Holland's most talented producer

At the age of 14 or so, me and my best friend Guido often went to a venue called “De Barrak”. During the day it was used as a rehearsal room for bands. Every Saturday “Metal Remorse” rehearsed there. It was a local band which playes mostly hardrock and stuff from Ozzy Osbourne in particular.

That was my first acquaintance with Gordon Groothedde. Gordon played the guitar and was shredding the riffs :). He was, but still is, one of the best guitarplayers I have ever seen.
Untill this day I am still convinced of the fact that I never ever have hearded a band play Ozzy material as good as Metal Remorse did. Everything in that band was right, drums, vocals, bass and absolutely the guitar.

I started to play the guitar myself, first acoustic and later on electric. My brother had a friend called Epi and Epi had an electric guitar ( an Epiphone, no joke :). Epi wanted to sell his guitar cause he didn’t play it anymore. He tried once to learn how to play, but actually gave up the studying. The funny part is that Epi was a good friend of Gordon and Epi had asked Gordon to go with him to buy the guitar. I still have the guitar. Don’t play it that much, but it is a great instrument to keep.

Some years later our paths crossed again, although crossed :) Gordon was the session leader of a monthly organized jam-session in a local bar called “de overkant” and I visited those session with my pearl coloured epiphone. I wasn’t much of a guitarplayer but managed with a good and solid blues-scheme ;). Gordon on the other hand played like crazy, you aways saw musicians looking a bit jalous when Gordon hit the stage. The funny thing about jam-sessions in general is that songs always take too long with never ending solo’s. Besides the fact that Gordon never played to long, it was a pleasure to watch and hear him playing the most great pieces of music and solo’s.

The jamm-sessions ended, the bar got shut down. So I lost sight of musicloving Zutphen. I did play in a couple of bands after (on bass), but didn’t saw Gordon anymore on local stages. Gordon had played in Spittbal, a dutch band with some real fresh music, with his buddy Jaco Kreukniet. But besides that I didn’t really knew what he was up to.

Years later when I was rehearsing at Scenic Sound studio’s and heard that Gordon was producing some demo’s for a couple of local bands in Zutphen. (one of those bands I joined myself some later). That was the first time I noticed the producing skills of Gordon. I’ll bet you know the snowball-effect? I’t rolls, and gets bigger everytime. That’s a bit the story of Gordon’s carreer. He managed to improve every single time producing bands and musicians, and like they say “Quality sells” Gordon became a well known producer in the local scene which quickly grew to one of the most asked producers in the Netherlands and beyond.

In Zutphen at that time we had one guitarstore, that was the store of a good friend of mine Huub Boel (I will dedicate a topic exclusively to Huub later on, what a guy). Huub is a real craftsman building guitars. He and Gordon had the idea to design and build a guitar in accordance with Gordon's preferences. They came up with the GG serie guitars, one fine instrument with all the best hardware and made of the finest wood. So Gordon also had his own guitar now.

Gordon Groothedde signature serie

Gordon supported Nick & Simon (a famous dutch duo) with their coach-role for the dutch Voice of Holland.

I think that one part of Gordon's succes is that he really breathes music. Having a giant background as a performing artist he can relate to the creative proces musicians go trough. That is, I think, one of the reasons he has so much co-writerships on albums he produces. The other part, again my opinion, is that he has excellent ears and empathy with the ambiance in which a song is written and played. If you mix both parts I think you have a winning combination. The nummerous hits he already produced with national and international artists are the living proof of that.

When I think back to the old days, Rocking Zutphen, who had thought that Gordon turned out to be one of Hollands most succesfull producers…A cliche, but hard work does pay.

And for me?.....I truely have the biggest of respect for Gordon for what he achieved and for his contribution to the dutch musicscene….. But to be honest, he left a unerasable impression playing with Metal remorse ;)

Thanks for reading !!

ps. some names Gordon produced or/and co-writed:

• Matt Simons
• Nick & Simon
• Marco Borsato (holland's best selling singer)
• Beth Hart
• Snoop dog & Willie Nelson
• Katie Melua
• Krezip
• Miss Montreal
• Moke
• Intwine
• Waylon
• Guus Meeuwis

and many, many more....