Review Fix Exclusive: The Bateleurs’ Ricardo Dikk Talks Goals And Future

Review Fix chats with Ricardo Dikk, Bassist for The Bateleurs, who details the band’s origin, creative process and goals for the rest of 2019.

Review Fix: How  did  the  project  start? 

Ricardo Dikk: It all begun when I met Sandrine (vocals) on a studio session, and a while after we discovered our musical affinities. We were both into retro sounding Rock and Blues, and soon after we invited a couple of musician friends to form a band to play some clubs in our town, doing a set with our favorite Zeppelin, Purple and Janis songs, amongst others of the same style; we realized that a special chemistry was happening, and we soon were trying to write our own songs. After some time, we selected the best three, and went to the studio to record our first EP. And so The Bateleurs was born.

Review Fix: What’s  your  creative  process  like? 

Dikk: There’s really no fixed pattern to it; sometimes we have a subject we want to address, and we begin with the lyrics. Other times we stumble on really cool riff and start working from it. We record some rough home demos and then we hit the studio to polish arrangements and structure. It’s a very open process and everybody’s got a saying, we just do it the way we feel more natural and are very flexible about it, there’s no formula to it.

Review Fix: What’s  your  standout  song?  How  was  it  written? 

Dikk: I have to say it’s “Another Crossroad”, from our Immanent Fire EP. I was at home and watched for the 100th a movie I love, “Almost Famous”, after I grabbed an acoustic guitar and start dabbling with some riffs inspired by the awesome soundtrack of that film. Eventually, I came up with the main riff, and afterwards together with Sandrine we started writing lyrics about the way things were when we were young, how we feel invincible, and how that perspectives change with the passing of time. It’s our favorite song to play live, we extend it big time and improvise a lot; sometimes a song must be a living organism, that changes and adapt to the circumstances, instead of closed box where nothing gets in our get out.

Review Fix: What  are your  goals  for  the rest of 2019? 

Dikk: For now we’re on the writing process of our debut album, and we’re trying to book as many gigs as we can, including opening slots for international bands. Portugal became a frequent stop for a lot of tours, and having the opportunity to play before a band that has the same target audience than us could be crucial to expand our fan base.

Review Fix: How  do  you  want  your  music  to  affect  people? 

Dikk: I could give you the same talk every band gives, that we write from our heart, that we talk about subjects that anyone can relate, blablabla, but Sincerely, our biggest goal is to make people believe it’s possible to be true; nowadays a lot of music is being made, and the vast majority is deprived of soul, message or meaning. Technology and modern studio techniques make possible to achieve flawless performances, but perfect doesn’t mean true. We reject all these tools that enhance the results, and simply go to the studio and play and sing until our fingers bleed and our throats are sore; no flextime, no autotune, no digital editing, just some guys putting out the best in them. Hopefully that will be evident when people listen to us, and I really want to believe that people will like us because we sound and look honest and true.

Review Fix: What’s  next?

Dikk: We’re working on our debut album, and we’re planning the release for January 2020; we are also booking the first dates of our first tour. We’ll be doing shows in Portugal and have already some confirmed in Spain, and hopefully soon we’ll have some in France, Italy and Germany, so things are looking good and the next year will be a good one for us.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13821 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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