When I was some 15 years old I got involved already in American Country music. My preference lay with country-rock and bluegrass. I listened a lot to The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Dillards and others.
Through a Dillards record I got to know real Bluegrass. I wanted to learn how to play that music, so I bought a banjo. Playing the banjo turned out to be rather difficult. Not until many years later I began playing with a fellow teacher and I felt I was making some progress. Later I also began playing the Dobro and I went also back to playing the accordion just like I did in my early years. For a number of years I played in a band called Country Stuff. As with so many other bands this band also dissolved in good harmony. During a Byron Berline concert in Noordwijkerhout I walked into Jaap Spijk. Because of this the band Except2 was created. In Except2 we play akoestic country and bluegrass. After a couple of years the father of our violin player dropped a tape with Cajun-music played by Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys. Nearly all the band was wildly enthousiastic for this kind of music. At first I played a piano-accordion and later on a two-row button accordion, but it just wasn''t it. Such a trekzak (in Dutch), it had became a one row (ten button) accordion in the mean time, in quite a different cook from playing an accordion, but I got better and better gradually. At the Cajun en Zydeco festival in Raamsdonksveer (2000) I got into contact with Wim Nagtegaal. I was told that he taught playing Cajun on the melodeon. Wim''s lessons are a tremendous support for me in mastering this swinging music. On a given moment Will Pieters came to teach us how to play Cajun music as a band. Meanwhile I have been seriously contaminated by the Cajun-en pullback-virus and I now also play in this band.