Releases:
Rudy and Daan started jamming at the end of 1997. After filling a load of cassettes they started to cut these up and loop into riffs and patterns. Herman and Elko joined for the first live gigs.
“Beegee”, their first single was brought out in Januari 1998, and is representative for their sound and method of working, starting with an improvisation of the three guitars, a computer generated loop of this, with a completely improvised text on top of this, done in one take. Later they had to listen carefully for the words in order to write them down… In order to play live they needed to study the CD carefully, and find a way to play all the cuts and loops live in a workable way.
The first CD “Berchem” was released in April 1998, which was very well received by the press, opening doors to the French part of Belgium, and to Germany. This resulted in gigs on some major festivals like Dour, Nandrin and Torhout/Werchter. After this DMR worked on a soundtrack for “At the drop of a head”, a movie from 1962, with local icon Bobbejaan Schoepen. They performed live with the movie, and some of the songs made for the soundtrack can be found on their second full CD, “Trap”, released in the beginning of 2000.
Meanwhile some changes took place within DMR, the drummer Herman Houbrechts was replaced by Karel de Bakker, and Wouter van Belle came to join the band on keyboards. Also by now the band is growing too big for Heavenhotel, and a contract is signed with Virgin for the releases of the CD’s, Heavenhotel has not got the money to press the amount of CD’s DMR is likely to sell. In the summer of 2001 the last CD will come out with the Heavenhotel logo on it. Since then their CD’s have been released with Labels/Virgin.
For the rest of the story please visit www.deadmanray.com.
Members:
-Wouter van Belle: keyboards
-Karel de Bakker: drums
-Daan Stuyven: vocal, guitar
-Rudy Trouvé: guitar
-Elko Blijweert: guitar