Clik here to view.
It’s become one of the world’s foremost nightclubs, with a reputation that’s etched its way into clubbing lore with ease. The shape, sound, look, feel and ethos of Amsterdam’s Trouw have reinforced some of clubbing’s most loveable traits to its devotees, while playing host to inspired sets from artists like Joris Voorn, Todd Terje, and Soul Clap. Its residents have become household names, and it hosts some of ADE’s most memorable highlights. Yet this beacon of clubbing is closing its doors in a short while. In the meantime, however, London’s Village Underground is getting its very own taste of Amsterdam’s finest this weekend with the Trouw takeover. So we caught up with owner Olaf Boswijk to find out a bit more about what’s in store for the weekend.
Trouw has become one of the most recognizable clubs in the world in recent years. Was that always your plan? Well kind of. I mean, in what we try to do, we always try to aim for the highest possible goal we can reach. But it’s up to others to decide whether or not we are one of the best clubs in the world or not.
How much of that do you think that is due to your philosophy of booking artists that you not only like musically, but that you think are nice people, people that you get along with? Well I kind of like to believe in the esoteric side of running a club, in the way that a club is a place that people come to enjoy themselves and be free to express themselves. I think the relationship between the promoter and owner of the building and the artist is very important in this case. If it’s just based on a mutual commercial transaction, that’s fine, that can work, but I think the magic happens when an artist feels at home. I mean literally at home. He’s there, connecting with his friends and family. He’s been there a couple of times and is being treated well, and he knows he’s in a place where he can do special things. That’s something the artist’s vibe from, and the crowd can vibe from that, and in that case, a night can go to magical places. It’s not a formula, it doesn’t work like that all the time, but I do believe the relationship between us and the people who work here, be it the staff or the light guys, is very important, and a special characteristic of Trouw.
Has that always been your philosophy, even in other clubs you’ve worked at? I guess it comes to us naturally, but it’s grown over the years. There’s been times where we’ve really had a very tough time here. And the only thing you have left is the relationship between you and the people you’re working with. It has to be a strong relationship and it has to be a relationship built on mutual trust, and not just on ‘okay, I’m paying you to do this job.’ There’s plenty of people that do that. So maybe in the difficult time these relationships have been shaped, and have become stronger, and that’s why Trouw is stronger now compared to 3 or 4 years ago. The more you realize you’ve invested in relationships, the more you get out of it. And that’s the way we try to run this club. We try to, with whoever we work with, keep a long standing relationship. Sure there are nights and artists that just come once, but we try to really build something for the long term.
You’ve thrown events in Berlin, Sao Paulo and Copenhagen among other cities in the past, but his is the first time the venue will be fully heading to another city, right? Well we’ve done it before with a big group of DJs, but we’ve never brought the visual guys over, and we’ve never done it in London. I don’t have the idea that we can actually transpose the club to London, but we can definitely try and bring the important people over and as many friends over, the special light guys and the DJs to make sure we can create the most intimate and great vibe that we possibly can.
Is that Children Of The Light? Yeah. We work with a lot of visual artists, but they are particularly good at building instillations. And they are getting a lot of attention at the moment as they are doing the visuals for Darkside. They make some amazing work.
Just taking a look inside of Village Underground, there are a lot of similarities – from the artistic side of things to even the shape. How much of that played into your decision to throw the party there? To be honest, I’ve never been there. But from the way they approached us to all the similarities there are between the buildings and maybe musical programing, to some extent, the philosophies, to some extent, and the fact that they are both, I would say, more cultural clubs and not just dance clubs – it seemed like it was a good match. We’re really excited about it a try and we’ll see what will come of it.
Do you plan on throwing any more of these around the world or will you just see how it goes? We’ll see how it goes. We’ve never really had this global approach of like ‘alright, we’ll attack this city, and this festival.’ We’re quite specific on keeping our focus right here in Amsterdam, but whenever there’s a good opportunity, or we can connect with likeminded people somewhere around the world, we’ll definitely take it seriously and go for it.
So more of the organic approach you guys have taken over the years. Yeah. That’s how Trouw has always been. The club has grown organically over the years in various ways, and that feels good for us. We’re not trying to dominate the rest of the world. We don’t have huge marketing schemes.
Can you tell me more about the flags? Why are you choosing flags to help represent the club? I don’t want to discuss it too much. It would be nice if it were still somewhat of a surprise to the people. But basically the idea is we’re trying to do a Trouw takeover. And when you takeover somebody else’s place or property or land, you used to symbolize that with planting a flag. So we thought it would be a good idea to give every DJ his own flag. But what will actually happen on the night is uncertain, we don’t even know yet. We got the flags in today and they look super great, so I’m excited to make something super cool out of it.
Something I’m curious about, and I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but the license will be running out for Trouw soon, correct? It’s not the license, it’s actually the lease is running out.
You’ve been granted renewals before? Yes. Twice, and the building is going to be sold and redeveloped. We’ve always said that Trouw is temporary. We would do this for a couple of years and move on, so that’s what we’re going to do.
Do you have any idea of what the future holds? No, no idea. That I think will also grow organically. It all has to do with whether or not there will be another venue, whether there are people within the organization that have ambitions to keep on going. I think that will be decided quite late. After the other club we did, Club 11, it was really decided within the last month, maybe two months, and we went on holiday and found this place, and quite soon after we started building it. So we’ll see what happens.