RUDOLF HECKE

One of the "Enfants Terribles" of Belgian pop & rock, who also tried a solo-career for a while at the end of the eighties.

Rudolf Hecke was noted for the first time as one half of the electronica-guitar combo Company of State, who recorded two album and a bunch of maxi's between 1983 and 1988, when the ways of Taes and Hecke got separated.

In January 1989, Hecke recorded a first solo-album "God = doG spelled backwards" together with Gerry Vergult (also known as Fred Angst, from Aroma di Amore and nowadays of the dutch-lyriced drum'n'bass project Kolk), very shortly afterwards followed by a second, named "Naked and Still Hungry". These two albums appeared on the Integrity label, a sublabel of Antler-records which has released material from The Dentists, Suns of Arqa, Martyn Bates, Vincent Van Gogh.

As a solo-artist the music of Rudolf Hecke became certainly less aggressive than that of Company of State, and started to include such elements as "melody" and "structure" in the songs, and didn't even shy away from the use of a string ensemble. What remained was the fascination with the darker aspects of human nature, gory details and religion (something that summoned up a comparison with Nick Cave in those days), as became clear form reading the "stories" in the liner notes of "God is a Dog Spelled Backwards".

In the years that followed, Hecke bumped into singer Meredith, a shock that turned this dark soul into a psychedelic positivo that cheered up the world with merry poptunes through the band Pop in Wonderland, a local success-story that lasted from 1992 to 1997.

In 1999 it was announced that Hecke has formed a new band with a female singer, in this case Kristel Rombouts. As the bio says "the positive message is still there, as is the sometimes psychedelic angle. But the music of Kite is much closer to rock than Pop In Wonderland". Kite already has plans to record an album and release it.

Albums :
- God = Dog spelled backwards (Integrity, 1989)
- Naked and Still Hungry (Integrity, 1990)

Websites :
- none found