Public:Reinier van Velzen

Reinier van Velzen
Born	1990 Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Other names	Arvie
Years active	ca. 2004 – 2009
Known for	The Fat Men Fat Men FM 133.7FM

Reinier van Velzen (Dutch pronunciation: [rɛɪ̯ˈniːɹ vɑɱˈvɛɫzə(n)]) (born 1990) is a Dutch former musician, radio co-host, and skateboarder. Between 2005 and 2007 or 2008, he was a member of The Fat Men.

Biography

Early life

Van Velzen grew up on a houseboat in the Westelijke Eilanden neighbourhood of Amsterdam.

Secondary education and career

Between 2002 and 2008, van Velzen attended the Cartesius Lyceum, where he became good friends with Ahmed El Jappaoui. The two regularly played Magic: The Gathering during breaks. Around the same time, van Velzen also befriended Watson Waterstone, although the two occasionally had fallings-out owing to Waterstone’s lack of social skills. Van Velzen, who played guitar, attended the same music school as Waterstone, and the two regularly ran into each other there.

Van Velzen had an interest in skateboarding and was often seen using the half-pipe in front of the Cartesius during breaks or after school. After school, he would occasionally meet fellow skateboarding enthusiast Joep Bollinger here, who would later (temporarily) become a “musical advisor” to The Fat Men.

Van Velzen also enjoyed football and, especially in his late teens, the game World of Warcraft and drinking beer.

Music and radio

Arvie
Arvie as seen in a Thr Fat Men intro video.
Background information
Also known as	arvie
Genres	Novelty hip hop electronic
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	ca. 2003 – 2007
Labels	Katmadron Records
Associated acts	The Fat Men De Tostiband

In late 2003, van Velzen performed at a school open mic night with Waterstone and El Jappaoui under the name De Tostiband. The performance gained them some notoriety at the school, and Waterstone and El Jappaoui continued working on musical projects in years thereafter.

After Waterstone and El Jappaoui had recorded the single “Meneer De Jong Is KAAL” (aided by the technical skill and equipment of producer Yasja de Miranda, then known as Trent Easton), the idea of recording an album arose, and a band began to form around these three. Van Velzen, who had some experience playing the keyboard, was eventually recruited into the band, under the stage name Arvie (sometimes also spelled arvie in all-lowercase). This was derived from the English pronunciation of his initials R.V. (Reinier van Velzen).

Arvie joined the band relatively late during the production of the album (in fact, he was the last band member to join apart from Robosstem) and was therefore not involved in most of the songs. He performed vocals on the titular song “The Fat Man’s Diary”; additionally, he contributed to the lyrics for this song, as well as to the text of “De Dikke Man Hem Ze Nieuws”.

In promotional material for the band, Arvie is mentioned as playing the keyboard, even though he never actually played the keyboard on any of their recordings. He is furthermore listed as performing in the punk rock and Irish folk music styles, being a fan of folk punk band Dropkick Murphys. At one point, he obtained a guitar and there may have been plans for him to use this instrument on The Fat Men songs, although no records exist of him doing so. Also, in promotional artwork, he is often depicted on a skateboard (including while performing music); this is a reference to his interest in skateboarding (in fact, the skateboard was included in his list of musical instruments).

He left the band in 2007 (or possibly early 2008), citing a lack of interest, although he continued to appear as Waterstone’s recurring guest on the FMFM 133.7 FM football talk show Kantlijn (under his own name) for a while thereafter.

Motorsports

Reinier van Velzen
Nationality	Dutch
Top 40 Rally
Years active	2006 – 2009
Teams	Camping Racing Team Ons Bier
Wins	0
Podiums	0
Poles	0
Last updated on: 5 December 2023.

From 2006 through 2009, van Velzen participated in the Top 40 Rally with his own team, which was called Camping Racing (possibly a reference to Camping Geversduin, a campsite where van Velzen and some of his friends and bandmates like El Jappaoui and Waterstone regularly went on vacation), except in 2008 when it was called Team Ons Bier (a reference to an Amstel Bier slogan, Amstel being one of van Velzen’s favourite beers). He drove a variety of cars, including Porsche, Nissan, and Fiat. His teammate was always David Kempenaar.

Complete Camping Racing/Team Ons Bier Top 40 Rally results

Year	Team name	Manufacturer	No.	Drivers	Start	Finish
2006	BJL Camping	Porsche	20.	Reinier van Velzen	13
			21.	David Kempenaar	16
2007	PWN Waterleidingen Camping Racing			Reinier van Velzen
				David Kempenaar
2008	Team Ons Bier	Nissan	9.	Reinier van Velzen
			10.	David Kempenaar
2009	Atlas Biri Camping Racing	Fiat	19.	Reinier van Velzen	cancelled
			20.	David Kempenaar

The Fat Men football team

In 2008, when Waterstone and fellow band member Thomas Haertlein created the The Fat Men football team, even though he had already left the band, van Velzen (who enjoyed playing football) joined the team because The Fat Men did not consist of enough people to field a football team.

In the course of the football team’s brief existence, a conflict arose between van Velzen and Waterstone over the team’s kit design. Waterstone had initially designed a shirt split vertically through the middle, with white on the dexter side and red on the sinister. Van Velzen, however, who was a staunch supporter of Ajax, objected to this on the grounds that it was too similar to that of Ajax’ arch-rivals Feyenoord. Waterstone responded to this by swapping the red with the orange colour of the sleeves, but van Velzen still considered it too similar to the Feyenoord shirt. This delayed, and may have eventually prevented, Waterstone’s plan of ordering custom kits and having them printed with the players’ names and squad numbers. In the end, perhaps at least partly as a consequence of this conflict, the team never got off the ground and folded before it played a single match.

Later education

After graduating from high school, Van Velzen studied biology at Wageningen University.

Personal life

He is not known to be related to Roel van Velzen.

Discography

Albums

With The Fat Men

• The Fat Man’s Diary (2006)

Songwriting credits

Lyrics

• “The Fat Man’s Diary” by The Fat Men (with Ben Cleerdin, Trent Easton, Ahmed El Jappaoui, Thomas Haertlein, Giorgos Kourelis, Bos Nooij, and Watson Waterstone)
• “De Dikke Man Hem Ze Nieuws” (also credited on blooper reel) by Toman The Great (with Ben Cleerdin, Trent Easton, Ahmed El Jappaoui, Thomas Haertlein, Giorgos Kourelis, Bos Nooij, and Watson Waterstone)