Biography
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Years Active
2011 – present (13 years)
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Members
- Dave von Raven
- Ries Doms
The Kik are a contemporary beat band from Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Risen from the ashes of The Madd in 2010 (both bands were formed and fronted by Dave von Raven), The Kik released their first 7-inch vinyl single in April 2011: My Eyes Are Still Dry (b/w Here's Hoping). The band's first singles were sung in English.
In May 2012 The KiK surprised fans and press by releasing a full-length début album sung entirely in Dutch: Springlevend. It lifted them to a new, previously unimaginable level of success. The second full-length, simply entitled 2, was released in April 2014, followed by studio album number three, Stad en Land, in January 2017.
The band also released a covers album, Hertaalt! (December 2017), of an unusual kind: it features Dutch-language versions of English-sung originals, the 'translations' being everything but literal. In many cases The Kik wrote entirely new lyrics in Dutch, giving new meaning to the songs.
In 2019 the band was particularly succesful with their tribute to Dave von Raven's idol, Boudewijn de Groot, perhaps the single-most important Dutch artist to sing in his mothertongue. De Groot himself stopped performing his most famous albums of the 1960s, but granted The Kik his permission to do so: the band played Voor de overlevenden (1966) and Picknick (1968), start-to-finish, with an orchestra, to rave reviews in the Dutch press. A live double album, entitled Boudewijn de Groot's Voor de Overlevenden & Picknick LIVE, came out in May 2019.
The band's 2020 studio effort, Jin, marks a stylistic shift, with synthesizers thrown into The Kik's unique mix.
The original The Kik line-up consisted of: Marcel Groenewegen, Dave von Raven, Ries Doms and Arjan Spies. Spies left the group again in 2011. Simon Keats replaced him.
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