Biography
In the beginning: Bert and Maarten, kids of the seventies, when vinyl was king and 8 track tapes seemed like a good idea. First musical steps? Somewhere in the mid-eighties. Bert on guitar, Maarten on drums.
Influences: The Police, U2 and Simple Minds. Those influences still stand, nothing wrong with a decent pop tune.
A decade in learning: from the mid-eighties until the mid-nineties: various pop, rock, metal, jazz fusion and r&b projects. Nothing really successful, but it gives the boys a good foundation in songwriting, production techniques and overall musicianship.
Jazz, â96, their interest in jazzfusion, acid jazz and all its varieties leads them to bands like Incognito and Brand New Heavies. They discover the remixes from Roger Sanchez, Masters at Work, and David Morales. This gives them a whole new perspective on dance music. It shows them there is more to dance music than the eurotrance that rules the Belgian airwaves at that moment. The boys start experimenting with loops and disco samples and their first US style house tracks see the light.
The Headroom years: â98 the brothers get in touch with Headroom Music, a Belgian record company. Label boss Bart Grinaert sees the potential and takes them under his wings. The Headroom gang teaches them all they need to know about dance music, the beats, the sound and plenty of studio tricks. After a few releases under several names, they decide to take on the name âFilterheadzâ. The idea is to release some more âfilterdiscoâ records. But things turn out slightly differentâ¦
The Casters Files: at the same moment Jo Casters, head of a&r at mostiko finds some of their early works on his desk. Jo decides to get in touch and have them do a long string of remixes. One track stands out. Minimalistix, Struggle for pleasure. âdo me something deep dish likeâ is the word. The boys head off to Ibiza to check out the vibe and discover the whole Sasha & Digweed thing. On their return they go straight to the studio and with the sound of Space Terrace still ringing in their ears they start working on a remix that will make one of the biggest prog tracks that year. Remixes for Hooj, Platipus, Nebula & Deviant follow. They quickly establish their name as âfirst callâ remixers. Filterheadz now stands for progressive, but with tough beats and a very sharp edgeâ¦
Filterheadz Love Techno: in mean time their techno output on Headroom labels Session and Traction starts flowing, collaborations with Zzino & Tomaz prove to be damn popular, finding favor with Carl Cox, and making it onto a quite a few comps. Intec get in touch and ask for âa latin techno trackâ, which ends up being the Ibiza favorite, and all round smash record âSunshineâ.
More remixes: Green Velvet âLa La Landâ, Bedrock âEmeraldâ, Whatever Girl âActivatorâ, Eddie Amador âHouse Musicâ, Kira âIâll be your angelâ and further mixes for Tiesto and Oliver Lieb, just to name a few.
The Present: After having the best selling techno record of the year Bert and Maarten decide its time for another challenge. Tribalicious, their debut mix cd on N.E.W.S. is a collection of tribal monsters, tech beats, spacious overtones and some downright offbeat stuff. Bert and Maarten use their hailed production skills to re-mix, re-work, re-build and simply abuse all the tracks to bring what we can only describe as⦠the filterheadz sound. The cd features a new tune âBlue Carâ which signals a new direction for Filterheadz.
The Future: with a dance/indie crossover album in the works, a nice list of secret side projects and a lot more dj and live dates, the future looks bright for Filterheadz.
