As we progress in our live performances I'm also realizing more and more that there's quite a difference in playing the drums on big stages, like festivals, versus smaller stages, like pop venues or theaters.

At festivals, I play 'bigger,' with more attidute, and at the other venues I'm a bit more contained, a bit more restrained. This is actually partly due to the difference in sound levels between these locations. I mean at outdoor festivals, the sound can dissipate, whereas in smaller venues, such as music halls and theaters, it can quickly get too loud on stage, and that is quite a challenge for the FOH to get it in perfect balance, especialy with the vocal microphone of our guitarist so close to the drum kit.

So I learned at a young age in my drum career to hold myself back while playing, which is quite a challenge besides playing the Dire Strait songs perfectly... but it is a working process.

Something that has really stayed with me is the fact that when you play as a musician on a big stage, you also make big movements... the people in the back want to see you too, so performance is key. And I am someone who certainly cannot sit still behind my drum kit. Of course, it depends on the setting you are playing in, but the audience has paid for the tickets and they expect a show, so give it to them! And it also gives me satisfaction to see that I have created something beautiful for the audience and myself.

It was a huge success, the weather kept getting better and the audience kept getting more enthusiastic. The organization was very satisfied and so after the show we still met with the organization and probably next year (2027) we will be at Buttonpop together with our friends from Vannstein.

We gave our very first show at pop venue Xinix in Nieuwendijk. After 2 years of working our butts off on the show, it turned out to be a huge success. It was a sold-out show. The audience was enthusiastic and incredibly positive. People couldn’t believe this was our first show.
We were all pretty nervous, but it paid off.
It was a huge catalyst to get even better and grab lots of gigs.

A lot of drummers say that they use a Gong drum, while in reality it is a Concert tom. The real Gong drum is the one from Tama, where the drumhead is stretched over the edge (like with Mike Portnoy). Anyway, I had made a 'Gong drum' myself, but it didn't turn out entirely the way I wanted, so I kept looking and came up with the idea to take a smaller one, so now I have a 16" x 10" Gong drum (Concert tom). so I am looking forward to using this live

I've always played small size cymbals (14"-15"), mainly because I started out in small venues, but now that we play much bigger places, I've noticed that I want a different sound, which is why I've now switched to using 17" and 18" cymbals. The difference is that the small cymbals have a short, high-pitched attack and a short sustain, while the 17" and 18" have a slightly darker but bright attack and a nice round sound in the sustain.

My snare drum is a Black Panther, birds eye maple shell, 14"x 5.5". I have tried many different drumheads, of course also depending on the type of band I played in, but now with Dire Straits I have chosen the new Evans Heavyweight Dry drumheads. These dampen the sound and give a bit of a drier tone. Also, because the snare often overpowers, I placed a dampening ring under the batter head, which makes the sound even drier and produces almost no overtones. The combination of the birds eye maple shell with this new drumhead gives a super controlled sound that’s nice for mixing at FOH and really fun to play, because you get enough attack and bottom. ...

I have had several in-ear systems and worked for years with Shure in-ears, but since this project I have started looking further, and now have the KZ-10 Pro and as a backup the Drumeo ear drum monitors. The KZ has a number of different drivers that reproduce the sound perfectly, subtle in the highs and nicely full in the lows. The same goes for the Drumeo ear drum monitors, which are specially made for drummers and have a nice three-way system.

And to get the sound from the rack to my in-ears, I put a mixing console in between, so that I can also color the sound a bit to my own liking.

After my endorsement of Mapex (2001) and Soultone cymbals (2015), I was looking for a new endorsement and have found it, after a long search, with TEBBS drumsticks, a German company that works just a bit outside the standard norm of drumsticks to find the right proportions of balance in pitch and weight.

And they also play really perfectly, not too light, not too heavy... and they are exactly what they promise