NITS are 50 years old!

2024 will be a special year for the Nits with the NIT50 anniversary tour, which will take the band to the European cities that have played a major role in their career: Paris, Zurich, Antwerp, Brussels and, of course, Amsterdam. The concert will be a stroll through their history, but also an introduction to new songs.

To celebrate the tour, the Nits have announced the release of the mini album Tree House Fire on 19 January, with the central theme of the six new songs being the fire that completely destroyed the band’s Amsterdam studio in 2022.

“On 16 May 2022, our De Werf studio burned to the ground. The fire took everything. The fire gave us this album. The Tree is still standing. The bird is still singing.”

This statement sums up in a few words the events that led to the creation of Tree House Fire, but it also says something about the band’s determination to get back to business straight away.

The lyrics sometimes reflect a wander through and around the destroyed building, or the point of view of a tree that has been preserved or a woodpecker that has seen it all happen.

The lyrics can be read as an allegory, which becomes crystal clear in the final song, in which the cold reality of this loss, but also of loss in general, becomes incredibly clear.

Over the last five decades, The Nits have made an indelible contribution to European pop with their unique sound and approach. Composed around singer and lyricist Henk Hofstede, drummer/percussionist Rob Kloet and keyboardist Robert Jan Stips, the band has released over 30 albums since its formation in 1974 and has won numerous awards and distinctions. Their history is based on popular songs such as ‘In The Dutch Mountains’, ‘J.O.S. days’, ‘Adieu Sweet Bahnhof’, ‘Nescio’…. But it’s precisely their constant evolution that makes the Nits one of Europe’s most creative and innovative pop bands.