Claude and Suzan & Freek dominate the Dutch charts. Now they have joined forces on the single Vas-y (Go ahead). Claude is a fan of the duo, but finds that their knowledge of French is a bit disappointing.
Claude deftly switches between the French and Dutch language on his hits Layla in Ladada (My Last Word). Vas-y (Go ahead)which already has the basis when Suzan & Freek enter the picture, also has some French text that the duo sings along with.
“We can’t do much more French than our VWO final exam,” Suzan laughs to NU.nl. “Yes, I expected a bit more from their French”, jokes Claude. The singer from Congo helped the duo with the pronunciation of the French words. It was a great opportunity for Suzan to sharpen her knowledge of the language. “But they did a great job,” Claude assures.
A first version of you go-y (Just go) records Claude with hit producers Arno Krabman and Joren van der Voort, even before his first singles are made. “We had an introductory session in which we mainly talked a lot. In it I told them about a good friend who was not doing well. He ended up on the wrong path. I could tell him so many times not to do things, but I realized I couldn’t stop him and he had to find out for himself.”
From that feeling arises the chorus of the song. “Time was up and so Arno encouraged me to start singing the rest of the song with gibberishOrdinary bullshit, for a demo. That way we could work on it later.”
Suzan & Freek regularly listened to Claude’s demo in the car
Producer Krabman also works with Suzan & Freek. He tells the duo about the then unknown talent Claude. “I asked Arno to show what he was doing,” says Freek. “That was actually not the intention, but he then left the chorus of Vas-y (Go ahead) to belong. I asked him to send me the number and showed it to Suus. The song was not finished yet, but we regularly put it on together in the car because we liked the chorus so much.”
Meanwhile, Claude breaks through with Ladada (My Last Word) and repeatedly indicates in interviews that he would like to work with Suzan & Freek. “And we were also fans of him right away,” says Freek. “Then it also turned out that we had already received a message from Claude about our music in 2020,” Suzan adds. A joint studio session was therefore the only logical next step.
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‘Didn’t know at all that Suzan & Freek had heard the demo’
When the trio starts working in the studio with Krabman and Van der Voort, the plan is actually to write a completely new song. “But that chorus was so stuck in our heads that we couldn’t resist asking if Vas-y (Go ahead) was ever finished,” says Freek. “I thought: huh? I didn’t know they had heard that demo at all,” Claude adds. “But strangely enough I had already thought about how this song would sound if I recorded it with them.”
So they decide to finish the song together. “Because we had heard the chorus many times, we already had feelings about someone we had to let go of with the lyrics. Claude told us about his friend and so all three of us have our own stories about the meaning,” Suzan explains.
The trio can’t wait to sing the song live. And that will certainly happen several times in November when Suzan & Freek do four sold-out concerts in the Ziggo Dome and a show in the Sportpaleis in Antwerp. Claude provides the opening act for these shows. “The three of us are going to have a very nice time.”
2023-09-07 15:23:00
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