“They didn’t get it!” he shrieks, after reading the three-and-half-star (out of five) review. “Just joking,” he quickly adds with a big smile.

I suspect, though, that he partially meant it. And I can understand it.

Keep You Close received a long and raving four-star (out of five) review in the British monthly Q, but some of the critic’s remarks made me wonder if he’d heard the same album I did.

Since their ground-breaking debut Worst Case Scenario in 1994, dEUS has been the pride of the indigenous rock scene. A few artists might be more popular, but dEUS’ courage and recklessness have inspired a whole generation of young musicians and made them the most commented-on rock band of the past two decades in this country.

Two decades and counting

dEUS has had some personnel changes throughout its 20-year history, although the present line-up, operating together since 2005, is the most productive. Barman, Klaas Janzoons, Stéphane Misseghers, Mauro Pawlowski and Alan Gevaert have played on the last three of the band’s six albums.

Barman, unsurprisingly, doesn’t have a favourite line-up. “All periods had their great moment, and their despairing ones,” he tells me. “It’s different from the first years, though. It’s a brotherly vibe now, which makes it also fragile.”

Since 2009, dEUS has been working in its own recording studio in Antwerp. Keep You Close isn’t the only result of that hard labour. The next six months will see two EPs released: one with “pop-y material”, the other with “groovy stuff influenced by Can and LCD Soundsystem.”

It has been suggested in the press that Barman wasn’t satisfied with the previous album Vantage Point. He’s glad he can rectify that. “Everything we have done is an essential part of the whole story, so I’m certainly not disavowing that album. I do think, though, that that album sounds a bit too distant. But what really disappointed me was the lack of concerts afterwards. We toured only seven months, and we were – I’m exaggerating, but even so – coldshouldered. After having spent two years in the studio, that was hard. On the other hand, it’s sometimes good to receive such a blow. It keeps you focused.”

And that was clear from the first day dEUS started working on Keep You Close. “We were driven by vengeance,” he admits. And they had a new plan: Write all the music with the five of them together in one room. “We had done that before, but not for a whole album. They always contained songs I’d written on my own, too. Working so intensely together makes this a better album, I think.”

“Something has to change”

There’s a lot of regret and sorrow in the lyrics of Keep You Close, I remark. “And self criticism and remorse”, the dEUS singer quickly adds. In ‘Twice (We Survive)” he sings: “Cause twice I set my mind on you / And twice I gave you nothing”. “

I shied away from too many metaphors; I wanted my lyrics to be more direct than they were before,” Barman reveals. “Which isn’t the same as anecdotal, since that doesn’t interest me. That chorus of ‘Twice’ – it can’t get any more direct than that. But I’ll have to write differently in the future. I’ve reached a limit.”

The limit wasn’t induced by a desire not to open his heart anymore. He will always do that, he says, since it’s a defining part of his persona as an artist. Rather, it’s probably because he hasn’t lived enough lately. “I have been in the studio for two years, almost daily.”

With a grim smile, he continues: “I went to a behavioural psychologist once, and he told me something that I intuitively knew, but it was good to hear it from someone else: I need external impulses.” Barman stated he’d have to write differently, but maybe he’ll have to live differently? “That’s right. Something has to change, the future will tell what it’ll be.”

A second film?

Finally, and unavoidably, cinema! Twenty years ago, Barman was thrown out of film school because he cheated during a science exam. Though his teachers, like director Marc Didden, afterwards clarified that he was a talented student. Barman delivered proof of this in 2003 with his much-appreciated film debut Any Way the Wind Blows.

Three years ago, he told me he was working on a new screenplay. So, when can we expect that second feature? “Honestly, I don’t know,” he admits. “I’m not in a hurry. I’ve three ideas that I’d like to see turned into a film at some point. One of them I have already developed into a 40-page synopsis.” The camera won’t be rolling soon, though. For one, filming will force dEUS into a sabbatical, and he surely doesn’t want a band that has been going strong for six years in a row – a record in its bumpy history – to come to a halt.

“True, but on the other hand – a new movie will take less time than the first one. Making Any Way the Wind Blows was very informative. I had the tendency to do everything myself, but I’ve learned that was not the wisest decision. Now I know my strengths and weaknesses. For instance, I’ll work with a screenwriter to turn that synopsis into a screenplay.”

The next year will find him doing a lot of touring with dEUS and finishing a new album of Magnus, the electronic duo he forms with CJ Bolland. “And we’ll see after that. But there’ll be a new movie one day. That’s a fact.”

dEUS

16 December, 20.00
Lotto Arena
Schijnpoortweg 119, Antwerp
www.lottoarena.be

17 December, 20.00
Vorst Nationaal
Victor Rousseaulaan 208, Brussels
www.vorstnationaal.be