SpeedChaser is a hardrockband founded by 3 'die-hard' rockers from the Netherlands. The band was formed in april 2005 when singer/bass/tauruspedalplayer William Ros drummer John Spanjaart and guitarplayer Patrick Kruijer joined their forces and started a new fresh sound under the name SpeedChaser. The music style of the band is melodic hardrock/heavy metal but with some classical and symphonic influences as well, think about Van Halen, MSG, Europe, Dio, Ozzy Osbourne etc.. The band plays mainly original songs but a few cover songs are added to the setlist as well.
Speedchaser's history however began long ago when about 25 years ago William Ros started playing music. Heavily influenced and inspired by bands like Van Halen, Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne he started writing his own songs. William's first band was the Dutch band Warrior, they played typically early 80’s heavy metal. At that time they got some attention from a radio program by Hanneke Kappen. But soon it was clear that William wanted to go his own way in music by writing his own material. Because of that it didn’t take long for him to form another band. So in 1988 William formed the Melodic Heavy Metal formationQUEST with Jan Karsten on Lead Guitar, Eddie Volkers on Drums and Andreas Smits on second guitar. Soon they played gigs at great locations like 'The Melkweg', 'Paradiso' and 'De Peppel' when they supported bands like NORMAALandEXICESQuest never made a full length album, but in 1989 they released a Demo called ‘Searching for The Unknown‘. Because of the departure of drummer Eddie Volkers around 1991 they missed the opportunity to do a tour in the US. The band couldn't find a drummer at that time and slowly things faded. In the early 90’s Quest had various drummers and guitarists. In 1994 the band found new energy as they appeared on a hardrock compilation album with the track ‘Alien Invasion’. This track was heavily influenced by bands like Europe and Whitesnake. After that Quest split up again, William tried several bandmembers but things didn't take off.
Until William got in contact with guitarplayer Patrick Kruijer in january 2005. Together they worked out some ideas trying to get a direction for a new band. A few months later drummer John Spanjaart joined and so the original Speedchaser band was born. The difference between the old QUEST and the new band Speedchaser was that this new band was a powertrio with only one guitarplayer while the old band Quest always had two guitar players. This allowed much more freedom for the leadguitar something Patrick in particular was looking for in a band. It resulted into a more fresh spontaneous sound. Another benefit was that all three bandmembers had songwriting experience that really helped to shape earlier Quest material and also became very helpful when they worked out some new material. Speedchaser soon got some local succes and did several gigs and festivals like 'Hall Of Fame Metal' Tilburg. After a while tensions between the bandmembers started which caused the band breaking up in april 2007. Just when they started to get some name in the small Dutch hardrock scene......
After that guitarplayer Patrick joined the dutch metal band ANGUS who were just preparing for a reunion tour and looking for a guitarplayer. John took a break from the music scene for a while setting up his own car business. After some time Patrick and John hooked up together starting a new band but they couldn't find the right singer so it never really took off.
In the meantime right after the split of the original Speedchaser band William contacted Marco V. Empel (aka ‘Patchman Spandex Marco’). He was the one who arranged a couple of gigs for the band on his own festival and that’s where the second Speedchaser line up started. Marco immediately started searching for someone who could play the guitars for the new Speedchaser formation and it didn’t take long to find that person: his friend Nick Polak a very young but talented guitarplayer. Soon after drummer Jeroen Warmerdam joined the band. They did several gigs and festivals and also supported GREAT WHITE in ‘Plato’ Helmond. Early 2009 they recorded a demo with 4 classic Speedchaser songs. (some samples of that demo can be heard at the top of this page) Despite the excellent demo and all the hard work things just didn't take off and eventually the band broke up again.
Finally in november 2009 William Ros, Patrick Kruijer and John Spanjaart got in contact again while searching for musicians to play with. That's when they decided to re-unite the original Speedchaser band again. Soon they met in the rehearsal room and did find out that even after almost three years since they broke up the chemistry was still there! Right now they are working hard in the rehearsal room working on new songs and a setlist for future gigs.
The Speedchaser story will be continued!
For bookings & contact click HERE
*Visit also the Speedchaser Hyves page.
Some vids from the original Speechaser band:
Myspace Layouts - Myspace Editor - Hot Comments - Image Hosting