It all started somewhere around June (summer) of 1999. Those were different times back then; Nu metal dominated the charts, Limp Bizkit was about to become the biggest band in the world (what ever happened to those guys huh?) and The Matrix and The Blair Witch Project ruled.
Me and my brother Rob had just closed the book on our last band (Insane Reality) and together with our bass player (and up till then most loyal member and confidant) Emiel "Slaymiel" Van Rooyen we decided to begin a new, even more Thrash oriented band.
I think Slayer was still our main influence then (on me anyway). They had released "Diabolus in Musica" the year before and we simply adored that album, especially it's more dark, brooding and experimental tone. In later years Slayer got a lot of shit for that record (more so since Lombardo rejoined) and say what you will about it, but "Bitter Peace" is still the most heavy-as-fuck opener I have ever heard.
1999 was also the time when internet wasn't as nearly as widespread as it is now (when every other asshole didn't have his own page for him to spout his bullshit on) and we were heavy into record and cd collecting. I remember once going to a metal market and Rob buying a Heathen cd for over sixty guilders! There were all kinds of gems we were just discovering. The old Exodus albums (even "Impact is Imminent"), Vio-lence (featuring a pre Machine Head Rob Flynn) and for me personally a lot of NWOBHM bands (those old Holocaust and Quartz albums nearly bankrupted me, but I managed to pull through).
We handed out ads at our local record shops and soon a guitarist called Jordi Nieuwenburg answered. I remembered first talking to him over the phone and he must have mentioned both Metallica and Kerry King about a hundred times.
Once he came over for a "try out" the chemistry was immediately there and within about two or three sessions we had our first song "Slave to the Zero". With lyrics inspired by (I can now reveal) people's obsession with the (then) coming Millennium.
My memory is a bit fuzzy about what happened next but we wrote a few more songs and soon after (end of summer of 1999) we came in contact with a second guitarist, Tony DiStefano. He was a local "Katwijker" and still very young at the time. Even though he didn't have the same musical tastes as we had (he leaned more towards the dreaded Nu metal of that time) we decided to give him a go.
The five piece now complete we settled on a name. First we tried some crazy ass "war shit" like Pennemunde, but in the end Hectic wound up sounding really cool…and short.
The coming fall and winter were spent writing a whole bunch of songs. Things like the Slayeresque "Mark of Cain", "Ignored Instinct" and "Hallowed", to the more Annihilator vibe of "Leechlord" and "Horrific Truth" and the very groovy/ modern "The Chauvinist" and "Hate Machine".
The Millennium passed (luckily for us without a global meltdown) and in the spring of 2000 it was time for Hectic to perform.
In the end the band only played two shows, both at the Scum club in Katwijk, with the second one being the most memorable. It was Saturday the 13th of May, the same night as the Eurovision song contest, and (more important and tragically) the Enschede fireworks disaster. We performed together with a few local bands and Scum printed a real nice, promotional flyer for it, which to this day graces the wall of our rehearsal space.
What I can remember about that night? It was very hot, with a temperature in the high twenties, which made the venue feel like the inside of an oven. The show went pretty well, both Jordi and Tony really went "all out" for it and we did a cover of Exodus' "Piranha" (only we played it too fast, I think on a speed of about 250 miles an hour!). The live photos here featured are from that same show.
We spent the summer of 2000 starting on a few more songs (with titles like "In Defense of the Wicked" and "Live the Lie") but by then "internal rivalry and bickering" had reared it's ugly head. The rest of the band wanted Tony out because he didn't fit in both musically and age wise and Tony couldn't find himself in the "retro Thrash vibe" we wanted to display (especially on stage). Soon after Jordi also left, he was getting more and more into the music academy thing, while listening to bands like Dream Theater and RHCP. Meaning his heart wasn't into the really heavy stuff anymore.
With Emiel on guitar the three of us continued for a few months, but I myself couldn't stomach the line up changes anymore. So I decided to take a break. Hectic fell apart, with Rob and Emiel trying to form a new band, which eventually led to nothing.
For some reason especially Rob always stayed in contact with the other guys and in the summer of 2004 we had a sort of "get together". It was great seeing each other again, but we didn't make any plans musically.
Flash forward another four years and three of us (Rob, Jordi and Me) decided on giving the Hectic story it's proper ending. We still have these songs laying around which, in our opinion, were never recorded the way they should have. With Rob now heavily into recording (move over Andy Sneap?) we are going to try to put a bunch of them on tape (err.. hard disk) and posting them at this same Myspace site….. TO BE CONTINUED.
Cheers.
Gerb