Jan Swerts on the personal traumas that inform his new album
The Limburg musician bares his soul on his latest album, about bringing up an ill child and the breakdown of his marriage, and how losing his mother was an encouragement to carry on living
The Zombie Diaries
It contained sparsely arranged neoclassical music with Swerts’ piano playing at its heart. At times, he sang, too, in English; apart from catching phrases here and there, it was impossible to understand the lyrics.
That was the idea: the voice as just an extra instrument, not the conveyor of meaning.
Swerts, from Sint-Truiden in Limburg, always thought Weg would be his first and last album. But a rave review in Humo changed his life. The album was subsequently picked up by other major Flemish media and two major record companies courted him. He signed with Universal and recorded his second album, De anatomie van de melancholie (The Anatomy of the Melancholy).
Still, the aspiring film composer in him was bubbling to the surface. As a zombie aficionado, his ultimate dream was to compose a score for a zombie flick. “As a child I was wild about post-apocalyptic comics. I was fascinated by the question of what would happen to the inanimate objects on earth when all the people were dead.”
Turmoil and tragedy
Not wanting to wait until a director found their way to Limburg, he decided to write a soundtrack for a non-existent movie. The plan lingered in his head for years, and he was considering it as his third album.
Then life happened. His son became seriously ill, his marriage ended, and his mother died after a long battle against cancer. He also discovered that he was autistic.
I hesitated about revealing the autobiographical side of the music, but I realised talking about it helps me
His seven-year-old son, Jef, was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome, characterised by uncontrollable tics. The first psychiatrist they saw told Swerts that he himself was a textbook example of Asperger’s syndrome.
“It’s true that even as a child I never could handle disturbance or commotion well. I hated big groups and loud spaces,” he says. “My favourite activity was arranging the comics in my room. In silence, of course.”
He admits to be being irritable. “I can’t handle the totally unpredictable person that Jef has become,” he says. “It’s hell that he has a sickness that I can’t deal with. If he’d had another disease, that would have been as bad for him, but at least I could have been the great father that I know I can be.”
All this led to the implosion of Swerts’ marriage. “We had a great relationship, and Daniela will always be the love of my life. But we had to find a mode where I could still give all my possible love to Jef, without me going insane. Now I see him twice a week.”
This turmoil informed his new album, Schaduwland (Shadowland). You wouldn’t guess it from the lyrics, though the magnificent artwork does give a few clues.
“I hesitated about revealing the autobiographical side of the music, because it sounds so self-indulgent, but I realised talking about it helps me. And my ex had no problem with it.”
Automatic pilot
People often don’t get why Swerts can’t deal with his son’s condition. He understands that.
“It’s difficult to empathise with something you can’t see,” he says. “When you’re in pain mentally, the reaction is often ‘try harder’. But let’s suppose a cat was the most important being in my life, and one day I became allergic to cats: rash, watery eyes, you name it. When I make that comparison, people do understand – because it’s physical.”
Swerts found refuge in his parents’ home, ending up back in his old bedroom with his old piano. “Meanwhile, my mother was dying downstairs, racked with pain,” he recalls. “The framework of my life had completely been set. I discovered that the only way to survive heavy traumas was living on automatic pilot. The only rescue for me was zombification.”
With a wry smile he adds: “It’s quite ironic. I always had an aversion to the zombies from Dawn of the Dead: mindless beings that only want to consume. I became what I’d always hated. And I had to give up some certainties. The idea, for instance, that life is malleable. Or that knowledge is power. Not true: Ignorance is bliss.”
On my first two albums, I flirted with the great emotions conjured up by transience and mortality; it was a romanticised study of melancholia
He says he has always been melancholic, addicted to nostalgia. But after his diagnosis, he realised that was no more than a neurological aberration, “a defect in my brain”.
“On my first two albums, I flirted with the great emotions conjured up by transience and mortality; it was a romanticised study of melancholia. But this new album was born out of necessity, a huge necessity.”
It took some time to realise that, though. “At first I thought, what’s the use of making music. But after a while music came back.”
It first happened during breaks at the University College Leuven-Limburg, where he teaches. He describes it as a form of decompression, the way other people play sports.
Subsequently, he started working on his new album. “The idea was: This is the last thing I do, an ultimate convulsion, a farewell letter. And afterwards I don’t want to be anymore.”
Suicidal as this sounds, Swerts is alive and kicking. “It changed during the making of the album. The music helped me to contextualise what had happened,” he says. “The death of my mother, strangely, was also an encouragement to live. I often get asked whether making Schaduwland was a catharsis. I don’t know.”
The album is conceived in four parts, corresponding to the four stages of processing trauma. The last one is Acceptance. “I put a question mark after it,” says Swerts. “But yes, making this music gave me some hope again.”
On tour until 3 December across Flanders
Photo: Anton Kusters
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