As a kid listening to the record collection of my family and friends some music and sounds really inspired me. What really caught my attention and which drew me to guitar the most were sounds that I didn't recognize as guitar and later found out about they used effects and overdriven amps. But also the other instruments, sounds, moods and styles, production, composition and rhythms.

The first things I can remember that really got to me as a small kid were the sounds and compositions of The Beatles, Queen, Santana, Jean Michel Jarre, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Bob Marley, The Doors, The Police, Chuck Berry and jazz, soul, all the good stuff.

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Later on in my early teens I really got into hip hop and electro when I heard things like Grandmaster Flash and Rocksteady Crew and saw the graffiti in the videoclips. 

For a couple of years graffiti was my main thing and I still love it and occasionally do something but music became my main thing. I consider myself lucky to have witnessed the emerging of punk, ska, hip hop, metal, grunge, crossover, shoegaze and electronic music like gabber, techno, acid, drum and bass and IDM going out in Rotterdam and listening to ambient at the after parties.

Later on in the nineties I really got into grunge, postrock, mathrock and noise rock. 

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When I first heard Jimi Hendrix I knew playing guitar was my thing and I started taking a few lessons again, I already did in my early teens but didn't like playing nylon string acoustic guitar and learning songs from other people. I wanted to play electric and loud and just learn chords and scales. Later on I also started to get into steel string acoustic.

I started a band with some friends called Cheech Wizard and we listened to a lot of records hanging out and getting high together. Often at the father of our drummers house listening to things like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Fela Kuti, King Crimson, Rolling Stones, Cream, JJ Cale, Howlin Wolf, Can, Miles Davis, Talking Heads, Soft Machine, Hawkwind, Captain Beefheart, Robert Wyatt, Frank Zappa, The Ramones, Betty Davis, Magma, Funkadelic, Nick Drake, Motorhead, This Heat, Popol Vuh, Talk Talk, Tom Waits and the stuff we were creating, inspired by these treasures, fell right in the crossover and grunge wave of the nineties which also drew on a lot of those influences. So that helped us getting gigs and got the chance to get a little more stage experience and less stage fright.

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The new wave of guitar driven music in the nineties really inspired us and me, hearing it and seeing it live. Things like Jane's Addiction, Tool, Fugazi, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Faith No More, Nirvana, Primus, Soundgarden, Ozric Tentacles, Alice In Chains, Circle Jerks, Radiohead, US Maple, Jesus Lizard, Sonic Youth, Sleep, Mudhoney, Smashing Pumpkins, The Verve, Butthole Surfers, Black Flag, My Bloody Valentine, Monster Magnet, Kyuss, Slowdive, Swervedriver, The Stone Roses, Beastie Boys, Pixies, Happy Mondays, Motorpsycho, dEUS, Evil Superstars and later on bands like Slint, Brainiac, June of 44, Mercy Giants, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Ex, La La Limited, 53007, Room 101, Dull Schicksal, Unwound, Shipping News, Chavez, Rodan, Trans Am, Tortoise, Shellac, Blonde Redhead, Mogwai, Modest Mouse, Jaga Jazzist, Meshuggah, Flaming Lips, Battles, Gastr Del Sol...

And ofcourse I am always searching for new music. More recent stuff I really like are Black Midi, Tera Melos, Makaya McCraven, King Krule, Idles, Bibio, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Horse Lords, I could go on for days......

I also love classical stuff like Stravinsky, (post) punkrock, folk, world music, soul, blues, metal, music nonstop............

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When Cheech Wizard broke up I started making instrumental music with Firetime and O? in the early 00's.

I also made an album as So On with the former drummer and bass player of Cheech Wizard where I played guitar and did the vocals.

Then I played noise rock with the band Droppings.

Noise rock also became a big inspiration for me with bands like Arab On Radar, Aids Wolf, Shellac, Melt Banana, Naked City, Yowie, Hella, Guerrilla Toss, Deerhoof, Colossamite and others.

Later on I started making music with Ploeg, No Need Mention and Single Dot, all instrumental music.

I was also recording and performing with Harry Merry, a unique outsider songwriter, composer and keyboardist from Rotterdam and played guitar on two of his albums.

Now I make music with Single Dot which is drums and two guitars and BXMR which is an acoustic bass and guitar duo with vocals.

Then there is also an instrumental electronic project called Patroness Saint which is me and my pal Geer Mussert. 

In the music I create and co-create there is a lot of times room for experiment, improvisation and wanking solo's along with themes and compositions.

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I worked as a recording engineer and mixer for several bands and a lot of my own music and also at GÂRDEN studio, a livestream platform in Rotterdam. I also worked composing and recording, producing animation tunes for Extratainment in the early 2000's. 

As an audio engineer I learned a lot by seeing and hearing what the engineers did that I worked with such as Camille Dings, Milan Ciric, Hans Pieters, Dennis Leidelmeijer and the musicians/audio engineers that I worked with in the GÂRDEN studio.

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If you're still reading, here is a long list of my favorite guitar players that influenced me the most:

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Bert van Herwaarden

Nanko Huisman

Jimi Hendrix

Frank Zappa

Robert Fripp

Larry LaLonde

Jimmy Page

David Gilmour

Zoot Horn Rollo

Robert Johnson

Marc Ribot

Nels Cline

John Dieterich

Ed Rodriguez

Charles Bullen

John McLaughlin

Fredrik Thordendal

Stephen Mattos

Adrian Belew

Lee Ranaldo

Thurston Moore

Ian Williams

Ash Bowie

Dave Brylawski

Nick Drake

Billy Corgan

Tony Iommi

JJ Cale

Kim Thayil

John Frusciante

Jonny Greenwood

Josh Homme

Steve Albini

Jeff Parker

Spoelstra 

David Pajo

Hubert Sumlin

Jeff Beck

Bill Frisell

Wes Montgomery

Kenny Burrell

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