Name: Mood Bored
Members: Myrte Driesenaar, Daan Stuyven, Timo de Wit
Nationality: Dutch
Current release: Mood Bored's Too Much? EP is out via Mattan.
Topic we are passionate about but rarely get to talk about: We are super into when people are free and allowed to exist as they are and not be killed by their governments or by other governments for no reason. So we don’t really understand why our government / most other governments aren’t interested in this.

If you enjoyed this Mood Bored interview and would like to know more about the band and their music, visit them on Instagram, and bandcamp.  



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

These inspirations are always a part of the process. Everything you think about / feel is what gets channelled into the music.

Sometimes things are more apparent, certain events that happen that need to be processed. For example “Wet Faced & Ugly” was inspired by seeing a mother with her baby outside my apartment.

The baby was crying out so hard for his mom and it just felt beautiful and desperate and I immediately wrote the verses for the song when I got back home.



Other times, things are more subtle. For example when we were creating the ‘All the Time’ music video, we were visually inspired by the atmosphere from Requiem for a Dream.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

That depends. We often think we know what a Mood Bored song should sound like, but then when we’re writing new music, we still get surprised with new ideas we didn’t think would fit the sound or vibe.

We don’t like to put restrictions on ourselves for what our music should sound like. We just see what happens! The results are sometimes a little all over the place, but still tied together with our themes and sounds.

On Too Much? we feel like you can also hear a shift throughout the EP as we are developing and always changing how we write.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

Not really. We always make a bunch of demos in our home studios before cutting the final song in an actual studio.

Also we like to play the new songs live right when we make them, as we’ve noticed that once we start playing songs in front of an audience there are always changes that happen organically.

We want to catch those before recording so that we know what it really has to be, and also that we can actually play it live haha.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

As much as we avoid to be a jamband, we’re kind of always jamming in the rehearsal room. Those jams often end up being shaped into songs.

We think it works because it’s an inherently subconscious process of just playing and no thinking.

For your latest release, what did you start with? If there were conceptual considerations, what were they?

At the start we didn’t have a very specific idea of what we we’re going to make.

As we were gathering the songs for the EP we realised that they all really fit together thematically and started to form a concept and shape a world for the songs to live in.

Tell me a bit about the way the new material developed and gradually took its final form, please.

Some of the songs had been written a while before we even started thinking about the EP. Others were more recent ideas.

Because we played so much shows over the last few years, we really started writing and creating from the rehearsal room for this project and took a more live approach to recording as well.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

We think lyrics are best when you can evoke profound emotions or thoughts using very simple, day to day language.

For example, in “Night Shift” by Lucy Dacus: ‘You’ve got a nine to five, so I’ll take the night shift’



Something can be a punch to the gut while just being a very mundane everyday thing to say. And that’s a superpower.

What are areas/themes/topics that you keep returning to in your lyrics?

Honestly the same themes and topics always return. Existential dread, disdain for our society, cynicism, trying to find beauty in a fucked up world, and always always trying to find meaning.

As long as these things don’t change externally, this is the way that we deal with all of this, through the lyrics and music.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

We like to feel as we go, and let whatever may happen, happen.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

Not really an element of spirituality. There is something extraordinary, however, about the way time passes without you noticing when you’re creating something new and exciting. You can really go to a different place and stay there for ages without losing focus.

That never happens anywhere else than with music.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece?

Usually, too much. This is something we’re trying to work on. We always get a severe case of demoitis, and some of our songs have had many versions.

We can go into a studio and record something with an 8000 euro microphone to end up still using the shittily recorded demo guitars because they had an inexplicable quality that you really can’t recreate.

For example the lead outro guitar and backing vocals on “All The Time” or the ‘ooh’’s at the beginning of “Wake Up With You.“

How do you think the meaning, or effect of an individual piece is enhanced, clarified or possibly contrasted by the EPs, or albums it is part of? Does each piece, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?

For this EP we didn’t necessarily make the music fit the larger whole, but when we pieced the EP together, we realised that the songs we had written were very similar thematically.

From there on, the songs kind of grew into that concept. And because of this, all the songs strengthen each other and take on new meaning, which they wouldn’t have just by themselves.

For example all of the existential questions that are being asked individually in each song come together to form a crisis, almost a panic attack, which leaves you feeling like it’s all too much.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

This definitely feels very relatable. but you always need to keep creating so you fall in love with the new things and are excited to release those again.

A never ending cycle of creativity and evolving.

I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about or the impact it had on them – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”

A funny example of this is our song ‘Lucky’ from the first EP.



People have often referred to the song as a beautiful love song. When in reality it’s a song about manipulation and gaslighting, where we take on the role of the gaslighter, and the listener is the ‘victim’.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing 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?

Everything. We’re not very mindful people so haven’t been able to find this elsewhere. We need to engage in a creative task to feel all of the depths and corners of our emotions and thoughts.

We do feel passion or relaxation with these ‘mundane’ tasks, and that can be very meaningful, but it’s just not the same.