When Stockholm Syndrome played their farewell show in September 2005, at the Dutch SXSW festival in Tilburg, the place was packed. The people there witnessed a great swan song from one of Holland's most innovative hardcore bands at the time.
The band lived for only five years but managed to play a shitload of shows, not only in prestigious Dutch venues like Paradiso, Goudvishal, 013, Melkweg and Vera, but also in numerous bars and squats all over Europe, with bands such as JR Ewing, Oil, Shai Hulud, Malkovich, Restless Youth, Textures, The Hope Conspiracy, Nine, Dead Stop, and many more.
Stockholm Syndrome was founded at the end of the year 2000 and played their first show exactly one year later, as Black Death released the now sold out Godforsaken Soil 7" vinyl EP.
The follow-up, Kill The Head And The Body Will Die, was recorded six months later and when it was released the initial drummer Hans Wilders was already replaced by Martijn Konings.
With this line-up (the other founding members being Mario van Meer on vocals, Maarten van der Poll on guitar and Jeroen Koeleman on bass) they started doing shows more often and eventually recorded their third release for Black Death: History Has Taught Us Nothing, the band's debut full-length CD.
In spite of all the positive reviews this album was given, Jeroen left to form Dead Rivers and was replaced by Antal Derene. This switch completed the final line-up of SS.
As of now, things got crazy and the band played everywhere from Groningen to Barcelona to the Portuguese border and back.
Behind the wheel: former drummer Hans, sometimes even sober.
In 2004 they contributed two new songs to their only non-Black Death release, the Introducing: The New Heaviness compilation CD (which also featured bands like Trouble Loves Us and Dead Rivers), and wrote and recorded a bunch of songs which finally resulted in the Galg En Rad EP, which was released in early 2005.
Most ex-members of Stockholm Syndrome are currently active in Otis, Hospital Beds and The Unborn...