The Obelisk Questionnaire: Jasper Hesselink of No Man’s Valley
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Jasper Hesselink of No Man’s Valley
—
How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I am a singer, a writer of lyrics, a writer of reviews, a teacher of English, and a father of two girls (age 8 and 11). I have always wanted to play in bands so I made it happen from the moment it was possible. I even studied English to be able to write better lyrics ;) So far I have played over 200 shows, made three EPs and two full-length albums. At the moment The Netherlands has quite a severe lockdown so we have not able to practice normally for months. I have started my own music blog Weirdo Shrine to kill some time and because I love to discover new music and practice my writing: https://weirdoshrine.wordpress.com/
Describe your first musical memory.
Well, I am well in my thirties, so my first experiences discovering bands were all through tape trading, borrowing CDs from my friends’ bigger brothers and so on. Getting into heavier rock music for me started with Iron Maiden’s first 10 albums. I don’t think I ever played any other band as much as them. I sometimes miss those days when you really had to hunt music down and it wasn’t so easily available as these days. Finding an album and buying it was a completely different experience than it is today.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
My best musical memories probably stem from playing live with No Man’s Valley. Our best gigs were probably supporting The Stranglers and meeting them backstage was a dream come true too. My best memory however was playing Freak Valley Festival in 2018. We had some bad luck because the generator supporting the stage broke down in the middle of our set, but it turned out pretty great because the whole crowd started singing along to the song even while they didn’t know the lyrics. It so heartwarming when a crowd is there for you, even when you strike bad luck like that. I shook a lot of hands afterwards at the merch stands, that made me feel like a million bucks.
This is what that looked like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr3wI6z3AMo&ab_channel=NoMan%27sValley
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Well I believe The Netherlands where I live is a safe place, and that you should be able to go wherever you want to at any time. I used to ride my bike everywhere and at any time, but this one night I was hit by a motorbike which skidded to the ground. I was unharmed, and I got up to check on the people on the motorbike but when I got there this guy started attacking me. I was so stunned I didn’t even move while this guy just kept hitting me with his fists. That’s when I saw the gun. Apparently he dropped it when his motorbike hit me. He picked up the gun and I started running, he shot at me seven times and somehow missed. That was a huge test for my belief in safe and dull Holland to be honest. Much later I wrote the song “7 Blows” about that experience.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Who cares really haha, I have learned that it doesn’t really matter where your artistic progression leads you, as long as it still takes you places. For me and my band music has always been such an incredibly important outlet. It’s like an ongoing therapy session sometimes haha. As long as it still means that for us it’s worth doing and it doesn’t really matter what the outcome is.
How do you define success?
Just being able to live in the moment, creating something out of nothing, and really enjoying what you doing while doing it is a success to me. Another level of success for me is to be able to juggle all the different parts of my life without compromising too much, I’m still working on that ;)
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The Blair Witch Project. I don’t think I ever walked comfortably in a forest after seeing that.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I still really like to write and record a mega jam. We are bad at that, we mostly write song-songs. We are working on it at the moment but Corona is slowing us down unfortunately. The working title is “Flight of the Sloths” so perhaps you can imagine what it will sound like!
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Practicing the magic of creating something out of nothing.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Hugging a bunch of people once this shit show is over. I am pretty introverted so I don’t really miss it all that much, but it’s been a year since I hugged my mom and dad and my sister so I am very much looking forward doing that again.
www.nomansvalley.com
https://www.facebook.com/nomansvalley
https://twitter.com/nomansvalley
https://instagram.com/nomansvalley/
nomansvalley.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/Tonzonen/
https://www.instagram.com/tonzonenrecords/
https://www.tonzonen.de
