Sound Of Imker | Interview | “Train Of Doomsday”

In 1967, two brothers from Assen, The Netherlands, formed a band called The Sound of Imker. In 1969 they released their only single called ‘Train of Doomsday’. The original is highly sought after, and it’s reissued by Milkcow Records, describing ‘Train of Doomsday’ as “the Stooges covering a Motörhead tune on blown-up amps.”

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Legendary hard hitting proto-punk psych single from The Netherlands, from 1968. The Sound of Imker hailed from Assen and were quite the wild bunch who came up with their own brutal interpretation of the blues: maniacal distorted take-no-prisoners two chord blasts in full speed ahead. During the heydays of flower power the band decided to drench themselves with blood and simulate a heart transplantation on stage. The band got kicked off their label before the release made it to the stores and so most copies of the original record were lost, making it one of the most sought-after psych singles from Holland.

Barend Kemper visited the last living member of the band, Remco Imker, at his home near Assen. His companion Wilfred Hellendoorn also joined the conversation, here is what they had to say.

“Our live shows were beyond chaotic. People had surgery live on stage with 200 litres of blood, that was part of our show”

Remco Imker (talking about ‘Train of Doomsday’): Even the reissues go for €100, an original fetches €500 to €1000, it’s a real collector’s item. It’s more than 50 years ago, we were the first real underground-band, and apparently there’s a lot of demand for it now. It’s from the mammoth-age. What instrument do you play?

Barend Kemper: Bass guitar.

Remco: We never had a bassist, because none of them could keep up with us. Everyone who attempted to play bass with us, got stressed or committed suicide. The music was too fast for them, I recorded the bass parts by playing slide on my stereo Gibson guitar.

Was that a stereo Gibson ES-335?

Remco: Yes I think so, it said Kalamazoo on it, but it was an orange Gibson with a button for stereo output. We ordered it, not with the intention to play bass on it, but there was just no bassist who could keep up with us, we played too fast for them. That’s how I ended up playing both rhythm guitar and the bass parts.

Our live shows were beyond chaotic. People had surgery live on stage with 200 litres of blood, that was part of our show. We were ground-breaking on that score. Newspapers were writing about it, we did it to gain attention and also to make a statement. It wasn’t always appreciated by pub keepers. The Dead Kennedys from America also wrote about us and thought we were a special band. We were the only underground band, long before you were made. Our generation constructed rock ‘n’ roll, but it’s disappearing slowly so that’s why people appreciate it nowadays. We are on the verge of death and young people are interested in this old music of ours. The reissue gets sold out within 10 days!

Could you imagine that when you recorded it?

Remco: No, not at all. We even used the singles as frisbees, the record companies didn’t see anything in us. We picked up the boxes full of singles and sold some of them for 1 guilder a piece. Philips refused to distribute the record, they never heard anything like us. We were a rough band, surrounded by blood and misery.

In some ways you were way ahead of your time, right?

Remco: I don’t see it like that, it was just who we were. I still have it in me but we have to hold back a bit, it would be ridiculous to do surgery on stage again nowadays. We had big compressors on stage, spraying fake blood into the audience and on the ceiling of the building. There were also ambulances in front of the building. A heartbeat was recreated, and when it reached its climax, the heart came out of the body and blood flowed into the room.

My brother, Robert Imker was a great guitarist, later on he played with Herman Brood. We were revolutionary and even to this day, I get confronted by it.

How should I imagine the heart surgery, was it a doll?

Remco: No, it was a real person, who had plastic tubes in his sleeves. The blood pressure from the compressors increased, and then the tubes were cut through. It was pretty well set up, technically. Later on, the pub keepers didn’t want it anymore because of the mess we made, they could read it in all the newspapers. It was not only for the show, but it was also a protest against the medical world. The first heart transplantation was performed at that time in South Africa. They used that man as a laboratory animal, he died as a poor man, while the medical world profited enormously from it.

So you were a socially critical band?

Remco: Yes, absolutely, and we still are. Wilfred Hellendoorn knows how to turn it in the right direction, he has a studio here with professional equipment, but he always trivializes it.

You make music together now?

Remco: Yes, he also composes music to go with the video’s that we make. We’re also working on a blues song from 1700, Wilfred makes a video for that. I’ve got the music in my head, I cut my fingers off so I can’t play guitar anymore, but my head is still on my body.

Do you plan to release it on CD?

Remco: Yes, first it will be uploaded on YouTube and then we’ll see where it goes from there. Are you familiar with blues music?

Yes, I am.

Remco: It’s music about the misery of the slaves. Nowadays we still live in a world where people are enslaved by materialism, we make music about that. Blues is not about “my baby left me” and stuff like that, blues started when the slaves got captured and transported by boats, that’s the core of the blues, you have to go a long way back for that.

The price of a Gibson in the 1960’s was around 3000 guilders, so if you walked down the street with one of those, the girls were chasing you.

Did the girls see the difference between a Gibson and a Japanese guitar?

Remco: No, but I would tell them how expensive it was and that you’d have to work a couple of years for it. You also had brands like Epiphone and Gretsch, but Gibson was always the best for me, and still is. I’ve had a bunch of them over the years. We were in the initial stage of rock ‘n’ roll, we were on the cornerstone of the sound and we got appreciated for that. We were opening for Pink Floyd, they liked it as well!

“We played on Jimi Hendrix’ equipment”

That must have been an experience to never forget, can you tell me about it?

Remco: It was in Utrecht at an event called Flight to Paradise (A Flight to Lowlands Paradise) in 1968. We played on Jimi Hendrix’ equipment, but he was in an advanced stage of decomposition at that time, so we had to stand in for him. The people came for Hendrix, not for us.

Those are big shoes to fill!

Remco: Yes indeed, we were on the main stage and the crowd started to become annoying to us, which I understand because they paid 35 guilders, a lot of money. Hendrix was getting famous at that time, but he had big troubles with drugs. We also toured with ABBA.

With ABBA?

Remco: Yes they had a band called the Hep Stars. There was some sort of exchange of bands going on, we toured through The Netherlands with them. The two male singers of ABBA were in that band, but we didn’t like it at all. Later on, when they became big, I thought it was great. My brother and I have always been very critical of other musicians, but those guys have become multinationals and we played with them! We never became multinationals, but he is [points towards Wilfred]. He is infected with music, it’s the best thing in the world!

Wilfred Hellendoorn: No alcohol anymore, no drugs anymore, this is it for me, you have to do something.

Remco: Would you like to see the studio? It would be nice for you to see how we live and what we do.

Yes of course, do you both live here?

Remco: Yes, Wilfred lives right behind me, we’ve known each other for 30 years.

You were in the band together with your brother, can you tell me something about how you grew up together?

Remco: We have always been into music, we are from a gypsy family. We also composed film music together with Gjalt Wijnstra from the TROS (Dutch television network) for Holocaust, a film about the extermination of Jews that was broadcasted around the world. Only about 30 seconds of our music ended up in the film. We have been in the studio for that a couple of times, but they thought it was too psychedelic I believe. When Patton entered the concentration camp, where all the bodies were laying, you can hear The Sound of Imker.

If I had known that they would use only 30 seconds of our music, I would never have invested so much time and energy into it.

Yes, that’s regrettable.

Remco: Regrettable indeed, but life is not only about successes. There’s a lot of people out there that have something against you. Currently, Wilfred and I are making a film about nuclear war. Three years ago we predicted that there would be a nuclear war. As gypsies, we have foresight, Wilfred knows how to convert that to film. The song is called ‘The Moon is Black’. I sing the line “oh lord give me another planet,” the planet is dying and we knew that years ago. Wilfred also knows that and knows how to convert it to a video, I’m not an expert on that front.

Wilfred: Remco has a massive archive of music. I found this song in the archive and in collaboration with a studio in Hoogeveen, we came up with the video. It’s been on the internet now for about 3 or 4 years but the song is much older, it was long before Remco lost some fingers in an accident.

Remco: We make prophetic music, music about the future.

Wilfred (on the video): He drives in a car into a tunnel, then he ends up in a time machine and gets transported to a completely new world. Then it starts to become a bit dreamy, you see the flowers grow, and then it ends with a nuclear explosion, it won’t get more psychedelic than that!

Remco: It’s also slightly religious, I’m a religious man and I think that when people start using atomic bombs, they play with the fire of God. God is not a man with two horns, but God is everything around us. Soon or late, Mother Nature hits back. The world is being held hostage at the moment, and we make music about that, Wilfred gives colour to it.

Wilfred: I’m a visual artist and I especially like mysticism in art so I like to add a mystical undertone to my art.

Remco: The function of music is that it’s the international language between the people. This morning we were working on a song about native Americans. I can also scream like a native American.

Wilfred: Do it, do it!

Remco: No, no, you can hear it when the film is ready. Music doesn’t have to be captured on CD or vinyl or whatever, so we are working on a big show right now. It will be a sort of musical, with theatre and video’s and so on. Don’t ask for a CD, you have to experience the show yourself.

We are working hard on it. I was planning on doing a show on the Grand-Place in Brussels tomorrow but it’s Pentecost this weekend and everything is a bit Christian, so I will go there next week to make an appointment to arrange the P.A. system. There will be a big light show projected on the old buildings and then I will do a performance. It won’t be singing only, there’s also room for poem’s and talking, just like we are doing now.

We are also busy with placing memorial objects in town halls, dedicated to The Sound of Imker and my brother. An artwork has to be revealed soon, there is still attention for us after 50 years!

Wilfred: Have you seen the film about Remco in the footsteps of his brother? It’s also on YouTube.

Yes I have seen it!

Wilfred: It has a lot of views, it’s a story about the sides of society, about drugs and death, that’s what attracts people.

Remco: A lot of people around me committed suicide and I’m the only one still here.

Wilfred: The singer on ‘Train of Doomsday,’ Peter Homan, passed away last year and Remco and I attended the funeral. The last song they played in the room was ‘Train of Doomsday,’ it was really, really impressive! I didn’t expect to hear it there.

Remco: It rumbled across the graveyard. Eventually, this song has become a part of my life. I wrote the song and it still comes back to me to this day. One time in Utrecht, a woman came up to me, she was almost crying and she asked me: “Are you Imker?” I told her to act normal and asked her what the deal was. She had a printed copy with her of a picture of the single cover that she found on the internet and asked me for an autograph. I had the feeling I was in a movie, it was very special! I signed it for her with the words, “I love you” plus an autograph and she was almost crying. We are very down to earth people, but for some people it means a lot. I also met people who tell me my music can’t even be called music, it’s about wars and atomic bombs and you can’t dance to it, it makes them wistful. That’s the other side of the story. My son is… I also created “spermanoids”… but my son is into House Music in Amsterdam. He doesn’t want contact with me anymore. At first I despised it, but now I’m planning to make House Music as well, but then in a funny way. It can be about coffee or meatballs for example. The work that we do here could be worked out later on in bigger studios, if the money is there. Maybe someone who wants to invest in us shows up, but you can’t wait for that. You have to do it all by yourself and gain some publicity.

I hear you are still full of ideas!

Remco: Yes I have boxes full of them, it’s a never ending story.

Has it always been like this?

Remco: Yes, I started as a little boy. We live in a fantasy world and you can’t get out of it easily. Wilfred is a bit more down to earth and has to slow me down sometimes.

Wilfred: Remco is psychedelia in person. It has to do with his gypsy roots. His prophetic gift is a bit too much for me sometimes.

But you understand what he means?

Wilfred: Yes it’s always coming true. [Finds a coin on the ground and picks it up] Look at this, there’s a native American on this coin that I just found. We just talked about native Americans and also this morning, and now I found this! I always experience those kinds of things when I’m around him!

[At this point we drove to Wilfred’s studio.]

Can you tell me about how you got that sound back in the day, did you use effect pedals?

Remco: No pedals at all, just straight into the amplifier. We didn’t even have pedals here. I do some guest-performances in a band as a blues singer every now and then. I can sing like a “nigger” that’s being castrated.

Wilfred: Just act normally. When Remco goes off, you can better stop recording, Barend.

I think it will sell.

Remco: I’m also designing and building furniture.

I’m almost 80 years old now, when I look at the younger generation, I see their mental well-being is not how it should be. They’re not victims, but my generation was way more revolutionary. I miss that nowadays. The younger generation is a bit too sluggish and careful, they are not capable of having a conversation because they look at their smartphones the entire day. The number of suicides by younger people is exploding, it’s their main cause of death. Why is that? Because they’re empty. They don’t have anything besides their smartphone. It has nothing to do with rock ‘n’ roll. We are rock ‘n’ roll 24/7, it’s real dedication. Most people get a child, I think I have about 10 of them. The life of a rocker is a hard life, but it’s satisfying.

At least it’s not boring!

Remco: No, absolutely not. Recently we were on a radio show about our single ‘Train of Doomsday’. I told them that we delivered rubbish, that it sounded like an old Diesel engine. But some people have different views on that. A lot of things I create and I’m not satisfied about, I set aside. Later on I find it back and think it’s pretty nice and I finish it.

So a lot of stuff you are working on right now originates from the past?

Yes that’s true, but I put a different sauce on top of it, but not too much. I love Spanish music, especially the guitar-players. We do have a single with flamenco on it, ‘Long Way to Go’.

Billions of people will die, it’s happening right now. We are very prophetic. Food is being destroyed, in Poland there is a billion tons of grain rotting away right now. We talked about it years ago. We are intellectual people, we know what’s going on in the world, also politically. Sometimes I get responses from people with a different view, but it’s no problem to get to a discussion. My music is also autobiographical, I believe a lot of music is developing itself in your environment. For example, we are working on a film about a divorced man who visits prostitutes, then he sees that his wife is behind the window. I’m also working on a song in Dutch language, the title is: “Eens sta je alleen met de kou om je heen, je huilt de tranen stiekem uit en hoopt dat niemand het ziet.” We also use elements of the wheather in our music, like storms, lightning and thunder, earthquakes and screaming.

Wilfred: That gives it a mystical touch.

Remco: Music gets substantiated by everything that’s happening around you. The world is about to snap, we are seconds away from Armageddon. You don’t need academic education to see this. A lot of young people are shocked by what they see, that there are young people shot to death, children die and entire buildings are blown away by the Russians. The Americans are not much better because they did the same thing in Vietnam. It’s not only the Russians who are bad, it’s humanity itself. I also like to use biblical quotes. Somewhere in the bible God says: I regret that I created the people, that’s how bad they are. The master of the universe Himself says that, that’s something to think about. God is an intelligent piece of antimatter. God is not a creature as most people see him, God is composed of matter. Look at Wilfred, you can see how wonderful that man is put together. He eats a meatball as if it’s nothing, even if he didn’t ask for it.

Yes, that must be the proof of the existence of God.

The word God is Adonai, which means “chief,” not everyone knows that. I am God and you are too.

Are we all part of God?

Yes, we are all part of nature. Look at Wilfred.

Wilfred: Stop it! I would like to add something to it. Einstein’s E = mc² means that energy is matter and matter is energy. You can destroy the entire planet by pulling 2 molecules out of each other, can you imagine? And if you put those molecules together, you get all this matter around us. Miraculous, right?

Remco: That’s right. It’s not about music, everything we do is founded by spiritual matters. I don’t believe in the institution of the church. We made a film about child abuse in the Vatican church. I have been there twice, up in the dome of the St. Peter’s Basilica. Someone from the record company told us that we would be shot to death if we released that film. We don’t dare to release it, it would cause the world to be on fire.

Wilfred: The definition of psychedelic is some state of consciousness. Being aware of how you see things.

Remco: I don’t release it now but I will in the future. There’s heavy footage in there, for example a little boy is playing in a sandbox and a priest tells him to give him… There’s a choir of black women who sing: Oh lord, forgive me. There’s also footage of a statue that’s crying tears of blood, it’s crying about the evil things in religion. Religion is the root of a lot of evil in this world.

But also the root of a lot of good things, right?

I’m not an atheist, I believe in the Ten Commandments. If we hold on to that, everything is okay. Sadly that’s not the case, people stab each other to death for nothing, or people get shot for a nice watch. That’s the world that we live in. That’s it for now, we will show you my place and then you can go.

Wilfred: You will get in one gigantic trip when you have to type this interview out!

Barend Kemper

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