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biography
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 I was born on Mother’s Day, May 8, 1955 in a village called Nieuw-Amsterdam, in the North-East of Holland, where my parents ran a small hotel called Hotel Grimme. When I was about 10 years old, I started to develop a serious interest in pop music. I remember being captivated by the ominous, metallic sound of ‘Satisfaction’ on the radio. A friend’s older brother had some records and knew the names of all five Rolling Stones. I was pretty impressed and became a massive Stones fan.
Gradually I began to figure out how to play music myself; it began when my parents brought a piano into the house to further the education of their kids. The piano lessons were pretty tedious, but the instrument itself was a total revelation to me. I played it all the time (In hindsight, I must thank my family for enduring my daily sonic assaults), improvising and trying to analyze and copy the pop songs I knew. I still think this is the best practical training you can get, although I’m still very poor at reading music, but so were Lennon & McCartney...
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Hotel Cafe Restaurant Grimme, Veilingstr. 6, Nieuw-Amsterdam
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bands
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Pandemonium on stage 19/12/72 – Muzeval Theatre Emmen. from l. to r.: HG, Jan Bosma, Paul Aaldering
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I spent my teen years in a town called Emmen. The first band I ever played in with was formed at school, and accurately named Pandemonium. After finishing school in 1974 and spending a year in the military service, I moved to Groningen to study English at university. During my second year I became the pianist in De Noord Nederlandse Cliché Fabriek,a student cabaret group that had been founded by two of my friends at the English Department. There was no real ambition to speak of, we just had a laugh and made up silly routines and songs. Amazingly, in 1981 we made it to the finals of the annual Cameretten Festival, a prestigious Dutch cabaret contest. (The Dutch are very keen on cabaret, you know.)
My friend and fellow student Frank den Hollander then asked me to play the piano in De Containers, the back-up combo for rock & roll cabaret duo Rooie Rinus (Frank) & Pé Daalemmer (Peter de Haan). They were – and still are – legendary in the North of Holland, and I made my first official recordings with them. After their fare-well show in 1984 their fame has kept growing, and they are now generally seen as an indispensible ingredient of Northern culture.
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Pé & Rinus + Containers. from left : Peter de Haan, Carmen Schilstra, HG, Gijs Salentijn, Jan-Willem Leenslag, Jaap Hijmans, Frank den Hollander
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The Clichéfabriek. from l. to r.: Wout Teeuw, Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, Frank den Hollander, HG, Wil Pieëte
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In August 1983, I met the guy I would team up with for the next 14 years: Peter Groot Kormelink (Groenlo, 1953) was a songwriter and keyboardist for a rock-theatre company called Werk in Uitvoering. He was looking for a keyboard player for Splitsing, the new Dutch-language band he was forming. Around this time, more and more Dutch bands began to write and sing in their native language.
There was immediate chemistry within the band, and it was a big step forward for me. For the first time I got seriously involved in music on a daily basis. It was a great learning experience – we landed a record deal and made 2 albums and a number of singles, two of which got quite a lot of airplay, Wind En Zeilen (1985) and Recht Uit Het Hart (1987). We also played hundreds of gigs, but we never quite hit the big time, and in 1988 the band disintegrated.
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Splitsing in 1987. from l.: Nico Heilijgers, Eric Poort, HG, Peter Groot Kormelink, Miel de Vries
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The demise of Splitsing allowed me to finally graduate in 1989. In that same year Peter and I decided to form a songwriting partnership. We liked working together and it seemed a good idea to try and make a living writing songs. Our first break came when a song we wrote for a popular, annually released children’s record called Kinderen Voor Kinderen was accepted and released. Apart from getting our first decent royalty check, it opened doors for us. In 1992 we were approached by William Haighton, the owner and CEO of a small record company based in The Hague called Van Records. He really liked what we were doing and offered us a recording contract. Since we had come to appreciate our position behind the scenes, we had to think hard about the prospect of becoming performers again, but in the end we figured this could be a great opportunity and it was. We named ourselves De Jazzpolitie and, before we knew it, Liefdesliedjes, the first single off our first album, produced by Eric van Tijn and Jochem Fluitsma, was all over the radio and went to no. 6 in the summer of 1993. We found ourselves a reliable manager, a few great musicians to complete the line-up and started doing what successful bands do: tour, write songs, record, appear on tv, do interviews, give autographs, etc.
Highlights: amid massive press coverage we did a helicopter tour of eight(!) rock festivals in a single day on May 5, 1994 (Dutch Liberation Day), playing 20 minute live sets with the full band in each town. A logistic triumph, and it felt like being in the Stones for a day....
Another personal high was the making of our third album Interland in Brussels, Belgium. The ‘couleur locale’, the studio (ICP), the people, the producer (Jean Blaute), the – Belgian – musicians and the food made it an unforgettable experience. I still like the Interland album, but I’m afraid it didn’t do very well...
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By 1997, I began to have second thoughts on a number of things: although it had been part of our initial strategy, and we were still doing it, I began to lose my interest in writing songs for other people. Also, to me, the collaboration with Peter had lost much of its spark over the years. In the beginning of 1998 we went our separate ways. As a fitting coda a ‘best of’ album was released in November 2000.
Our little studio was dismantled, and I used a lot of the equipment to build a studio in my home. After a spell of contemplation and re-charging the batteries, I went to work with a blank canvas; I had never really worked on my own and I wanted to find out what it would sound like if I did. It would also mean writing my own lyrics and singing lead vocals, things I had hardly ever done before. It was obvious to me that I would sing in English this time: it’s the Esperanto of rock, the music I like and grew up with; my idols are all English or American. Also, for some reason I was losing interest in the way Dutch language rock was and is developing.
So far, I have really enjoyed working on my own, and the Salad Days album is the first tangible result; more than ever, I feel close to the music I make, and my independent status only adds to the commitment. At first it felt a little strange to operate without the benefits of a recording contract, but I can recommend it whole-heartedly: it is definitely a liberating and edifying experience...
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The Herman Grimme Experience post-gig on 11/01/02 in Café Marleen, Groningen. l.t.r.: Harry Niehof, Peter Millenaar, HG, Harrie Zandstra, Eric Poort.
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I’ve been lucky to find a good distribution company in Bertus Distribution, so my album is generally available in record shops in Holland and Belgium. Playing live with a band, The Herman Grimme Experience, seemed to be the next logical step. In December 2001 we began rehearsing for the kick-off: January 11, 2002, Eurosonic Festival, Groningen. While I sang and played keyboards, the other band members Harrie Zandstra – guitar & vocals, Harry Niehof – guitar & vocals, Eric Poort – drums and Peter Millenaar – bass gave it their all and helped to make the evening a resounding success. Interested? Please mail me for further booking-info and other details on live appearances.
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