Mr. Slammer

We called it Mr. Slammer and began rehearsing some covers. Soon we played everywhere we could play and we were building a large following out of those gigs. We recorded a demo called "Under Control" and things were going in the right direction. Later Eggy decided to quit the band so Jack left too. We recruted Patrick "who's lastname is unpronouncable" on bass and Ben Stuyvenberg on drums. Patrick was soon replaced with my Signs bandmate Hans de Graaf and a total new Mr. Slammer was born ... things wouldn't be the same anymore

Numerous gigs throughout Holland and a small tour in France is what we did. Our folowing grew bigger and bigger. We recorded another demo called "Stereotypes". We needed a videoclip to support the demo so we plunged our gear in an old factory hall, threw in a few smokemachines and a light show. Helped by alot of trusty friends who did some lighting, audio and some "scenery decorations" Marco Brondsema shot the video in a freezing environment. The Marine Police noticed the "lights of hell" and smoke coming out of a "deserted factory hall", soon we were surrounded by gunman ......We talked us out of it and continued to shoot the video.

In the Bananas studio in Haarlem we recorded our third demo "Next" containing the Slammer blockbuster "Paradise" In November 1994 we recorded our next demo "Up Yours !" in the VPRO Studio's in Hilversum, it was actually a radio broadcasting ...... So Dutch radio wanted the Slammers and not long after that, television would follow.

In hometown Den Helder we were asked to support the major band of Holland; Golden Earring, so we did, yet again things wouldn't be the same anymore. Like a raving lunatic Earring's singer Barry Hay crashed in the dressingroom to hail our performances and demanded a sequel, that sequel lasted for almost 3 years. 3 years of extensive touring supporting the earrings really paid off, we played better than ever before.

It was time to put things in another perspective so we recorded a CD called "The X-Generation - The First Encounter" in our "Rehearsal Bunker" and mixed it in the Coco Studio. With Johan Moss we knew from the Signs era we had a good combination of sound and songs. However we deceided not to release the CD and threw ourselves back in the bunker to record a new version The X-Generation The sound and songs were better than the first one so this was the one we could release, and we did.

After 3 years of touring the largest halls in Holland, an end came to the cooperation between The Earring and Slammer. We were afraid for the step back from big audiences, large halls to small pubs again, and not without reason .....

In the search for more exposure we created new songs with a much higher sellability factor than ever before. However we think we had some good stuff there the audience didn't like it as much as the older stuff so things weren't going so good ...... all four of us deceided to quit the band that we loved so much for many years....

Line Up:

Click to see some pics here