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Jumpsuit – Ninamounah<\/p>\n
Photographer – Ruben de Wilde<\/a> for Models.com Back in January, the model-turned-musician Ruben Pol<\/a> spent a few days holed up in a house on a remote island off the coast of his native Netherlands, working with his manager and some fellow artists through an intensive songwriting session. As the new decade was just beginning, Pol was looking ahead to broadening his sound and moving his burgeoning music career forward, fresh off the release of his first EP, Infused Romance,<\/em> and his first live show the previous fall.<\/p>\n Now, of course, Pol is isolating again, although this time not by choice. With the modeling industry largely on hold as the coronavirus pandemic has kept teams from hopping across the European continent as they did before, he has been largely on his own, with nothing to do except focus on creating new work. The shutdown has been a surprisingly productive period for him, offering him the time to not only write on his own but also to consider in a larger sense what he wants his music to be. \u201cI tend to be very busy, I\u2019m always running from here to there and I\u2019ve never really sat down to think about my own music,\u201d he explains. \u201cFor me, music has usually been a very\u00a0spontaneous thing. I go into the\u00a0session and I just\u00a0throw out whatever comes out in that\u00a0moment and I really like that way of\u00a0working,\u00a0but recently I\u2019ve seen that\u00a0by sitting down\u00a0a bit more and really digging down a bit more\u00a0inside, I have been able to\u00a0figure some things out in my creation\u00a0process that I\u00a0hadn’t before.\u201d<\/p>\n Left: Pants \u2013 Berluti<\/a> | Necklace \u2013 Monocrafft | Right: All clothing \u2013 Berluti<\/a><\/p>\n The first product of his new process, the single \u201cFall Apart,\u201d is out today, offering an organic shift while maintaining his intimate brand of alternative pop in the line of Lauv, Julia Michaels, Troye Sivan, and early Halsey. The biggest change is the move to analog from electronic, which Pol says was inspired in part by a recent visit to his friend\u2019s large studio for a socially-distanced recording session. \u201cIt\u2019s basically a playground of synthesizers and drum machines and all of that,\u201d he laughs. \u201cHaving that access, combined with the fact that I\u2019ve been really trying to create from within instead of being mostly influenced and inspired by things around me, I have found a way to evolve my sound a lot more and create a lot more depth in my music.\u201d<\/p>\n The song is accompanied by a music video, out next week, by the noted fashion photographer Alessio Bolzoni<\/a>, a longtime friend of Pol\u2019s since the two worked together for the model\u2019s very first editorial back in 2015 and one of the many fashion-world collaborators Pol is continuing to team up with as he straddles the line between modeling and music. Another is Kris Van Assche<\/a>, who first launched Pol\u2019s career when he booked the model as a worldwide exclusive to open and close his flower-lined Spring 2016 Dior Homme<\/a> show. Now at Berluti<\/a>, Van Assche invited Pol to sit front row at the show in January and dressed him for his live performance d\u00e9but, as well as created custom t-shirts for him featuring soft images of the model\u2019s body, photographed by Bolzoni. \u201cI always knew that I wanted to incorporate fashion and art as much as I could,\u201d Pol says, pointing to his strong working relationship with Bolzoni, who has also shot three other music videos and the cover art for Infused Romance.<\/em> \u201cThat’s where it started for me.\u201d<\/p>\n All clothing \u2013 Berluti<\/a><\/p>\n Music has been a lifelong passion for Pol, who remembers performing for his parents in his living room from the age of six. \u201cI covered all the windows and put down lights and dressed up and everything,\u201d he laughs. He performed in wedding bands and with friends through his teenage years, but it wasn\u2019t until he was scouted as a model that he began to realize performing could be more than a hobby. \u201cThat suddenly opened my eyes to the creative industry,\u201d he says, \u201cand showed me that a lot of things are possible.\u201d He began posting videos on Instagram and was quickly noticed by Vevo and a music manager, who helped set him up with some studio sessions through Universal Music Group in Amsterdam. \u201cThat was the first time I wrote my own song and the first time I sang on a microphone and the first time I was in a music studio,\u201d he recalls, \u201cand that gave me the feeling like, \u2018Ok, this is where I want to be.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Left: Pants and shoes \u2013 Berluti<\/a> | Necklace – Monocrafft | Right: All clothing \u2013 Berluti<\/a><\/p>\n Pol worked on his music slowly, dropping a series of moody electro-pop singles over the course of last year leading up to the release of Infused Romance<\/em> in September and his first performance at Amsterdam\u2019s Paradiso in November while still finding the time to walk for designers like Zegna<\/a>, Stella McCartney<\/a>, and Jil Sander<\/a> during fashion week. Even as he starts to move on, he credits his modeling experience with helping prepare him for his new venture. \u201cIt definitely gave me a sense of confidence to dare to express myself and present myself as I am,\u201d he explains. \u201cWhen I was little, I hated the big gap between my teeth but when I did my first shoot everybody was like, \u2018Oh my god, that gap,\u2019 and suddenly that was something beautiful. There are little things that I hated at first but are 100% me that I suddenly saw as something unique and nice, which gave me the confidence to be able to fully present myself as I am, which is super important as an artist and crucial to being able to reach an audience.\u201d<\/p>\n With \u201cFall Apart,\u201d Pol is taking the next step, using his time to himself to prepare for what\u2019s to come. As the world begins to slowly reopen, he is one of so many ready to emerge, changed for the better from this period of introspection. \u201cIt’s really hard to put it into\u00a0words, but I\u2019ve noticed that\u00a0by not really focusing that\u00a0much on how the final product will\u00a0look and\u00a0feel,\u201d he adds, \u201cI\u2019ve been able to open myself\u00a0up a lot more to a lot of\u00a0different and new things.\u201d<\/p>\n “Fall Apart” is out today and available to stream here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n T-shirt – Custom Berluti<\/a> for Ruben Pol<\/a> | Pants and shoes \u2013 Berluti<\/a> | Necklace \u2013 Monocrafft<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jumpsuit – Ninamounah Photographer – Ruben de Wilde for Models.com Stylist – Koen T. Hendriks Model – Ruben Pol Groomer – Bastien Zorzetto | Manicurist – Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique Olthuis Back in January, the model-turned-musician Ruben Pol spent a few days holed up in a house on a remote island off the coast of his native Netherlands,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":446,"featured_media":133164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10414,16],"tags":[8731,12664,11039,8730,12663,11445],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/446"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133123"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133174,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133123\/revisions\/133174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nStylist – Koen T. Hendriks<\/a>
\nModel – Ruben Pol<\/a>
\nGroomer – Bastien Zorzetto<\/a> | Manicurist – Fr\u00e9d\u00e9rique Olthuis<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2020\/05\/Ruben2.jpg\")
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