DON’T STOP BELIEVING
There haven’t been too many reasons to be cheerful for musicians in the 2020s so far. But Ton Scherpenzeel, founder member of Dutch prog mainstays Kayak, freely admits, “The last year, 18 months, have been very good for me. I’ve learned a lot.”
That’s not the result of enforced isolation, though. Rather it’s an upbeat attitude that’s been reinforced through the relentlessly turbulent history of a band that have released their 18th studio album and are approaching 50 years since their original formation in 1972.
The most recent tribulation to confront them could have spelled the end not just of Kayak but of their driving force. Keyboardist and songwriter Scherpenzeel suffered a heart attack in 2019, which forced him to re-evaluate his lifestyle as well as his attitude to his art.
“It made me realise how precious life is,” he tells . The lean, fair-haired 68-year-old looks sprightly enough on the other end of a Zoom call. “I mean, I’m not going to make another 20 albums. So now I’m approaching every album as if it’s the last. I’m as dedicated to
