Biography
There seems little question that geography alone has kept the Nits from ranking among the most admired groups worldwide, a status that would place them comfortably alongside such cerebral outfits as XTC and Prefab Sprout. Few ensembles anywhere can rival the group’s sustained inventive energy after more than four decades and upward of twenty albums. Formed in Holland, the Nits limited their gestures toward the wider marketplace—where rock stardom is often measured by sunglasses worn indoors—to performing in English, while refusing to reshape their singular art-pop style for mass consumption. Each successive record was deliberately shaped to sound unlike its predecessor, a strategy that secured steady but unspectacular popularity throughout continental Europe among listeners who valued the band’s staunch independence and preference for small-scale performances, yet left many potential listeners in Britain and America unaware of their inventive and frequently approachable music.
Looking back, it is difficult to know what prompted the musicians who gathered in Amsterdam in 1974 to adopt the name the Nits, a choice apparently intended to evoke an insect-like connection with the Beatles. The original quartet comprised Henk Hofstede on vocals, guitar, and keyboards, Rob Kloet on drums, Michiel Peters on guitar and vocals, and Alex Roelofs on bass. Under that configuration the band issued the independently released single “Yes or No” in 1975 and its self-titled debut album three years later.
Those early efforts, followed by Tent in 1979, New Flat in 1980, and Work in 1981, placed the Nits within the new-wave movement that also produced XTC and Talking Heads. Hofstede later acknowledged the strong influence of both groups during that period, together with the literary sensibility of Leonard Cohen. Although Beatles-derived melodic touches had surfaced earlier, they became more pronounced on the 1983 album Omsk. What had previously registered as deliberate eccentricity now revealed greater substance and individuality, drawing equally on European forms such as chanson and musical theater and on Anglo-American pop. Keyboardist Robert Jan Stips, who had already worked with the band as producer and had previously played with Golden Earring and Supersister, joined at this point and supplied a richer orchestral palette through his collection of custom samples.
Omsk and the mini-album Kilo, released six months afterward, also confirmed Hofstede’s stature as a distinctive vocalist. While many listeners noted the John Lennon quality in his tone, a further resemblance to Elvis Costello—absent any hint of a sneer—appeared in his handling of ballads such as “Dapper Street” and “Mask.” Onstage he projected both magnetism and warmth.
In subsequent years the Nits maintained a policy of never repeating themselves. Adieu, Sweet Bahnhof, produced in 1984 by Jaap Eggermont of Stars on 45 fame, represented their nearest approach to mainstream appeal up to that time and contained two especially memorable tracks, “Mask” and the title song. The 1986 album Henk leaned heavily on sampling and included the surreal pieces “Port of Amsterdam” and “Bike in Head,” creating a sharp contrast with both its polished predecessor and the more restrained In the Dutch Mountains of 1987, whose title track became the band’s biggest hit to date. Giant Normal Dwarf followed in 1990, a colorful project Hofstede conceived as a fairy tale for his newborn child yet one that most strongly recalled the psychedelic spirit of “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Glass Onion.”
Ting, issued in 1992, favored a leaner sound dominated by Stips’s piano. Later the same year the Nits, by then billed simply as Nits, collaborated with a full symphony orchestra on Hjuvi. Composed largely by Stips, the work alternated songs with instrumental passages in the manner of composers from Satie to the Gershwins, with Stips at the piano throughout. Da Da Da appeared in 1994 and received American and British releases, although Sony proved uncertain how to market it.
By then the lineup had contracted to a trio after Roelofs departed in 1981 and Peters in 1985. Stips himself left in 1996 to form Stips Egotrip, leaving only the founding members Hofstede and Kloet. Even as a duo, the Nits preserved their customary rich textures on the 1997 album Alankomaat by emphasizing Hofstede’s keyboard work. For Wool, released in 2000 on Play It Again Sam, Hofstede added a string sextet, a jazz trumpeter, and soulful backing vocalists to fill the gap left by Stips.
Stips rejoined for the 2003 album 1974. Despite the title’s reference to the band’s formation year, the record avoided nostalgia and instead returned to a freer, more spontaneous approach after the measured arrangements of Alankomaat and Wool. Some listeners felt that Hofstede had already used some of his strongest recent material on his 2002 solo release Het Draagbare Huis (“The Portable House”), written for a video installation. The trio brought in the Mondriaan Quartet for Les Nuits in 2005. Returning to a compact indie-trio format, Doing the Dishes became the band’s first Dutch Top Ten album in 2008, reaching number eight; Strawberry Wood followed a year later and peaked at number eleven. Malpensa cracked the Top 50 in 2012. The three-disc compilation Nits? appeared in 2014, and the live collection Hotel Europa, drawn from performances between 1990 and 2014, arrived in 2015, becoming the group’s highest-charting release at number five. Entering their fifth decade, the Nits issued the studio album Angst in 2017.
Looking back, it is difficult to know what prompted the musicians who gathered in Amsterdam in 1974 to adopt the name the Nits, a choice apparently intended to evoke an insect-like connection with the Beatles. The original quartet comprised Henk Hofstede on vocals, guitar, and keyboards, Rob Kloet on drums, Michiel Peters on guitar and vocals, and Alex Roelofs on bass. Under that configuration the band issued the independently released single “Yes or No” in 1975 and its self-titled debut album three years later.
Those early efforts, followed by Tent in 1979, New Flat in 1980, and Work in 1981, placed the Nits within the new-wave movement that also produced XTC and Talking Heads. Hofstede later acknowledged the strong influence of both groups during that period, together with the literary sensibility of Leonard Cohen. Although Beatles-derived melodic touches had surfaced earlier, they became more pronounced on the 1983 album Omsk. What had previously registered as deliberate eccentricity now revealed greater substance and individuality, drawing equally on European forms such as chanson and musical theater and on Anglo-American pop. Keyboardist Robert Jan Stips, who had already worked with the band as producer and had previously played with Golden Earring and Supersister, joined at this point and supplied a richer orchestral palette through his collection of custom samples.
Omsk and the mini-album Kilo, released six months afterward, also confirmed Hofstede’s stature as a distinctive vocalist. While many listeners noted the John Lennon quality in his tone, a further resemblance to Elvis Costello—absent any hint of a sneer—appeared in his handling of ballads such as “Dapper Street” and “Mask.” Onstage he projected both magnetism and warmth.
In subsequent years the Nits maintained a policy of never repeating themselves. Adieu, Sweet Bahnhof, produced in 1984 by Jaap Eggermont of Stars on 45 fame, represented their nearest approach to mainstream appeal up to that time and contained two especially memorable tracks, “Mask” and the title song. The 1986 album Henk leaned heavily on sampling and included the surreal pieces “Port of Amsterdam” and “Bike in Head,” creating a sharp contrast with both its polished predecessor and the more restrained In the Dutch Mountains of 1987, whose title track became the band’s biggest hit to date. Giant Normal Dwarf followed in 1990, a colorful project Hofstede conceived as a fairy tale for his newborn child yet one that most strongly recalled the psychedelic spirit of “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Glass Onion.”
Ting, issued in 1992, favored a leaner sound dominated by Stips’s piano. Later the same year the Nits, by then billed simply as Nits, collaborated with a full symphony orchestra on Hjuvi. Composed largely by Stips, the work alternated songs with instrumental passages in the manner of composers from Satie to the Gershwins, with Stips at the piano throughout. Da Da Da appeared in 1994 and received American and British releases, although Sony proved uncertain how to market it.
By then the lineup had contracted to a trio after Roelofs departed in 1981 and Peters in 1985. Stips himself left in 1996 to form Stips Egotrip, leaving only the founding members Hofstede and Kloet. Even as a duo, the Nits preserved their customary rich textures on the 1997 album Alankomaat by emphasizing Hofstede’s keyboard work. For Wool, released in 2000 on Play It Again Sam, Hofstede added a string sextet, a jazz trumpeter, and soulful backing vocalists to fill the gap left by Stips.
Stips rejoined for the 2003 album 1974. Despite the title’s reference to the band’s formation year, the record avoided nostalgia and instead returned to a freer, more spontaneous approach after the measured arrangements of Alankomaat and Wool. Some listeners felt that Hofstede had already used some of his strongest recent material on his 2002 solo release Het Draagbare Huis (“The Portable House”), written for a video installation. The trio brought in the Mondriaan Quartet for Les Nuits in 2005. Returning to a compact indie-trio format, Doing the Dishes became the band’s first Dutch Top Ten album in 2008, reaching number eight; Strawberry Wood followed a year later and peaked at number eleven. Malpensa cracked the Top 50 in 2012. The three-disc compilation Nits? appeared in 2014, and the live collection Hotel Europa, drawn from performances between 1990 and 2014, arrived in 2015, becoming the group’s highest-charting release at number five. Entering their fifth decade, the Nits issued the studio album Angst in 2017.
Albums
Singles
