BERTUS AKA BLOODY BUTCHER

EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENT ROBERT-JAN RIETVELD

WITH REX.A.C.SILVER

This is the last of 4 instalments with Bertus the Bloody Butcher of Rotterdam as our European correspondent, it’s been an honour to have him with us this year.

Music has always been a huge driving force for Robert when it comes to finding, and being a source of inspiration for his creativity, he touches on this in detail in this piece. Each year Schorem produce a rock show for their customers friends and fans. Last year with all the lockdowns they had to do a live streaming event but this coming February it’s back on, I’m talking about Scumbash 2022, Let’s check that out before we get to hair.

On Music…

Music has always been there. The backbone of the thing that we do you know, because most of our haircuts are subcultural. So next to being classic, there’s a lot of rock and roll influences, you know, I love writing about it too. You know because it’s about tribes’ man, it’s about street tribes, urban tribes. Back in the day a haircut would really show from a distance, what tribe you were, especially in rock and roll.

That was very important you know, it’s not just the leather jacket, it’s the haircut that goes with it. So, when we started, most of our clients actually played in bands and stuff. It was all small (the scene) so when Schorem Became a little bit more successful and with people knowing us, like your everyday Joe, they saw the haircuts that we were doing and they were like, oh my God, these are excellent.

So that’s pretty much how we lost a lot of our original clients from all the bands… because of the waiting times, the barbershop became so busy we just lost those guys. So, we were like what can we do to give something back to the subculture, the subculture we love and believe so strongly that really helped us become who we were, so then we organised the first Scumbash.

This will be a 6th one, even with the lockdowns last year we went ahead with an online event because we really wanted to celebrate our 10th anniversary of Schorem.

It wasn’t the real thing, but we did it and we all know there’s nothing better than a live event.

Live music and the band saying we were into is what really binds Leon and myself, it was always about going to gigs, that was our whole life since we were 14. It was all about the gigs.

We used to go to gigs all over, we were a little crazy back then ,actually we were really crazy! We would drive for 12 hours to go to a festival, and it just wasn’t about the gigs and the festival, it was the whole experience. The road trip… getting buzzed about what we’re about to do, what we’re about to see and what we’re about to hear…We would make these playlists you know, of the bands that we were going to see and the fun that we would have with that man wow… would like to pull over and spend the night somewhere in the Czech Republic just to see one band…crazy man.

It was a trip, we would be like eating in these restaurants on the side of the road… it was so cool driving through Germany, Leen loves cars so he’s always had fast cars you know, old cars, and in Germany you can drive fast! it was all part of the experience, we just really loved the live music and Rotterdam, has always been a good town for live music man.

Scumbash has grown and grown, and now we have around 5000 people come, we started out with three bands and now we have around 25 bands on the bill, it’s really cool. It’s been harder and harder trying to find a suitable venue, but we managed to get an old submarine dock …yeah man some old submarine docks, it’s gonna be fantastic!!

During the conversation Robert draws similarities that he feels are quite parallel to him and being in a Rock Band in that going to see your favourite band play your favourite song, is very similar to Bertus and Leens fans that come to their shows to watch them do their favourite haircut.

Robert and his photographer Jelle Mollena have just found a new studio space. Robert warns us we better be prepared for what’s coming’ because they can’t wait to get really productive.

And on what’s happening artistically within himself…

Schorem is never going to change, Schorem is a barbershop, and we specialise in classic haircuts, but with me having Reuzel, and being in between Reuzel and Schorem, I’m in the perfect position to do I want. I look at what people want, and I look at what I want, and I’m in between… so I’m doing fashion and I’m doing this classic thing that I really, really love, but I’m evolving.

I don’t know where I’m going to go with my haircuts, but I know exactly what I find attractive to the eye and that’s what I’m going to produce.

The Cruella Shoot

So, let’s take this model I did a couple of days ago the Cruella de Vil because this is a great example of how my creative mind works the idea for this shoot literally came from my girlfriend and me watching Cruella on Disney.

The idea in my head wasn’t a girl, it wasn’t a Roach project piece either. The thing is I just go into auto mode, and I knew I just had to do it …I had this model in mind who works with us, and I really wanted to see this guy in this role… I feel it’s gender fluid and that’s what I love about it. I loved everything about it …I loved the fashion in this movie, it just really got me inspired I was I was blown away.

This is different to me doing a hair model’ cause something comes into my head, and I’m shooting it differently because I can tell a story, it’s not just a haircut shoot it’s very different.

So, there’s a lot of influences in here too, I was inspired by Cruella but there is a little bit of A Clockwork Orange, there’s a little bit of Grace Jones in there, and a little bit of Prince.

It takes a village, Robert’s girlfriend Iris Hoeben did the colour and makeup, of course Jelle Mollena behind the camera, ‘everyone’s a stylist’, and they had to source a dog too, so props to the owner for that!

Next year we have secured an exclusive with the elusive, that’s right, BarberShop will be with Leen! In one form or another stay tuned for that! We will also be covering ROACH after its universal launch and talking to the man, Roberts creative right hand in his words, Jelle Mollena, I bet all the budding photographers out there can’t wait for that, I know I am certainly looking forwards to some insights from this amazing man.

@the_bloody_butcher @jelleinmyear @irishoeben