In the year 1985 a guitarist called Henk van
der Laars decides to start a band. After working with several local musicians
he finds a drummer called Gerry and a singer called Theo who he starts jamming
with. After a while they decide to bring in a second guitarist and his name is
Arno van Brussel. Pretty soon Henk and Arno figure out that Gerry and Theo
aren’t able to meet the standards that they have in mind, and start
looking for other drummers and singers. A guy called Bert Burgers is found to
play drums and local hero Chris Terheijden becomes the singer in the band. The
band without a name… until Chris Comes across a book called “The
Legend of Elegy” which is about a Greek goddess. Since they’re in
the middle of recording a demo (called “Matricide” in “86),
they adopt the name Elegy. After working with several different bass players,
most of which didn’t last more than a month, Arno asks his friend for
many years if he would be interested in joining Elegy. This friend was a rhythm
guitarist in Arno’s first band and his name is Martin Helmantel.
Martin’s first gig with the band is a very important one. In 1987 Elegy entered a band competition organized by Metal
Hammer magazine and Polydor records. About 450 bands send in tapes and Elegy is
chosen to play in the finals with 9 other bands. This event takes place in
Bochum, Germany in April ’87. Elegy comes out on top and wins the contest
! Due to arguments among the organizers, Elegy was to never receive any of
their prices (like equipment and a show in Hammersmith odeon in London but most
important never got to sign a deal with Polydor records world wide).
In 1988 Elegy is starting to make a name for
them selves opening up for bands like Angelwitch, Paul Di anno’s
Battlezone, Hellion and King Diamond. Around this time drummer Bert is replaced
by Ed Warby. And another demo is made called “Elegant solution” in
1989. After which Chris leaves the band and is replaced by Eduard Hovinga who
was only a 17 year old kid when he auditioned in 1990 (it will take almost a
year before he decides to join). A 2-song demo is made with Eduard called
“Labyrinth of dreams” featuring the title track and
“I’m no fool” which attracts interest from some record
labels. One record label even financed a new demo with the songs “Guiding
light”, “All systems go” and “The grand change”.
After hearing the 3 songs the label decides not to sign Elegy…which later
proofs to be a big mistake!
After several weeks the demo is brought to
the attention of Metal Mike from Aardschok magazine who happens to be on the
phone with the owner of Shark records who wants to sign the band after hearing
the demo over the phone!
1992 is the year in which “Labyrinth of dreams” is recorded. The album is released in 1993 and is an instant
success in Japan where it reaches the #8 spot in the album charts. By that time
Ed Warby has left the band to play with Gorefest and Serge Meeuwsen is hired as
a temporary replacement. Two weeks after the release in Japan, Henk, Arno,
Eduard, Martin, Serge and keyboard player Ton van de Stroom are rushed over
there for interviews and one live performance on Captain Wada’s show in
Osaka. The band signs about 1200 autographs in 6 days while they are there.
After returning home from Japan Arno leaves
the band because he’s not a 100% motivated anymore, and is replaced by
Gilbert Pot a friend of Serge (who leaves the band also after the trip to
Japan. A month later Elegy comes across a drummer called Dirk Bruinenberg. He
happens to be a friend of Ed Warby and after hearing from Ed that Elegy is
looking for a drummer, he gives Henk a call. A week later Dirk auditions and is
hired on the spot. Only 1 week later Dirk does 2 shows with Elegy!
Around the time Dirk joins the band (end of 1993), the album “Supremacy” is already written and amazingly Dirk
learns the songs within a 6 week period and enters the studio a week later.
During the recordings Ton is fired from the band and Henk and Gilbert play most
keyboard parts on the album. Henk also does most of the bass parts because
Martin is called away when his girlfriend is having their baby. The album is
released in May 1994. After not getting enough support from the record company
only a few shows were done (with Annihilator, Phantom Blue, The Gathering and
Gorefest) and the band is already writing songs for a new album.
In April 1995 Elegy starts recording
“Lost”. Before the recordings new keyboard player Gerrit Hager
joins the band. “Lost” is released in the summer of 1995 and around
the world Elegy receives great reviews in the magazines. But shortly before
going on tour with Yngwie Malmsteen, Eduard leaves the band to pursue a
solo-career taking Gerrit with him. Gilbert also decides to quit after somebody
offers him an interesting job.
The only ones left are Henk Martin & Dirk
and much to their surprise Modern Music records offers them a very interesting
deal although the band at that time are without a singer ! So a search for a
new singer begins…
After listening to a few dozen demo-tapes and
trying out a couple of vocalists Martin gets a phone call. On the other side of
the telephone line is a guy called Ian Parry. Ian had heard from another
vocalist, who had auditioned earlier, that Elegy was looking for a singer. He
was invited to come over to audition and was hired on the spot !
Since Elegy had just scored a new recording
contract, the band decided to re-record some old Elegy songs in an acoustic
format to show everybody that the band had a new singer and was very much
alive. The songs were released in 1996 under the title “Primal
instinct”.
During the recording of “Primal
instinct” Elegy had already started working on new material with Ian and
soon entered the studio to record “State of mind”.
“State of mind” was released in
the summer of 1997. Not only did the band receive raving reviews about their
new song writing style with Ian, but everything from the production to the
artwork of the album was positively commended. Their fans were also in
agreement because sales worldwide were in excess of 40.000 copies. One of the
main reasons for this was due to Elegy’s very successful European tour as
guests of Stratovarius. More than 30.000 people covering 10 countries came
enthusiastically to the shows and left ecstatically wanting more ! Elegy
continued their success in Japan with 2 additional shows in Osaka and Tokyo
where their fans came out in abundance to experience Elegy’s raw
“in the face” exciting live show ! Later that year Elegy is asked
back to Italy to headline the “Psycho” festival in Milan.
In 1998 Elegy takes the success story one
giant step further by recording at Area 51 studio’s in Germany, a new
concept album ”Manifestation of fear”. The lyrical concept written
by Ian has been masterfully crafted in music form by Henk for the most with
contributions from Dirk and new keyboard player Chris Allister. The album is
released in the summer of 1998 and is called by some critics “the concept
album of the 90’s”. In September 1998 a co-headlining tour of
Europe is done together with American metal suppremo’s Kamelot.
Returning home after the tour with Kamelot,
Elegy decides to take some time off to “recharge the batteries”. In
this period Ian writes, records and releases his Consortium project with Dirk
playing the drums (and Martin playing on 1 song).
Early in the year 1999 Henk’s mother
passes away which has a great impact on his personal life and a few weeks later
Henk decides to leave Elegy !!! After getting together a few weeks later with the rest of the guys he rejoins
the band to work on the new album. In the following months the band starts
working on songs and decide to bring in a second guitar player, French guitar
virtuoso Patrick Rondat. Right before Elegy starts recording the new album
entitled “Forbidden fruit”, Henk decides to leave the band after
all………… and Patrick is now the main guitarist in the
band. He records all the guitar parts on the new album and proves himself to be
a more than capable replacement for original guitarist Henk. “Forbidden
Fruit” is released in September 2000 !!!
Receiving raving reviews about the
“Forbidden Fruit” album from around the world, the band, who are
now without record company after finishing the three album deal with Modern
Music, tries to get the show on the road to promote the new album. Being without
a record label also means no tour support and the search for a new record label
begins. In the mean time Dirk plays on the new Consortium album and is asked to
record an album with Stefan Forte for his “Adagio” project. Patrick
keeps himself busy playing “masterclasses” all over France and is
asked by Jean Michel Jarre, who he played with before, to do a small tour in
arena’s in Greece.
While Ian is searching for a company to
release the new Consortium album, he gets in touch with Locomotive music from
Spain. No only do they offer to release the Consortium project, they are also
very interested in signing up Elegy!!! Marquee records in Japan are found as
partners for the release in Asia. Around this time the songwriting for the new
Elegy album “Principles of Pain” is in full progress. Ian, Patrick,
Martin and Dirk are now working on an album together as songwriters for the
first time in the Elegy history and the songmaterial is stronger than ever!!!
Locomotive now are as determined as Elegy to
bring the band to the next level and touring plans are made for the summer of
2002. The label persuades the band to record the new album in Madrid which is
the labels homebase. The recordings will start in January 2002 with an April
release in Asia and early May in the rest of the world. A videoclip was filmed
on locations in Den Bosch in Holland (where the bands rehearsed at that time)
and Aruba! This was for the title track “Principles of pain”.
After the release in Europe sales go up to
20.000 copies in Europe alone and Elegy is invited to play the Rock Machina
festival in Spain. This will be the first time that the band will perform on
stage with Patrick Rondat! Also the band will introduce new keyboard wizard
Joshua Dutrieux who already plays on the new album!
On July the 26th the Rock Machina takes place
in Moncofa. Elegy delivers a blistering performance in front of 8000 people,
receiving raving reviews from the Spanish and international press.
This show also means the last show for
drummer and longtime friend Dirk. After almost 10 years in the band he retires
from the band unable to motivate himself for more hectic touring.
After auditioning several candidates for the
new drummers position Martin meets photographer Edwin van Hoof who informs him
about a great new drummer that he saw perform several nights earlier. He said
this guy, a drumteacher of only 25 years old, would be able to follow in
Dirk’s footsteps! A few phonecalls were made and an audition was
scheduled the same week. After only a few days to rehearse the material, Bart
Bisseling auditioned and made a lasting impression on Martin who informed the
rest of the band that this was “the right man for the job”!
Live dates were scheduled for 2003 and a
amall try-out was done in a club in Zeist which meant the debut voor new
drummer Bart Bisseling!
After that the band went on to do festivals
throughout the summer playing in France (Hirson festival), Holland (Bakel
Streetrock festival) and making their U.S. debut on the first edition of Brave
Words & Bloody Knuckles Six-pack weekend in Cleveland! Later that year
Elegy was invited to play the prestigious Progpower festival in Baarlo, Holland
to co-headline the 2003 event!
To be continued
Martin Helmantel
