Aart Mol Geertjan Hessing Erwin van Prehn Cees Bergman (died 2017) Mike Eschauzier Elmer Veerhoff
Catapult were a Dutchglam rock band active between 1973 and 1979. The band was formed by and consisted of Aart Mol (born 31 January 1953), Cees Bergman (22 April 1952-21 September 2017), Erwin van Prehn (1950-2018) and Geertjan Hessing (born 5 July 1951), and later joined by Elmer Veerhoff (born 19 August 1954).[1][2][3][4]
Career
The band formed in June 1973 when during a holiday in the Spanish resort of Lloret de Mar, Geertjan Hessing, Erwin van Prehn, Aart Mol and Cees Bergman decided to form a band. The four were veterans of the Leiden and Katwijk rock scenes, having previously worked together in several groups such as Axis Purple (Leiden) and Oriental Garden (Katwijk), but had achieved little success up to that time. During their stay there, concrete plans were drawn up, and from then on they started taking their work seriously. They promised each other that no matter what happened, they would stay together. Various holiday girlfriends, having heard of their wild plans gave them many words of encouragement. Once they were back at home they threw themselves into their work immediately, quitting jobs and dropping out of school to concentrate wholeheartedly on music. The band came to the attention of ex-Golden Earring drummer Jaap Eggermont, who advised them to start playing glam rock, a popular genre of music at the time. Assisted by their manager Aad van Delft, the band chose 1 September 1973 as their official starting date. Later that month, keyboard player Michael Eschauzier joined them. The band's name was suggested by Golden Earring vocalist Barry Hay.[1][3][5] The band's logo was designed by Wim T. Schippers.[3][6] In an episode of Toppop Yeah, Bergman revealed the amount of effort it took to get his long bleached haircut for the band.
On 23 November 1973, the band played their first gig supporting Golden Earring in the Maassluis Sport Hall. After that, they worked on their first single, "Hit The Big Time", produced by Eggermont and recorded at Phonogram Studio in Hilversum in December 1973. The single was a raunchy, catchy and energetic song about their stay in Spain. Released in February 1974, it reached No. 16 on the Dutch Singles Chart.[7][1][6] In April 1974, Eschauzier was replaced by Elmer Veerhoff. The band had an album and several hit singles between 1974 and 1975, the most successful being "Let Your Hair Hang Down", which reached No. 5 on the Dutch Singles Chart; "Teeny Bopper Band", "Seven Eleven", and "The Stealer". As their popularity began to fade, the band decided that it was time for something different. They wanted to make music in different styles, which was difficult because of their Leiden dialect, and the fact that Dutch radio stations and television channels did not want to accept the fact that they could do so. Dutch DJ Willem van Kooten later advised them to start writing music for other artists. They became quite adept at this, writing and producing songs for Lia Velasco, Patricia Paay, The Internationals, The Surfers, and Snoopy. Because they could respond and record music themselves, that saved them money. They worked for Eggermont, who produced the records, and he in turn worked for Van Kooten, who financed the records and came up with the concepts. He then played the music in his own daily program on Hilversum 3, and at the same time received part of the royalties. The quintet also formed Rubberen Robbie in 1978, their vehicle for parody and carnival songs, sung in their native Dutch language. Around that time, the members were all living together in the same apartment and recording music there. However, the neighbours constantly complained about the terrible noise, so in September 1979, they had to find another place to record their music. They went to Rijnsaterwoude and formed a recording studio and production company named Cat Music, where they recorded as The Monotones, scoring a hit in Germany and the Netherlands with the song "Mono" on 15 December 1979. Seven days later on 23 December 1979, they gave their farewell gig as Catapult in the "Feest Paleis" in Beervelde.[1][8][2][3][4][9][10][11]
In the 1980s, the members wrote songs for Leidsche rock band Tower and André Hazes (three of which were recorded for his album Gewoon André, including his number 1 hit "Een Beetje Verliefd"), and specialised in writing and producing breakdance, hip hop and Italo disco music, with 1983 and 1984 becoming their most productive years. Inspired by listening to illegal records of Italian dance projects and Hi-NRG artists such as Bobby Orlando, Giorgio Moroder and Divine in a compact disc store owned by Gert van den Bosch (who imported many records himself and sold them through record stores in the Netherlands), they took the records to their studio and used electronic instruments such as ARP and Moog synthesizers, the Roland TR-808 and the Akai S612 to make "legal" sound-alikes of them. Since their new songs were cut down as non-format and did not hit the airwaves, they used pseudonyms such as "Adams & Fleisner" and "Tony Acardi", and formed various fictional bands and artists in which the members were models and dancers hired for cover photograph shoots and lip-synced to songs sung by Bergman, Hessing and session singers in live performances. These included disco group Fantastique, synth-pop groups Gazuzu and Polysix, electronic trio Digital Emotion, breakbeat group Master Genius, X-Ray Connection, Dr. Groove, Blanc De Blanc, Euro disco group VideoKids, Joanne Daniëls, hip hop groups Comfort & Joy and Party Freaks, and Eurobeat quartet Twiggy Bop. They also, along with Aad Klaris, wrote and produced "Talkin 'Bout Rambo" by Linda Snoeij, under the stage name "L-Vira", and wrote and produced two albums for hard rock band Picture: Every Story Needs Another Picture and Marathon. Many of their dance and Italo disco records were released by Dutch labels such as Dureco Benelux and Boni Records (through their sublabel Break Records), which was founded by and named after Van den Bosch and Jan van Nieuwkoop in 1982. Van den Bosch exported Cat Music's records to America, where they were sold as special imports. At a certain point in 1986, he had begun making very expensive record productions using the money that Cat Music owed him. In the end, Boni Records went bankrupt as a result, and Cat Music lost tons of income. It almost cost the members the studio, but they would recover with other records and projects. In 1990, when the Dutch music industry collapsed, it became difficult for Cat Music to sell records. Since the money had to keep coming, they began producing audiobooks and made thousands of ringtones. They also produced the audio comedy series Ome Henk and started writing and producing a lot of records and albums for third parties, such as The Smurfs and Telekids, as well as children's DVDs, music for commercials, and football songs.[1][12][8][2][3][4][10][13]
In 1996, Pseudonym released a compilation album of Catapult's singles, The Single Collection. The album also contained three bonus tracks, progressive rock-style "Accident" and "Midsummer Switch", and "White Christmas", which was recorded but went unreleased.[14] In 1999, Rotation released the compilation album Let Your Hair Hang Down, named after Catapult's single of the same name.[15] "Hit The Big Time", "Let Your Hair Hang Down" and "Teeny Bopper Band" were included in the compilation album Cat Nuggets, released by Red Bullet.[16] In 2008, Cat Music released Catapult Complete Collection, Volume 1 and Catapult Complete Collection, Volume 2 on Spotify and Apple Music. In January 2013, Cat Music closed their studio in Rijnsaterwoude, and Cees Bergman moved some of the equipment to a small studio in his house, where he continued to make music. Despite this, Cat Music still exists as an entertainment production company named Cat Music & More, based in Voorburg, owned by Aart Mol (currently) and Bergman (until his death in 2017), and managing the rights to all their music.[3][8][11][17] On June 24, 2016, Bergman took on the role of glam rocker once again. With his band Van Beukenstein, he played a "tribute to Catapult" at Haringrock in Katwijk aan Zee, and performed with them at the Bevrijdingsfestival on the Rijnplein on 5 May 2017.[18][3] In 2020, "Hit The Big Time", "Let It Be True", "Let Your Hair Hang Down", "Performers Prayer", "Teeny Bopper Band", "Nightrake", "Seven Eleven", "Springtime Ballyhoo", "The Stealer", "Back On The Road Again", "Remember September", "See You Back In '86", "Here We Go", "Run For My Wife", "Disco Njet Wodka Da", "Didn't Sleep A Week Last Night", "Spanish Eyes", "The Highways And The By-Ways", "Schoolgirl", "Woman", "Accident", "Midsummer Switch" and "You Better Stay" (from Picture's Every Story Needs Another Picture) were released as part of the compilation album The Golden Years Of Dutch Pop Music by Universal.[19]
Personal lives
In July 2017, Bergman was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died at the age of 65 in his hometown of Leimuiden two months later on 21 September 2017.[20][3] Van Prehn (born 1950) would pass away the following year in 2018 at the age of 68.
