After coming home from Japan March 1996 I couldn’t wait to get back .But first a new album had to be made . The first track I recorded was Don’t Let The World Fall Down On You followed by Don’t Tell Me, a song inspired by Nick Kershaw’s ’Wouldn’t It Be Good’ and ‘The Riddle’ .I wanted to change the style more drastically but didn’t know what direction to follow . So writing went slow . My heart was with playing live , we didn’t do enough shows to fulfill the hunger for the stage . Though I upgraded my studio big time I wasn’t anxious to play with the new toys. Didn’t feel like recording at all . Only a few songs came out . My aching Heart, Welcome To The Nineties and My Side Of the Story, a very short a cappella thing , my answer to some rumours back then : ‘It’s the other way around’. And ‘Christmas In Heaven’ which I already recorded most of before the tour .But my heart was in Japan , couldn’t get myself inspired here in Holland .So I went to Osaka, Japan , actually not just for the country , but for love .Never felt happier before than those months in Osaka . The songs came out quickly , most of them without a piano nor guitar . Wrote it all down and hummed it in at a memo recorder . I remember walking on the streets and suddenly every part of ‘Back On The Track’ came to me , rushed back to the apartment to write it down . I was so in peace with everything, so very much in love. I felt that everything came together at that time .That’s why I called the album ‘UNITED’.When after a few weeks a piano arrived at the apartment all the songs had already been written. Arranging them was the only thing left to do .The Wisseloord studio and engineer Matt Butler were already booked 5\u002F6 months in advance for the mixes and some additional recordings ,so eventually I had to return to Holland to start recording at my new equipment again.Newly wed , with a heavy heart I returned home , alone .With a tight recording schedule, missing my love, I dragged myself into the studio . That was tough . Because the new recording-system failed time and again , it broke down so many times . There were many times the failing machines drove me insane , it ruined most of the fun for me. And the deadline was getting closer . But I managed to finish everything at home in time where Johan Willems was a big help again with the harmony vocals . Guitarist Vinnie Kay from the new live band did a couple of solo’s and sang harmonies on one track . Also Juan was a big support, programmed some drums and also sang in a chorus . In the studio Juan replaced the programmed drums on ‘The Visionary Victim ‘ by real ones. A track that also starts out a-cappella , with mouth emulated guitar solo and drums . The Koch family played some terrific fast violin parts on I Believe In Music and Back On The Track and we hired the same bag pipe player as on ‘Megaman’ to play on ‘The Power Above’ on which Dutch session guitar player Bert Meulendijk did a solo . Engineer Matt Butler was great as always. I had a very nice time with him . So for a change this time no problems in the studio whatsoever. It went rather smoothly .The last track Rise And Shine was an anthem we used to end the live concerts with in 1996. I thought it was also nice to end the album with .The intro has the same melody and title . Originally I did a solo-vocal trying to do it the way like an official sports game often begins with . Matt found it no good and summoned me to go back home and do better . He was right , although I hated to go back into recording when I thought everything was finished , but later I was glad to have followed the Admiral’s order .I used to be a bit superstitious and always had something with the number 4.And in that way I thought everything came together with this album .It was the 4th album. 16 tracks (4x4) . The year of release ’97. 9+7,16 (4x4) , A piano usually has 88 keys 8+8,16 (4x4). I was 28, 2x8,16 (4x4) Valentines day 2-14 etc. etc. … had a lot more of that numerological nonsense that made me believe this album would finally give me the big breakthrough. But it all turned out differently. And I should have known , because in Japanese the number 4 (shi) also means death . It’s the bad luck number in Japan .On June 15 we made the video of ‘I Believe In Music’ with director\u002Fphotographer Niels van Iperen .Right on that day my father passed away . And everything changed .I can’t express enough how important he was for me and what a terrible shock it was. From this album I Will Come Through was one of his favourites, and it was played at his funeral . When I hear back the song, always the image comes to mind of everyone there standing up, paying tribute to my fantastic dad .A few days after I had to go to Japan to promote the album. Though the sales didn’t really meet my unrealistically high expectations, it did rather well . At least I was happy with the album and the whole package .Art-director Takashi Ito put my ideas into reality well.I’d put 2 photo’s from my childhood in it. There’s a picture of me in Dutch national colour soccer outfit posing the way soccer players do when the national anthem is playing before a game . The picture is taken in our backyard where later my dad built the studio. There’s also a picture of me playing my mother’s old piano . In the intro ‘Rise And Shine ‘ of the album you can softly hear a small part from an old recording of that time , a bit of Bohemian Rhapsody : ‘Sometimes wish I’d never been born at all’.