Biography

..

It all started in the early nineties. I'd been a fervent listener of old school metal ( Bay Area etc.) for a couple of years when I finally decided to start playing the guitar. My father who'd been a guitar player for years taught me my first chords (Tunes like "House of the rising sun" and "Wild thing"). One of my dear friends (who's still my guitar-brother; Ron "Murphy" Berger), taught me the songs I loved at the time like old Metallica, Anthrax, Exodus. Metal rules!!!!!!!, an opinion not shared by my father (hihihihihihi) such a shame.

My first guitar was a purple korean BC Rich "Warlock", a very gay color (sorry folks), but I liked the shape of that guitar (thank you Kerry King for the inspiration). At first I borrowed my dad's amp, which later became my own. It was a Randall Commander Combo 200 watt (with no distortion on it). I got my overdrive by pushing the volume till 10 combined with the right EQ settings. Whoops, I blew the speaker up. Later I connected my Randall to an old Marshall cabinet, which I bought from my first guitar teacher. I also had some Boss pedals (MT-2, NS-1, DD-3 and more of the like).

During that time I also started a coverband with some friends from my school. We named the band "Trapped" and played 70's and 80's songs. Those same friends also loved metal so we decided to start another metal band called "Revolt". It was in this period I bought my second guitar; a metallic blue Ibanez RG550. I also traded my Randall with the Marshall cabinet for a new JCM 900 Marshall head with a new 1960A cabinet.

After our school period we stopped with the coverband and we focused onour main band Revolt. We had some successes during those years, some line-up changes, we made some demos and did several gigs. (A Revolt CD is in the making so to those of you still waiting: please be patient!)

Later I got more influenced by this band called "Dream Theater".They became increasingly important to me (and still are). I have never heard a band play with as much technique as they did. Needless to say: very inspiring.

Their guitarist John Petrucci became one of my favourite guitar players.I grew so obsessed with this guy that I soon bought one of his custom Ibanez guitars. The JPM 1 was my first one, and later I added another two of his series (the JPM 2 and the JPM 4) to my collection. It's bit crazy, I know, but the guitars are playing and sounding very well indeed. I had to finance this by trading in my old guitars.

The success of and interest in Revolt resulted in me quitting Halcyon. In the meantime I was looking for musicians who were able to play progressive metal as I wanted to start a band in that style.

It took me quite a while to find the perfect people but I succeeded. So... late 90's a progressive metalband was born with the name Gallowmere. I needed more different sounds for Gallowmere so I changed my stompboxes for a Digitech multi-effect/processor; the RP20. This was a varied tool which helped me out with sounds I could use for the music

The Revolt era was coming to an end in early 2000 after problems finding the right singer. I also tried to do the vocals myself but I could'nt combine it with playing the guitar so we decided to call it quits.

A lot has happened during the last couple of years!! I've had some more bands and some more stuff, you can see my current rig on the gear section!! At the moment I am playing in a glamrock coverband 666 "the nightmare", another allround coverband called "One day flies" and a thrashmetal band called "X-tinXion. Beside of that I'm recording a lot of instrumental guitarsongs nowadays

thanx to : MB Marduk for translation.

Biography

..

It all started in the early nineties. I'd been a fervent listener of old school metal ( Bay Area etc.) for a couple of years when I finally decided to start playing the guitar. My father who'd been a guitar player for years taught me my first chords (Tunes like "House of the rising sun" and "Wild thing"). One of my dear friends (who's still my guitar-brother; Ron "Murphy" Berger), taught me the songs I loved at the time like old Metallica, Anthrax, Exodus. Metal rules!!!!!!!, an opinion not shared by my father (hihihihihihi) such a shame.

My first guitar was a purple korean BC Rich "Warlock", a very gay color (sorry folks), but I liked the shape of that guitar (thank you Kerry King for the inspiration). At first I borrowed my dad's amp, which later became my own. It was a Randall Commander Combo 200 watt (with no distortion on it). I got my overdrive by pushing the volume till 10 combined with the right EQ settings. Whoops, I blew the speaker up. Later I connected my Randall to an old Marshall cabinet, which I bought from my first guitar teacher. I also had some Boss pedals (MT-2, NS-1, DD-3 and more of the like).

During that time I also started a coverband with some friends from my school. We named the band "Trapped" and played 70's and 80's songs. Those same friends also loved metal so we decided to start another metal band called "Revolt". It was in this period I bought my second guitar; a metallic blue Ibanez RG550. I also traded my Randall with the Marshall cabinet for a new JCM 900 Marshall head with a new 1960A cabinet.

After our school period we stopped with the coverband and we focused onour main band Revolt. We had some successes during those years, some line-up changes, we made some demos and did several gigs. (A Revolt CD is in the making so to those of you still waiting: please be patient!)

Later I got more influenced by this band called "Dream Theater".They became increasingly important to me (and still are). I have never heard a band play with as much technique as they did. Needless to say: very inspiring.

Their guitarist John Petrucci became one of my favourite guitar players.I grew so obsessed with this guy that I soon bought one of his custom Ibanez guitars. The JPM 1 was my first one, and later I added another two of his series (the JPM 2 and the JPM 4) to my collection. It's bit crazy, I know, but the guitars are playing and sounding very well indeed. I had to finance this by trading in my old guitars.

The success of and interest in Revolt resulted in me quitting Halcyon. In the meantime I was looking for musicians who were able to play progressive metal as I wanted to start a band in that style.

It took me quite a while to find the perfect people but I succeeded. So... late 90's a progressive metalband was born with the name Gallowmere. I needed more different sounds for Gallowmere so I changed my stompboxes for a Digitech multi-effect/processor; the RP20. This was a varied tool which helped me out with sounds I could use for the music

The Revolt era was coming to an end in early 2000 after problems finding the right singer. I also tried to do the vocals myself but I could'nt combine it with playing the guitar so we decided to call it quits.

A lot has happened during the last couple of years!! I've had some more bands and some more stuff, you can see my current rig on the gear section!! At the moment I am playing in a glamrock coverband 666 "the nightmare", another allround coverband called "One day flies" and a thrashmetal band called "X-tinXion. Beside of that I'm recording a lot of instrumental guitarsongs nowadays

thanx to : MB Marduk for translation.