Name: Ramkot
Members: Tim Leyman, Tom Leyman, Hannes Cuyvers

Nationality: Belgian
Current release: Ramkot's debut album In Between Borderlines is out now.
Recommendations: You should read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. And if we can recommend any Belgian band, you should listen to The Guru Guru!

If you enjoyed this interview with Ramkot and would like to stay up to date with the band and their music, visit them on Instagram, and Facebook.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/ or sound that drew you to it? 


Tim and Hannes have known each other since high school and Tim and Tom are brothers. So before Ramkot existed we’ve been playing music with each other for a while. This band was meant to be formed at some point.

Tim and Tom grew up in a household full of rock music like Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, CCR, … and Hannes grew up with a lot of classical music (his mother is a classical pianist) and was drawn to rock music when he started to play the guitar as a young boy.

The energy rock music brings is the main reason we formed this band.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity? 


Music enlarges the things we feel when we listen to the right songs to suit our mood (or it can even change your mood when you’re feeling down). As musicians it’s obvious we use our art as a way to express ourselves and it allows us to release the things we need to let go of.

It’s a necessity for us to make music.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

The more we play and create music together, the more we develop our sound and vision. In the making of our debut album the main challenge was to create songs that created a whole.

Finding the right sounds, the right arrangements and finding ‘the glue’ that connects the songs was something that we thought of a lot of during the making of In Between Borderlines.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

The three of us have a rather different way of looking and experiencing life. It’s a given that we’re different. Because of that we’re into lots of different music.

At the moment Tim is into The Doors, Tom is into King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Hannes is into lots of Mark Ronson’s music. It changes from week to week, from mood to mood and we share these songs and albums with each other on the road.

This exchange forms is an important given in the development of our band.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

Spontaneity is very important for us. We make the instrumental part of our music together with the three of us in our rehearsal space. Creating the songs ‘live’ with the three of us is crucial for Ramkot.

Afterwards in the studio we know no boundaries and experiment as much as we can with layers, synths, percussion …

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

We as a rockband are heavily influenced by ‘traditional rock music’, but are very much drawn to technological gadgets. Tim and Hannes are producers (and Hannes mixed our latest record) and are into lots of modern music.

I think our music tries to continue the legacy of band likes Queens of the Stone Age and Jack White. But we try to combine elements to create a sense of excitement for ourselves as well as for the listener.

[Read our feature on what makes rock great - and the pleasures of not seeing Jack White in concert.]

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

Because we are a three-piece band we need a lot of equipment live to recreate the layered sound we create in the studio.

Our pedalboards are changing for each tour and Tom (the drummer) uses a sampler (SPD-SX) to trigger sounds. This rather complex live setup makes it possible to create our ‘signature’ sound live without the need of a backing track.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

We don’t really have a routine. As musicians there’s not a lot of structure in our daily lives.

If we’re not on the road, we rehearse or record a lot and usually start at 9:30PM. We try to be as productive as possible during daytime when we’re at home.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

That’s a difficult one. We would say Blunderbuss by Jack White. The release show in Antwerp (Belgium) was the first show we went to together. This eclectic record inspires us to create and reinvent ourselves as much as we can.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

Unlike the making of our previous EPs, we really created our album In Between Borderlines together. The feeling of sharing the responsibility of this record feels more comfortable than ever. We have a good way of communicating with each other.

Sharing making music together on stage is so much more fun than doing this on your own. Of course each of us individually is able to express himself, but we feel generally no one is holding one another back or is influencing the experience of making and listening music together in a bad way.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

First of all it’s a form of entertainment. Even though we realise it’s a business we work in, we try to not care to much about the industry behind all this, without being too naive.

Music is a form of art that can instantly affect your way of feeling. The cultural boundaries it crosses and timeless character this form of art is all about, creates a communal and undeniable beautiful thing we can’t live without.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

The abstract nature of music and the almost impossible explanation behind the emotional thrill we get makes it soothing that there’s no real answer to a lot of big topics in life.

Music can translate the things we can’t express. This can bring comfort.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?

During the making of our music, we don’t stick to many rules. If using technology (like editing in ProTools) helps us to achieve our goal, we will not hesitate to use this. Technological development and music go hand in hand.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

As Rick Rubin once told in an interview: lots of art forms can express emotions, but only music is able to evoke emotions so quickly.

But of course every form of art takes craftsmanship to achieve its full potential.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

Some things in music can be mathematically explained (like harmony and rhythmic structures). The more complex kinds of music need some kind of training for the human ear to develop taste.

We think there’s no real explanation why music is such a powerful tool and maybe that’s the beauty of it.