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

They look like the good old mean m*therfuckers from the Afro American cultband Bad Brains. But they sound different. Though there’s absolutely some vulgar punk & hardrock influence in their music, The Spades are more specialized in producing a sleazy, greasy, uncompromising loudmouth hard punkrock ‘n rollsound.

The Spades are not an 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 neigbourhood 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 and Handsome Dick Spade founded the band back in the late nineties and debuted with a legendary mini-CD Friday Night (2001) on the notorious People Like You label. But the A&R-guys from Suburban Records attacked as fast as sharks and persuaded the negro 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 (2002). 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.

In the winter of 2002 highly acclaimed guitarist Tony Slug (a.o. Hydromatics, Nitwitz, BGK) joins the band. And, more to say, on stage the band is even a bigger sensation. Pushing it to their utter physical limits, the five guys take completely control over their crowd, which they crash and trash to the bone. Since their success, finally, even beautiful women are interested in the band members. But now it’s time for The Spades to play cool. Or, the way they say it themselves:

…learning the hard way not to fuck with The Spades…! Period!