The Spades

Straight out of the gutters from Eindhoven Rockcity Area in Holland....The Spades!!

The Spades are not your average band. Neither they're manufactured by some square and trendy asshole from the marketing department of a major record company. The Spades are for real. The only reason for their existence is their unstoppable urge to let out all of the frustrations and humiliations life gave to them. And frustrations there were... Their past is one of trouble. Trouble in school, trouble... Meer »

Straight out of the gutters from Eindhoven Rockcity Area in Holland....The Spades!!

The Spades are not your average band. Neither they're manufactured by some square and trendy asshole from the marketing department of a major record company. The Spades are for real. The only reason for their existence is their unstoppable urge to let out all of the frustrations and humiliations life gave to them. And frustrations there were... Their past is one of trouble. Trouble in school, trouble in the neighbourhood and - especially - trouble with the strong arm of the law. Almost all of the band members did some time for minor crimes like stealing cars for joyrides and selling small amounts of hard drugs. Thanks to the humane Dutch policy regarding juvenile delinquency, they were let out of the state penitentiary in just a few months and were given a chance to avoid falling into evil ways again.
From that moment on, the bad boys figured that they'd better use their energy for rock 'n roll instead of taking the risk of doing time in prison again. Denvis Wankalot co-founded the band back in the late nineties and debuted with a legendary mini-CD Friday Night on the notorious People Like You label in 2001. But the A&R-g(a)uys from Suburban Records attacked as fast as sharks and persuaded the guys to sign up for Suburban Records, which they wisely did. In the spring of 2002 they released their groundbreaking first longplayer called Learnin' The Hard Way. With this album they opened up eyes in the music media that had been shut for way too long. In the Benelux, the rock press reacted immediately to this release.
2003 started off great for the band with a memorable show during the Noorderslag-festival blowing all the others performers of the stage. After a successful tour of Germany with the legendry band the UK Subs, the band sets of for the US of A  in march 2003 where they played the renowned SXSW-festival in Austin Texas and a few dates on the west coast. This leading them up to Seattle, where they recorded the EP "The Seattle Sessions" with nobody less then Jack Endino (he was the producer of Nirvana's Bleach).
The recordings went really well and the band was satisfied with the result. They had all reason to be satisfied because the four songs recorded are again killer Spades songs. When they were in the studio recording the album Mark Arm van Mudhoney came by to visit and the band forced him to help. They did this by forcing him to play the piano and do the back-up vocals for the song "You Had It Comin' "

As a flagship, The Seattle Sessions has been released on double 7-inch vinyl next to cd. The 7-inch double vinyl  has beautiful artwork what is a parody on the legendary album cover of Judas Priest´s live-album Unleashed In The East). The vinyl release of this album is of course limited to only 500 copies.

The Seattle Sessions was officially released at the Lowlands 2003 festival, where the band played an excellent show and where the winners of the competition ´lowest of the lowlands´. To top this all of Suburban records and the American label Go-Kart reach an agreement about Go-Kart Records licensing Learnin ' The Hard Way for the America market. With that deal under the arm the band is planning on concurring the world!  

2004 was a good year for the band, gaining a lot of publicity and raving criticism from the media. Also the band worked hard on the road, leaving a damn good impression during their always surprising live shows.

2005 kicks off well: The Spades were invited to destroy SXSW (Austin, Texas), again in march. Which they did. As a matter of fuckt, they did a bunch of shows in the States, a.o. in Detroit, Chicago, L.A. and New York. Yeah, people there loved and hated the dutch bastards. While they were in Detroit, they recorded some of their own motown rock ´n roll tunes with studio chief Jim Diamond in his Ghetto recorders Studio. Jim worked with the likes of Dirtbombs, Von Bondies and White Stripes before. All in all, he managed to let the guys stay sober long enough to record six beautiful songs.

2006 Two of the Jim Diamond session tracks ( Get outta line & CCCP motherfucker ) will appear on a limited 7 inch edition on Relapse records. It is a split compilation with their Canadian mates "Maximum Rock 'n Roll."  In the mean while the bandmates practises and practises, while Denvis goes to Australia to find inspiration in the wet hot jungle of Murwillumbah.  In September 2006 a compilation album comes out with the song " Memphis Star" via Dragon Tattoo. The plan is to release a new motherfucking longplayer by the end of 2006. Worktitle : "Above the law & below the belt!"

But before that, The Spades wanna cum in everybodys face and thus play as much stages as possible. They kicked some yokels ass at the legendary dutch festival named Zwarte Cross in the summer of 2006 and after that, they will do a blitzkrieg and play the bigger stages of Holland in September and early October. After that it is time to go to Canada to join up with Maximum rock 'n roll to do the same over there. They will leave no survivors….

The icing on the cake will be the long awaited come back to the USA. 7 shows in 6 days including a promotional gig at the prestigious CMJ festival in New York City. Denvis told the press : "To show them arty farty college bands that one does not need proper education to play sexyrock 'n roll music!"

So, if you are looking for genuine straightinyourface loudmouth rock ´n roll, hear, see and feel The Spades. And be aware, as The Spades may be in your neighbourhood very fucking soon! « Minder