about politics, and he also dismisses a question about Anouk. In February, the singer from The Hague posted a photo of her menstrual blood in a toilet bowl online, with which she belittled trans women (‘cutting off your pipi does not make you a woman, this does’). After which Van Dorst posted a photo of a turd in a toilet: ‘Everyone poops. Only some people come out with a little more shit.’ “I have said what I wanted to say about that, I will leave it at that.”

But a little later, about where that reaction came from, Van Dorst says: “I received a lot of heartbreaking messages from people. They feel misunderstood or unwanted. And maybe that is something I can do now, express it and people recognize themselves in me. I’m really not a good role model, you should see me on the weekend! But I find it a very reassuring and comforting thought if I can help someone in this way.”

Flag of water

The symbol for all that is that flag on the cover of The Shape of Fluidity : a stiff frozen, transparent flag of water. “Because a flag is a symbol of identity. Whether it is a rainbow flag, the Dutch flag, the inverted Dutch flag, the United Nations, a pirate flag or that of Sparta.” But Dool’s liquid flag can be and become anything, says Van Dorst. “It can melt, evaporate, move, become a big river or a small stream, it is as changeable as the plague. So even if you are not finished yet and are searching, you can always join the Dool banner. I hope that we are not finished yet as a band, and that I am not finished as a person.” Then, with a big laugh: “That’s a nice ending to your article, isn’t it? A very nice last paragraph!”

Dool live: 2/5 Annabel, Rotterdam; 24/5 Graveland, Hoogeveen; 31/5 Dauwpop, Hellendoorn; 21/6 Pinkpop, Landgraaf; 14/12 The Oosterpoort in Groningen. For more performances see: allthosewhowandereredool.com