• Gear

Gibson Les Paul Standard
Gibson Les Paul Custom
Mesa Dual Rectifier
Marshall JCM 800
2 JH Marshall cabinets

Being born and growing up in a small town like Goes isn't particularly hard or difficult. It's not very exciting either. That's probably what got me into Metal at an early age in the first place. I was quite the fanatic, collecting everything I could that had something to do with my beloved music. Records, of course, being the main thing I truly cared about. It was through these records I came to dream about playing music myself. In a band, no less! Like my fellow guitarplayer in Gorefest, I went through my share of tennisrackets and selfbuilds, until, finally, I got the chance to borrow an old Flying V and try my years of airguitar-experience on a real axe. Needless to say I was quite dissappointed with the whole thing: there were too many strings, my fingers acted like they never even heard of Michael Schenker, I could barely make out a sound - was this thing on? In short, I didn't sound like Yngwie Malmsteen at all!

Thankfully, bands like Sodom, Venom and Hellhammer/Celtic Frost taught me I didn't really need much technique, just a few good ideas and a wall of sound. When I met JC somewhere in '88, I was impressed with the fact he had the same approach, and the same ideas about making music as I did, so on a drunken night in a pub, we decided to form a band. This band was called Condemned Heretics. Then, Leprosy. For a very, very short while, we were called Abhorrence, for some reason. We finally settled on Gorefest: it sounded cool, a bit Germanic, and it made pretty clear we weren't playing reggea.

Many happy years followed. Many wonderful memories were being created, friends were being made, cool music was written. Something died along the way as well, which resulted in us breaking up at the very end of 1998. Hugely dissappointed, I didn't touch my guitar for a couple of years. I hardly even listened to music! Some good friends pulled me out a bit by having me tag along as guitarist in a cool band called The Hollow Men, and gradually I started to find some pleasure in making music again. Sure, it wasn't Metal, but it was fairly heavy, the guys gave me lots of freedom to experiment, and it was, you know, fun!

I never considered a Gorefest-reunion ever to happen, and it was only when we were actually in the same room together I sensed that we could try and make this work again. First rehearsals went very well, and new stuff was being written almost from when we turned on our amps. And finally, it really, really made sense when we got on stage again after such a long time. That fucking rocked!

I never did get to sound like Yngwie. Or Michael Schenker, for that matter. I did get a chance to write, record and perform some seriously heavy Metal with these guys, and we're doing our damnedest to get back on track.

Almost there!


(are we there yet?)