| Piet van Wyk de Vries | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 7, 1972 |
| Origin | South Africa |
| Genres | Alternative Afrikaans |
| Labels | Independent |
| Notable instruments | |
| 12 String Guitar | |
Piet van Wyk de Vries is an independent South African song writer and performer, born in Pretoria in 1972.
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Piet van Wyk de Vries was born in Pretoria, South Africa on 7 May 1972. He grew up in Johannesburg and Pretoria. He attended School in Meyerspark and Silverton. He did his national service in the South African Police Force as a member of "Eenheid 19" (Unit 19), from 1991 to 1994.
He started in the music industry by fronting the band "Flying Circus", but soon changed directions by focusing more on music production and studio design. This culminated in 2000 when he designed and built what was at the time the largest digital studio in Africa for Sting Music in Johannesburg. He used this Pro Tools based studio to produce the first Afrikaans album by the artist Dozi, entitled "Op Aanvraag", which has since become one of the most successful albums of that genre of all time. This album also launched the career of songwriter Stef Kruger.
Before the Dozi album he arranged, wrote and produced music and live items for many South African artists in the English and Black markets, including PJ Powers, Lebo Mathosa and Billy Forrest. He also co-engineered a private recording for Eddy Grant, who recorded a birthday song in South Africa for his wife.
After that van Wyk de Vries switched his focus to the Afrikaans market, where he has produced mostly compilation albums, examples being some of the "Sokkietreffer" and "Bokjol" franchise compilations. He is much better known as a song writer, and has written for a number of Afrikaans singers. Most notable of these are Dozi, Wynand Strydom and Mathys Roets, the last of which uses his songs almost exclusively. Due to his extensive use of pseudonyms, it is almost impossible to track his works and involvement in the South African music business. Nobody is sure how many songs of his has been recorded and covered yet, but most people who are close to him describe it as "hundreds". Not EMI music publishing, nor the South African Music Rights Organization, SAMRO, are prepared to clarify this, for reasons of confidentiality.
In 2006, van Wyk de Vries returned to original production when he co-produced the album "Kom 'n Bietjie Binne" for Dozi, following the artist's move to Sony/BMG. This also contained the hit song "Susanna Soen My", which he wrote, produced and sang on.
In 2007 he more or less retired from production work, and released a solo album, entitled "Die son die maan die sterre" (The sun the moon the stars), containing 11 original works, including the radio hits "MadeleinMadelein", "Iemand soos jy" and "Leë Skoene". He received a lot of press attention and commercial success with this album, but refused to exploit it by not entering for any of the major South Africa music award competitions (and withdrawing his name from those he did not enter, but were nominated in anyway).
In another controversial move he withdrew from all South African arts festivals in late 2008, citing the fact that they no longer represented the artists of South Africa, but were becoming too commercially oriented. He has also been known to often refuse commissions for songs from top selling artists and to sometimes choose small "gigs" in restaurants over bigger events. He has on at least one occasion asked some members of the press to leave a theatre before performing.
His radical and often surprising attitude to his career and his writing has won him very few friends in the music business, but has secured him a growing and exclusive "word of mouth" niche in the Afrikaans music market, and insulated him from a genre of music which is increasingly being criticized by speakers of the language for its general low quality of content.
In September 2008 he released his second solo album, called "'n Pyl deur seil met vuur" (An arrow through sail with fire), and surprised attendants at a concert with a collaboration on stage with singer/songwriter Andre G. Nel. He has also in 2009/10 collaborated with the Coleske brothers on songs for the singer Guillome and others. In 2011 the artist Ricus Nel recorded the song "MadeleinMadelein" for his own solo album.
In 2010, on his birthday, he released a limited run CD entitled "Vensterkat maak 'n Wens" (Window-Cat makes a wish), at a show in the Pierneef Theatre. This was mostly attended by close friends and family, and by invitation only. The album contained many deeply personal songs, as well as some experimental and semi-instrumental compositions. During 2011 he decided against releasing anything further, and instead focused on composing new material for a release by the singer Mathys Roets, entitled "Rembrand se Meisie in die Maan". At the end of 2011 he withdrew all remaining stock of his first 3 albums from the market, and announced his intentions on facebook to not re-press any of them, but to compile some of their contents onto a forthcoming compilation, and downloadable content on his website, during 2012.
EMI music Pub (SA) has handled van Wyk de Vries' music publishing, and administered his "Triplane Music" publishing label, since 1997. In 1997, van Wyk de Vries was offered one of the largest non-recoupable advances ever for a South African songwriter, as an incentive for signing with EMI Publishing. During the following years, EMI has in one way or another handled all publishing for all songs that van Wyk de Vries wrote, with the (one known) exception of a song called "This Life", which was penned by van Wyk de Vries and sung by the superstar PJ Powers, and was published by Sting Music. In 2011, after EMI Publishing had been bought by Sony/BMG, the company renewed its contracts with van Wyk de Vries for at least another five years.
In 2008 the South African painter Bess Rheeders discovered van Wyk de Vries, and painted a series of paintings inspired by the songs on his first album. These were only displayed to the public once, and have all been sold into private collections since, apart from one painting, which she gave to the artist.
In 2009 he expanded his personal studio to include video production, and the first music video out of there started airing on the Afrikaans Satellite Music channel MK in April 2009. His stated aim is to be self-sufficient with video production, and to focus on very low budget original concepts.
All videos made by van Wyk de Vries have thus far been available on various websites, and on some of them for free download. He has also been known to give people permission to freely disseminate his music, and bootleg videos taken at performances.
A music video he made with his wife, as a private joke, has also been available on youtube for some time, where they wear different children's theatre costumes, including dinosaur costumes. Piet also wore a dinosaur costume during an intimate unplugged show at a Pretoria Theater in 2011. Apparently this was the result of a lost bet with a friend.
In 2012 he announced on his facebook profile the intention of returning to historical research, and applying it to TV documentary production. Research into the history of technology, and especialy military history, has been a hobby that has occupied van Wyk de Vries for most of his life.
Apart from music, van Wyk de Vries has always has a facination with history, and has been a keen student of it. During 1999 to 2001, he conducted research on some of the WW2 era planes at the South African National Museum of Military History. This started after a section was found inside one plane's fuselage during restoration, where a factory worker had penciled in an extract from an unknown lyric, sometime during World War II.
As a model builder, van Wyk de Vries has specialised in 1:32 scale plane models since 2002, building these exclusively for museums and collectors around the world. He also worked with the founders of modeling websites like Euromodeler, in the development of new tools and techniques for modelbuilders, most notably the introduction of sponge based sanding and polishing tools from the manicuring world, into the modeling community, on a worldwide scale. His models are usually only about 50% "from the box", with the rest being "scratchbuilt". As a professional model builder, he had to master the airbrush. This later resulted in him being asked to try his hand at creating custom camouflage paintschemes for hunting, sport and military rifles. Most of his work in this area has been for the Numinor corporation.
In 2009 he started a website dedicated to the unofficial support and improving ("modding") of a ten year old Russian historical combat flight simulation game, called IL2 Sturmovik . The website, sas1946.com, quickly grew to become one of the largest for this game in the world. The game, originally coded in Java, required extensive hacking and recoding for these improvements and additions, which required a long term and worldwide effort by it's many supporters.
Incidentally, he is related to British music producer Marius De Vries, who he claims never to have met in person, although they are in similar fields of interest.
He currently lives with his wife in Centurion, South Africa, with no pets. Not even a raccoon.