Name: William , Ulysse, Justin Beckers
Date and place of birth: 13th of October 1960 at Tienen, Belgium
His second marriage to Elke brought him to Antwerp – Belgium where he has been
living for the last couple of years. He is the proud father of one daughter;
Julie, 21 years old and living in London studying Italian Renaissance.
He was raised in a loving family and as he was the only son and child….yes he
got (and still gets) a little spoiled ? by his parents.
During the mid 70’s he discovered a couple of great pubs in his hometown Tienen.
They played a different kind of music then the usual popular music. He got to
know bands like Genesis, Pink Floyd, Yes ,….. But best of all , thanks to a
very crazy landlord, he discovered the incredible Frank Zappa. He still is a
big fan of this very talented man’s music.
When he was 8 years, his parents insisted that he should learn to play the piano.
At that time it was considered very classy to get your children into music school,
preferably to learn to play the violin or the piano. Of course this was mainly
classical music and you can imagine how very interested he was in studying classical
pieces during his teenage years. As he found this type of music boring then
, he didn’t rehears much and skipped classes so he could spend his time much
more useful….. in the pub .Until his parents found out !!! They insisted that
he continue to practise and go to classes. Despite the fact he hated it then,
he is still very grateful to his parents that they were so persistent.
In 1976 he got his first drum kit (there were many more to follow!) and together
with some friends they formed the very first band called; Crossword.
Later he played with other bands like Carte Blanche, Extension II, and they
were very big in …. Tienen ;-)))
After the bands “ The Strips†with Ben Crabbé and “Meany†with Karin Boelaerts
and Eric Geurts and a small project with his childhood friend Luc Van Acker
, he was one of the two lead singers in a cover band called “The Few†where
he also played some drum parts and some piano parts during performances . With
“The Few†they played at a lot of student party’s and he can safely say, they
had a couple of wild performances !
During the 90’s he build a 32 track stereo studio called ‘ The Fade Zone’. They
were very active and successful for a couple of years but because of his divorce
he had to give up the house and of course the beloved studio which was a part
of the house. So it was back to playing the drums and singing.
But the urge to play the piano again was coming back. Especially after getting
several requests to play the piano during recordings for other people. In 2001
he met a guy named Robin Aerts, a talented multi-instrumentalist producer from
Antwerp with who he played together with other musicians in the project “Dukes
of Confusionâ€. This results in the recording of 2 albums, Bar Moonlight and
Mingus Lane.
At this moment (2006) they planned to start rehearsals for the following project
starting somewhere in 2007.
Today the urge to play the piano again has resulted in owning several piano’s and synthesizers. And he is running his midi home studio called; “The Music architect†in Antwerp. He has specialized in making music for movies and advertising. If you were to ask him why he made this choice, he would tell you; “ Because I was fed up with dragging instruments around in the middle of the night after a performance. Now I can play my music whenever I want 24/7 in the comfortable surroundings of my home, surrounded with the people I love. “