FUTURE TENSE - WOERDEN (UTRECHT)

BIOGRAPHY: Future Tense started at the end of the 70s. The bandmembers played in many bands before and played all types of rock. At a certain point a new band was started and called ‘New Spring Band’, featuring Michiel van Loef on guitars, Tjerk Kiesel on bass, Rico Hoek on drums and Peter Ockhuyzen on vocals. Soon they had to change the name, because the initials ‘NSB’ were the same as the Dutch Naziparty in WWII. After 6 month Rico was sent to another band and Ruud Beunder came to replace him on the drums. After some thinking Michiel came up with the name Future Tense. ‘Future’ was meaning their ambition to the future and ‘Tense’ was the tension, which comes along the way. Soon they played live in their region, which was around Woerden, not really a big city, and it can described as a village in the countryside. They rehearsed in a farm!
After some time a first demo “Future Tense was recorded. Some changes were made Rob Weber on guitar and Cock van Drunen on vocals were invited to join the band. From that time Future Tense created it's typical heavy-metal sound and their typical Heavy Metal sound is in development. The typical Future Tense sound could be heared on on their second demo ‘Protect Your Ears’. A few months later their third demo ‘Battle of metal’ appeared. This one was issued in ’83 en sent all over the world. Also in America, where the manager from another Dutch band Together, Jan Scheffers, made a lot of Future Tense promotion. The demo was played at radiostations and ended up very high in the polls, even before bands like Iron Maiden.
This attracted the attention of Brian Slagel from Metal Blade who just started up this label. He issued some compilation LP’s under the name of ‘Metal Masscre’ and for issue nr. 5, he was interested in putting a song from Future Tense on this LP. The result was the song ‘Nightmare’ and so became Future Tense the first European band, which appeared on a release from Metal Blade (together with another legendary band, Hellhammer).

At same time back in Holland the band signed a deal with Universe for an MLP. Just before the recording the very young guitarist Reinier Schenk joined the band to make the guitarsound heavier. The recording just took two days in some kind of mobile studio. The result, the MLP ‘Condemned to the Gallow’ were great, although the band was not that pleased with the sound. But songs like ‘Sword of Vengeance’ or ‘Condemned to the Gallow’ really marked their epic satanic Heavy Metal mage. The cover was drawn by a streetjunkie, founded on the streets somewhere. After the release of the Metal Massacre compilation and the MLP the reviews were not that glorious. Especially Cock’s voice had to stand a lot of critical notes. In the meantime they played some great live shows. Mostly they played on stage with two burning crosses (the two ‘T’s in their logo).
A legendary live show was at Klarenpop where the guys were treated like stars and the crowd went totally mad when they started. The band had a very fanatic following. Especially some fans from Zeddam. They followed Future
Tense everywhere they played. One time the band played in Geleen, which was for those guys almost the other side of Holland. But after a very long trip on their mopeds (!!!) they visited the gig.
Despite the releases they didn’t play as much live as they wanted to and also the interest in the band didn’t increase.
The motivation went down by the months and so it happened that in early ’85 the band split up.
The guys continued in lots of other bands, but it never had that success and ‘magic’ as with Future Tense.
Over the years the band got forgotten by all the journalists and labelpeople, but never by the die-hards who still kept the band in their hearts.
So it was no surprise that an initiative came from these die-hards to approach Tjerk for an interview for the German underground fanzine ‘That’s Metal’. Soon the HM Maniacs foundation, an underground organisation
asked the guys if they could put an old Future Tense song on their compilation. Tjerk answered that he rather put a new Future Tense recording on this album. In 2001 this sampler was released with a new recording of
‘Evil Attack’ and the never released demo song ‘Battle of Metal’. On the CD released party the band played together after 16 years!! Although it was without Reinier (he could not make the time) and they played only 2 songs. The crowd and the band loved it!!

After a period it seems that also in the Black Metal scene Future Tense had still a name. The Danish Black Metal ‘Denial of God’ announced they wanted to cover ‘Sword of Vengeance’ on their coming MLP.
Future Tense did some more live gigs, like on the 2003 edition of the Heavy Metal Maniacs festival, and their last in their hometown Woerden (2004). This was the official goodbye gig, at least for vocalist Cock & Guitarist Reinier. The band stated they where searching for replacements, but nothing was heard after their goodbye gig anymore.

(Stefan)

MEMBERS:

Cock van Drunen - vocals
Rob Weber - guitars (Other bands: Valkyrie)
Reinier Schenk - guitars
Tjerk Kiesel - bass
Ruud Beunder - drums

Michiel van Loef - guitars
Rico Hoek - drums
Peter Ockhuyzen - vocals

DISCOGRAPHY:

1982 Protect your ears(DEMO)
1983 Battle of Metal (DEMO)
1984 Condamned to the Gallow (MLP)
2003 Swords of Vengeance (CDR EP)
2004 Crossing the swords again (COMP LP)

MEMORABILIA