Update about Sander

HDK PROJECT FINISHED!!!



Hello everybody,

first of all, again, I'd like to mention that I really appreciate your great support the past weeks! I know the break of After Forever was a surprise and disappointment for many of you, but the way you deal with that is simply amazing!

This has given me, and also the rest of the bandmembers, a lot of energy! It always sucks when you have to quit
with something you put all your efforts in, but it helps a lot if people react respectful, and that's what you did! Like I mentioned, this is a possibility for all After Forever members to explore their individual talents, and already some really interesting projects have started!



Obviously, this is a blog about my HDK project,
that I started already 3 years ago;-) Yesterday, Joost (van den Broek/keys After Forever) and I finally finished the mix of the album (in my own Eternia Studios), wich will be called SYSTEM OVERLOAD.

Mixing the album wasn't easy, since the songs have all kinds of vocals and styles, but the main goal was the make an agressive project with more dynamics than the hardcore thrash/death/heavy metal bands. Don't get me
wrong, I love the common extreme metalstyles, but I thought it would be cool to give it a different approach. Due to the awesome singers and instrumentalists who have contributed, I can honestly say this has become the album I was hoping for with lots of brutal moments but still enough melody and emotion.

I'd especially like to thank Amanda Somerville, Peter Vink, Joost van den Broek and my friend John Holterman who constantly gave me advice and support in finishing HDK,
without their help and of course the talents of the people I worked with, I'm sure it would have taken even longer:-) I'd also like to thank the people over here in myspace who always showed their interest in this, you rule!

Now it's time to definately find a label, create the album artwork and RELEASE these lullabies:-)

Next time, I'll give you the definite list of people who contributed and in which song, but I can already tell you that Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon/Star One) played an incredibly cool solo on one of the songs!!! That's not all though, more info about some other Dutch solomonsters later!

I think that the After Forever fans can also enjoy this record, it's certainly different but due to the collaboration with Amanda Somerville, who wrote the lyrics/lot of the vocallines AND the only female singer on the project, the vox play a very important role in the project! The topics of those lyrics are very important to me, and I'll be giving the songtitles and a describtion of what they're about soon!

We'll stay in touch, more news and soundclips soon, in the meantime: Keep the After Forever spirit alive!!!

well, today Sander posted this blog on myspace, I think we could do something about for help him , dont you think? =)



still alive;-)

Hey everybody,



once more, I’d like to thank you all for all the messages we still receive supporting After Forever! I’ve had good offers for gigs this year, but we really need to take the break for as long as we need.

As you might read already, Floor is having her own project, Bas is creating some real Rock’n Roll music, Andre and Luuk are playing in the coverband Cell 29 (really cool hardrock covers!) and Joost is writing and arranging music for a lot of different projects! Obviously, I’ve been working on my own project HDK the past years, and now that it’s ready I want to make sure to pick the right label for promoting it.

This takes time, especially since HDK has got a lot of different metalstyles, so it takes a good plan to help promoting it. In order to make good promotion, I also need the help of you! I’ll give you more info about that soon, I think that myspace is a great way to ditribute music, and it would be great if you would help me out with it. Since no live gigs will be involved, this kind of promotion will be very important!

I’d also like to mention that Martin Plag, a dutch painter, made an awesome graffiti of Bas and me in a new musicstore. It’s a very big graffiti and of course I feel honoured! Looking forward to see that one for real, you can check out a pic in my pic section.

I received several question about wether I’m endorsed by Gibson or not, since I also play on Hufschmid guitars. Well, I have a Gibson endorsement indeed (and got two guitars, I’ve played on the Explorer during the last livegigs and I also got a Les Paul guitar) but I also use the Hufschmids a lot. You’ll be hearing both of the brands on my new HDK album.

The main reason for this blog is Amanda Somerville. Since she has been a very important part of HDK (only female singer/co writer) I’m really happy for her to be on both the Avantasia Tour and the American Epica Tour (replacer for Simone Simons). Hope you can check those gigs out (the Avantasia gigs will certainly be great, heard some good things about it:-), I can assure you she won’t disappoint you since she has a lot more to offer than most female singers around. Check out her myspace, I soon will be posting one of the HDK songs with vox of Amanda.

Well, hope you’re all enjoying your long weekend! We’ll stay in touch!:-)



Cheers,

Sander