Go Back to the Zoo

Biography

After moving to Amsterdam, the band met bassist Lars Kroon while waiting in a queue for a concert by The Strokes. In 2008 they self-released their eponymous debut EP, produced by Torre Florim of De Staat. The single 'Beam Me Up' was used by Nike for a worldwide campaign, leading to a contract with Universal Music; the single was officially released in May 2009. A second single, 'Electric', came out in December 2009 with a video showing the band members as musical transformers.

Their debut album, Benny Blisto, was released on Friday 13 August 2010. 'Beam Me Up' was re-released in 2011 after being used in a promotion video for a new season of the TV series Californication. On 6 April 2012 the band released their second album, Shake A Wave, produced by JB Meijers and Dennis van Leeuwen, accompanied by a club tour through the Netherlands. Their third album, ZOO, was released on Valentine's Day 2014 and charted at number 2, their highest charting record.

On 4 January 2016 Go Back to the Zoo announced they would stop after eight years. The band continued as St. Tropez, releasing a nameless debut album in 2016; in this new group, bassist Kroon became a singer alongside Hieltjes, and the music took a more radical garage rock direction. St. Tropez released the four-song EP 'Debate' in 2017, and in March 2018 the single 'Down', followed by a second album in May along with the single 'I Got the Job'. This album continued the sound of the first but with a broader spectrum, from soft songs to more radical noisy compositions.

As part of the promotion, the band ran a one-month pop-up live venue in the Amstel Passage inside Amsterdam Central Station, hosting their album release gig and subsequent collaborative sessions with acts including Yuri Landman, Janne Schra, The Vagary, Jungle by Night, Lucky Fonz III, Blue Crime, Those Foreign Kids, Iguana Death Cult, Mozes and the Firstborn, Jo Goes Hunting and others. A Dutch tour was planned for summer 2018.