Musical youth

Growing up in a family with two older brothers, and Indonesian father and Dutch mother, country music was playing almost every day. The songs by Dolly Parton, Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash and many other country bands I can sing along with until this day. In my room in the attic I used to (loudly) sing along with my, then, very modern cassette player to later hear from the neighbours that I should do something with that voice. My brothers and me took guitar lessons. I was fed up with the instrument real soon, I loved singing much more. Many nights, my brothers played the guitar and banjo, I played some ukulele, are engraved in my memories and laid a foundation for my love for music. Dad with his low bass voice who was really loud (he always wanted to be an opera singer) my mother with her high clear voice have formed my voice.

Poetic lyrics

As long as I can remember I have been writing song lyrics. What started as a clumsy lyric written when I was a teenager in my room in the attic with a simple melody line grew through the years to full grown lyrics with melodic lines. Lyrics who have a poetic twist, that when you hear them you ‘get image’ is the style in which I write. My songs have to mean something. Although I thought my lyrics were strong enough to make it in to a real song I missed the input of music. I had small knowledge of the chords on the guitar and realized I needed a co-writer to give my lyrics the boost they needed.

Cooperation

About 50 songs further in 2009 I sent one of my lyrics to my good friend and musician Helmoet Hendriks. Less than an hour later he called me that he had finished the song! That same week we sat together and recorded the song ‘Crossroads’ with just acoustic guitar and singing on Helmoet’s cell phone. I loved it the minute I heard it! Helmoet has a style of composing that connects seamlessly with the lyrics I write and before we knew it we created about 25 songs together. It took a while but the last few years the songs started to shape in a way that I wanted to record them.

Studio

Meanwhile my husband Peter and I started a recording studio. A lifelong dream came to reality when the studio, Droomtent, opened her doors in 2008. The first costumers started to come and Rick Duijn was employed. Rick as a drummer, guitar player, bass player, pianist and friend for years was the one who created the arrangements for  the songs. What kind of style, which instruments combined with his talent for creating backing vocals completed the picture. It was great working with Helmoet and Rick in the studio and recording the songs.

In the summer of 2011, the album was almost finished we just needed to record some backing vocals, we would finish the album after our holidays. That dream came to an end when we received a phone call that Rick died on his first day of vacation in Germany.

For 10 months the doors of the studio stayed closed and Peter and I couldn’t go on with the recordings. Everything in the studio reminded us of Rick.

During our holiday in July 2012 I noticed Peter wanted to start recording again. His heart jumped when he was in the studio and his passion started to come back to finish the album. How we were going to do this without Rick, who had all the backing vocals in his mind, his ideas for the lead vocals and the arrangements, we didn’t know. We realized we just had to start and we would see how things would go. And so we did.

After many years, the lyrics that I wrote as a young girl, laid a foundation and has formed in to a CD. The country feel that was given to me when I was a little girl you will hear in some of the songs, with a pop sound also, the music I grew up with as a teenager. The first CD of Ezzcape is a fact! With ups-and-downs we have, while greatly enjoying ourselves, and with the tremendous help of others , been able to realize this album. My great appreciation goes to everyone who has made it possible to make this long cherished dream come true.

Proudly, and with a melancholic feeling but most of all, in loving memory of, I hereby introduce the debut album Head over heels.