Bjorn Awouters (drums/leadvocals), Marco Simoni (bass) and Nitzan Hoffmann (guitar) share the “drive” that reveals itself in their lifestyle, ambitions and most importantly, their music. Bjorn’s experience in producing and song-writing, Marco’s history in graphic and product design and Nitzan her past as a studio engineer make them to a team that give and gain inspiration from and to each other.

With their first ever live performance Drive like Maria blew away the judges and won the Dutch selection of Global Battle Of the Bands 2005, “the best first gig we’ve ever seen and a mind blowing groovy Rock ‘n Roll show” according to the judges. Despite some technical problems during the World Final of GBOB in London Astoria, the band came in second and won a trip to Mexico to perform on the biggest annual festival of Mexico City (The Historic Centre Festival April 2006).
Drive like Maria got their asses into the studio to work on new songs to add to their set list which, until then, contained only two songs.

A few months later they were ready for their third gig, which was to take place in an exotic setting on the other side of the world. 50.000 People showed up to see the free Rock show on the 5th of April at El Zocalo in Mexico City. Drive like Maria brought the Mexicans a set of hot southern Rock like they had never seen or hear before.

Back in Europe the band played a few summer festivals one of which, was Pukkelpop in Belgium (headliners this year were Beck, Massive Attack, The Raconteurs, Radiohead). In the meanwhile they spent a lot of time in the studio working on new songs. That same summer the band received invitations to appear on two of the largest showcase festivals in the US (Midpoint Music Festival in Cincinnati and NEMO Music Festival in Boston). Their plans to head out to the US for the festivals quickly grew to a 25-show tour, playing major US cities like New York, Boston, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Los Angeles and FW/Dallas.

During their two month US tour Drive like Maria became a solid rock band.

As the temperatures dropped all over Europe for the winter of 2006/2007 Drive like Maria thought the time was right to start thinking about their first official release. Right now the band is working on new songs and doing pre production for what is to become their debut album.


http://www.drivelikemaria.com
http://www.myspace.com/drivelikemaria