Based: Cape Town
Basson Laubscher was born and raised in the beautiful town of Stellenbosch where many of the country’s top artists and music legends stemmed from. He was brought up in a diversely musical house were the music ranged from Abba, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters to Beethoven.
His father and brother played guitar, and he picked up the guitar at age 15 when he first heard the guitar sounds of the great Stevie Ray Vaughan and hasn’t looked back since.
ZINKPLAAT
His musical career started when he jammed with Bertie Coetzee in his matric year and the band Zinkplaat was born. Zinkplaat celebrated their 10 year anniversary in the South African music scene in 2013, with the release of their fourth and final full length album, Retrospekulasie
He is respected as one of the great guitarists in the country and has shared the stage with SA legends such as Gerald Clarke (Delta Blue), Rory Elliot (Plush), Albert Frost, Dan Patlansky, Richard Prior (Boulevard Blues Band) and many others. He has done session work on numerous albums, the last being Ryno Velvet’s new album ‘Harp’. He has also served a stint in the Valiant Swart Band and did session work on Valiant’s award-winning album ‘Horisontaal’.
THE VIOLENT FREE PEACE
The Violent Free Peace formed at the end of 2004 and is a collective of top musicians who perform with Basson to create foot stomping blues. What started out as a passion project for Basson – just to jam, have fun and honour his early influences by playing the music he loved – he gathered musicians to perform with him the blues covers that he grew up with and loved. That grew into something fresh and original as he soon started writing his own material and thus Basson Laubscher & The Violent Free Peace became the new place for his creativity to go and which is also now his main musical direction.
Basson has always been a bit of a rock and blues child, and The Violent Free Peace is now his mouthpiece through which he takes the language of the blues and puts his own spin on it. He describes his music with TVFP as rock ‘n roll with a slight hint of country and blues roots with loud, food stomping performances. Basson delivers his blues raw and emotional; this really is where his guitar skills are displayed at best.
SHAKEDOWN EP
Basson took his time with the SHAKEDOWN EP to make sure to find musicians who had just the right kind of magic to fit into the collective. He also took his time with writing this new material by not forcing the creative process and give it his full dedication.
The songs featured on SHAKEDOWN was written over the last two years, and recorded with Jurgen von Wechmar as engineer and producer at Sunset Recording Studios in Stellenbosch. He also collaborated with piano genius Riaan Niewenhuis, Marise Landman’s angelic voice, Johnathan Veldhuysen on the mandolin and the legendary Rob ‘Big Bob’ Nagel on the harmonica. Drummer Tim Rankin also tracked all of the drums on the EP.
Basson describes his writing style as sketching a scenario or story with inspiration such as love, lost love, lust, good times, bad times and road trips.
“I am very happy with this EP. All the mad sounds in my head finally got a resting place on the EP and I am proud that we took our time and made sure we do our first offering right. I think the EP is a good representation of our vibe and it also captures the raw blues we portray at our performances.”
