In the seventies, when I was in my teens, I heard a certain band on a national radio station. The band performed a couple of songs live in the studio that made a big impression on me. I quickly recorded some of the music they played. The name of the band appeared to be Plackband, and I immediately wanted to know everything about the band and the band members. Soon after, me and my brothers went to see them during concerts and talked afterwards with the band members in the dressing room. Since that time, I kept following these musicians and we eventually became friends. After a couple of years, the band broke up, but they returned in 2000 releasing two albums: The Lost Tapes (2000) and After The Battle (2002), and a DVD/CD Visions (2006). In 2008 they continued, calling themselves PBII. They recorded three successful albums: Plastic Soup (2010), 1000 Wishes (2013) and Rocket! The Dreams Of Wubbo Ockels (2017). But then it became silent around PBII. Until now! For the second time they made a comeback as Plackband. Of course, it goes without saying that I wanted to know everything about their past and how they got together again. So, I asked bass player Albert de Keijzer how the second comeback came about and what it will bring in the near future.

The history of Plackband goes way back in time. Would you tell me when and how you started?
"Of course, how much time do you have, ha, ha? For me, it all started in 1976 with an invitation from Ronald Brautigam to start up a band called Haemorrhoid. He was asked to be the guitarist of that band. I think he needed somebody he knew to be able to quit if it was not his kind of music.

Albert De Keijzer (photo by Bert Treep)

Anyway, we both went to see them. The band consisted of keyboardist Maarten Mens, bassist Marco Verhoeven, lead singer Kees Bik and drummer Tom van der Meulen. We listened to some of the songs, and we surprisingly looked at each other because we were listening to something we would now call punk! I don't know exactly how it happened, but we didn't run away and instead we started working on something. So, the bassist disappeared and I took over. Songs begun to look like songs and funny enough it worked out properly. Kees Bik wrote very exiting lyrics for the songs we tried to create. We had some problems with his voice, but the combination really worked out fine. However, Maarten Mens quit the band at some point. He was more into jazz, and he would like to see more piano play and improvising. Tom was also into jazz, but he was influenced by his drum teacher. He just wanted to play whatever he could. At the time I didn't know that he played in a few famous bands. As I was working at Servaas Music Store I saw many musicians. One afternoon I was unwrapping a Minimoog when I heard somebody playing parts from a Yes-album on a Hammond organ we had for sale. I rushed down to the place where the Hammond was, and I started talking to him. He appeared to be Michel van Wassem. I convinced him to come and listen to our band and he directly had a match with Ronald Brautigam. That match still remains and it makes them almost twins. Well, that was the day that Plackband was born."

Plackband in the seventies

In those early days Plackband was quite a sensation and I believe the band used the old lights from Genesis. They even called you the Dutch Genesis if I remember correctly. Is this all true?
"Yes it is. Our live shows were indeed sensational if I may say so. Our sound system was top-notch quality for that time, and we used lots of lights and special effects. My younger brother was the 'bomb & smoke man.' It's funny because when we started, our equipment was stuck together with tape. That's how we got our name. The roadies were keeping our equipment together with tape. So, when we couldn't decide for a name of the band, they suggested the name Plackband derived from the Dutch word 'plakband' which means adhesive tape. By adding a C, it got an English twist. But soon our equipment became state of the art. We all had a good income and apart from that income, we earned money with our performances, and we paid a monthly contribution. Even the roadies did that. So, we could afford to invest in lights, effects and sound.
As far as the lights from Genesis are concerned: when our light engineer Rene Boulhouder saw the cover of the album Seconds Out he found it a nice picture. So, he built a light curtain for smaller venues, and when we started using it in our shows a fan started to call us the Dutch Genesis. That rumour started a life of its own, and when Erik Neuteboom wrote a review and used that name... well, the rest is history."

How was it playing on stage on a Mellotron? Did you have to chase away all the fans and groupies from the stage?
"Ha, ha, ha! ... groupies? No, come on. It's maybe hard to believe but back then we were very shy. Tom van der Meulen has had his time when he played in his rock band, but he was already a father when Plackband started, and Michel van Wassem was dating a lady. Ronald Brautigam and I were the only lonely ones. Even John, our technician and sixth member, was married. I had my share while being a sound engineer for an American soul band when playing in Germany. I had to get the girls away from these big black guys, who often had to do their 'job,' ha, ha! But with Plackband? No, absolutely not. We didn't had time for girls after a show. We were working hard together with the roadies to get the equipment back in the truck. Since our roadies didn't get paid, we couldn't leave them with al the hard work like the Mellotron, the Hammond, the Yamaha CP70 and the Leslie speakers. They are all backbreakers.

Plackband in 2000 (photo by Henri Strik)

We didn't dare to leave the equipment in the truck. Even the big PA and the large mixing desks had to go to the rehearsal building which was in the attic with a small staircase.
The Mellotron is quite a story! Since I had frequent contact with the manufacturers who worked for Servaas it was not difficult to order directly from the factories. I used my position in that matter for our mutual benefit. A more awkward thing was getting the equipment to the Netherlands. So, when we decided we need a Mellotron to maximise our sound the ordering was easy, but unfortunately the shipping wasn't. I had an unpleasant experience in picking up a mixing desk in London, so I was not keen on getting the Mellotron from the factory. However, Kees and Tom considered it as a vacation and picked it up from Birmingham. They also got a full tour through the factory, and they were even offered a lunch. They were surprised with this warm reception. They also got an explanation about changing the tape racks and how to maintain the Mellotron. We benefited from this information. The Mellotron never gave us any problems whatsoever. We used the boy's choir, strings and the church organ, and as you can hear on the album The Lost Tapes we often combined the choir and the strings. It's a trick you need to know and that was one of the things the guys in Birmingham taught us. Nowadays, it's easy with sampling and with the digital Mellotrons, the Novotron and the Memotron, but those days were still analog."

Which bands inspired you at the time?
"My inspiration was about the same as Ronald's. We both played in Gentile, our band we had at high school. At the time, Led Zeppelin mostly inspired us, Yes and Gentle Giant. We covered songs from them, but we had some songs of our own as well. Actually, I didn't get into the sound of Genesis until Seconds Out in 1977. In my memory Genesis wasn't really an influence in the first few years of Plackband. Yes certainly was, Chris Squire was my inspiration. In 1972, my friend Rob Danen took me to a Yes concert in Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. That was the first concert I ever attended. I sat in the first row close to Chris' feet. Well, you can imagine what impact that show had on me."

Why did you never record an album at the time?
"Our music was different from other bands, and all band members had a decent job. I even had my own company, so we were not playing to make money. We were playing just for fun and to be on stage. Recording albums was not our priority. We released an EP but that was it. We had a recording studio, so we made recordings but mostly to experiment with new songs and to record our rehearsals."

After several line-up changes the band broke up. What was the reason?
"Eventually, we got a contract for a record company and a distributor. We agreed for their commercial demand to change our singer Kees Bik. Kees was just a mediocre vocalist, but he was exceptionally good in writing texts and the way he interpreted the storylines in the music. We replaced him for Martin Scheffer, the lead singer of Taurus and Frank van de Bos, but unfortunately that didn't work out very well and that was the reason that band broke up."

Many years later Plackband started a second life by doing concerts in the original line-up. How did this all come about?

Plackband in 2005 (photo by John Vis)

"After Plackband ended, I started, amongst others, a music shop and I didn't have time to play anymore. Ronald, Michel and Tom continued making music, which resulted in the band November. Kees got involved in writing songs for several bands in the vicinity of The Hague. As you know, The Hague was traditionally a melting pot for musical creativity resulting in many, many bands. November was quite successful with the release of their first album, but somehow the debut album didn't get a successor. Early 1999, I got a phone call from Michel and Ronald: if I would be interested in a reunion with Plackband. I was very surprised to hear that Kees agreed, but for me it was a challenge. I didn't touch my bass guitar for almost seventeen years. However, the idea was so exciting that I just didn't think about that and just went all the way. The first rehearsals were magic. Without having played so long, we just continued where we left seventeen years earlier. The original plan was to do a few reunion gigs, but we had such a success with our live shows, that it became more than just a few."

You even released a studio album!
"Yes, we did. Before we did the reunion gigs, we released the CD The Lost Tapes. We found some old cassette tapes in the attic, a mix of our rehearsals and some live recordings from the monitor desk. I cleaned the recordings as much as possible with the limited digital possibilities at the time. Our real recordings were all gone. We had a 16-track tape recorder in our studio, but when we stopped all the tapes were given to a new owner to be deleted and reused. As we continued our journey with live shows we were asked if we could make a studio recording since our fans asked for it. Thus, we recorded After The Battle in the Holland Spoor Studio. A strange thing, because this studio was accommodated in our former studio in the attic from a nursery school we had in the seventies. Nowadays it's a big studio."

Eventually, singer Kees Bik left the band. He was replaced by two different singers at two separate times. Why did he leave and how did you find two replacements?
"During the second year of the reunion, Kees had problems with his health and some mental issues. As friends do, we supported him and kept him in the background as much as possible. After recording After The Battle things were getting worse, and we had our doubts about Kees. There were many concerts planned in the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Italy. When we embarked on the first shows in England, we got problems because Kees didn't had his papers in order, so he could not fly with us. Michel worked hard to learn all the lyrics and we did an incredible and unbelievable show! One of a kind. Afterwards it was evident that we had to make decisions.
We had to leave Kees behind and find a replacement and that was Karel Messemaker.

K3: Koos Secreve, Karel Messemaker & Kees Bik (from L to R)

He was the singer with November and he was a fan of the band. Ronald asked him and he agreed. Apart from the fact that he is an unbelievable nice guy with a great sense of humour, his great voice resembled Peter Gabriel's. When he joined the band it gave a great boost resulting in the live CD/ DVD Visions that we recorded in Cultuurpodium De Boerderij in Zoetermeer. It was incredibly sad to discover that Karel suffered from a heart problem. The doctor advised him to keep the energy level otherwise he had to be operated. Again, we got troubles with the vocals. This time Michel found a solution. Koos Secreve, one of his neighbours, was a professional singer and a fan of Plackband. Because he sang for a living he could not be the lead singer, but he had the opportunity to help us out for a limited period of time.
So far we had three vocalists and by chance the name of all three started with a K... In view of our second comeback, we asked Kees again since he was our core singer, but after several rehearsals his health seemed too fragile. Catching a cold, or worse the flu, would throw him back in breath, not able to do more than two or three songs, so sadly he had to step down so to say. We really hoped he could manage but we saw him struggling. It would have been great to have the original seventies band together on stage.
Then Karel sadly passed away in 2014 because of his heart problems. In the end we went for Koos and now he definitely is a band member and our lead singer. We will soon release a single with the French title L'enfant Du 92 Meme. As an extra we put this piece on the DVD Visions. It is a tribute to our friends in Belgium at Route '66 for Pierre Sarlat, an underestimated artist who died too young. We gave this track a Plackband feel, and it has become a considerable success in our shows. It's time to give it a place upfront."

After the first reunion had ended, the band continued in 2008 as PBII. What was the reason for starting a new band with almost the same line-up?

PBII in 2014 (photo by Arthur Haggenburg)

"The end of the reunion came as a surprise for me. I suddenly became very ill. I have Crohn's disease, which is an intestinal disease. I got that disease when I was eight years old. When I grew up, I didn't suffer from it that much. I just kept going, but occasionally I felt weak. Just before the end of the reunion, I had a mayor relapse. I felt extremely sick, and I had no energy. The doctors told me that my blood values were too low. I needed blood transfusions, but that went wrong. They gave me bad blood that was imported from China. When they found out, I already lost half my liver, and my kidneys were damaged. During my hospitalization, the other band members decided to change everything. We were already busy to create new songs with a different sound. More modern and moving away from the classical prog sound. Ronald and Michel found that those new songs did not represent the familiar sound of Plackband. Since it looked like I wouldn't be able to perform for a very long time, they start working on PBII being a new band. So, I didn't have anything to do with the PBII projects. In fact, you could say that my illness was the opportunity to end the reunion and make a fresh start!"

Plackband 2024 (photo by Bert Treep) Koos, Albert (top) Michel, Tom, Ronald (bottom)

And now PBII has stopped and Plackband has been resurrected again. How did this all happen and what is the reason to start again with Plackband?
"As far as I know now, PBII is not gone but put on hold. They had a project that they were working on for the EU, but because of the corona pandemic that project was put on hold. During the corona lockdown Ronald and Michel could not meet in order to create new songs, so Ronald started to work on its own and produced songs that are more guitar oriented. The keyboards were done in Cubase. This resulted in the new band Rebels Of 69 with singer Ruud Slakhorst (ex-PBII) and Philip Platt, a new bass player. That band had to start all over again, they even had to play in pubs. When Ronald started the promotion of Rebels Of 69 on Facebook and other platforms, he got a lot of pictures and stories about the early days of Plackband, the reunion and the fortieth birthday of the band in 2017. At the time we played two songs live with Kees and one with Koos. Well, after that Kees began to think about a second reunion because we all are getting older. It is probably the last time to get the old gang back on stage. We all thought it a very good idea. Plackband had been such a major and important piece of my life, that I had never any doubt for a second reunion. However, Kees had his doubts. His physical condition was not good, and he doubted if he would be able to manage. Then we came together during a dinner, and we all decided to give it a try."

At first the second reunion was with Kees Bik, but soon we heard the news that he didn't do the comeback tour. What happened and who replaced him?

Koos Secreve (2017) (photo by Arthur Haggenburg)

"Kees started to work on his condition. During the first rehearsals in November 2023, we experienced a steady and enthusiastic progress. We even got a mini Mellotron, so Kees could use it as the original one, but when we started to record our rehearsals at the end of December, Kees caught a cold and after he recovered he felt the same as in early November. In the first quarter of 2024, it happened again a few times and just as we got worried Kees told us that he would step down. He felt that no progress had taken place. He didn't want to hold us down, and he thought that he couldn't bring the quality we all wanted to achieve. And then there were four again! And again, Michel asked Koos if had the possibility to replace Kees. Koos had had some changes in his life, so he wanted to replace Kees, but he wanted to be a permanent member and not a replacement. So here we go... full steam ahead!"

Plackband is getting back on stage again. Are there already plans to record new music for a studio album?
"Yes, indeed. At the end of the year, we will give two concerts. On Oktober 11th, we will do a double concert in Poppodium Boerderij with Dilemma. And on December 1st, we will play in 't Blok in Nieuwerkerk aan de IJssel! These concerts are try-outs, and we make a promotional video. We would love to do a tour during 2025, but perhaps we are too late to get enough dates in a compact timeline. We will see. And to make you happy, yes we are thinking of recording an album with songs we never released and some new ones."

It's obvious that the band members are not getting any younger. Do you only 'stop till you drop' with performing or what?
"As I mentioned before, we will energetically hit the stage. Nowadays, there are many examples from artists who keep performing into old age. Look at Steve Hackett, Steve Howe our local friends from the Golden Earing, Super Sister, Focus and Jan Akkerman. Al these artists are older than seventy-five! And what to say from The Rolling Stones! Tom is seventy-six but the others are between 64 and 70. It seems we can go on for some time...knock on wood. At the moment we have no planning whatsoever, but I can assure you, that we will not get on stage with a walker. That said, we think of calling the possible tour The Last Tapes Tour."

Thanks for getting back with Plackband. I still think many people love your kind of progressive rock music. What comments did you receive on your comeback so far?
"Thank you for your kind words. We certainly hope to make people happy with our music as much as we hope they make us happy by attending our concerts. The responses we got after the announcement were heart-warming. We got many messages from people asking where we are going to play, if we have plans to come to Belgium, the UK, Italy, Spain and even Japan, Mexico, and Brazil. We would like to play in all these countries, but we need help in making it happen. We talk to all impresarios or booking agencies who are willing to help us."

Well, I wish you a lot of success with the refounded band and thank you for doing this interview!
"You're welcome! It's my pleasure."