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Arjen Lucassen in De Meule'Iron Anthony' Lucassen © Jan Keereweer

Born: 3 April 1960, Hilversum
In the band: January 1982 – 7 April 1984

Performed on:   
Bold as Brass
Three Times Running

Credited for 16 tracks
No. of gigs with Bodine (documented): 62

Arjen's first favourite band were the Beatles. In the early seventies, he became interested in glam rock icons such as T.Rex, Alice Cooper, The Sweet and David Bowie. They inspired him to form a band of his own and he started a lip sync act, performing songs of their glam rock heroes at schools parties on several occasions.

One day, an older pupil handed him a copy of Deep Purple's 'Made in Japan'. After Arjen had listened to the tape and heard Ritchie Blackmore play, the spark jumped over: Arjen was going to play guitar. He practised a lot (Arjen does not consider himself a talent, more a hard worker) and played in several bands, including 'Mover', featuring Shmoulik Avigal as a lead singer. Then, in the beginning of the 1980's, Arjen got in touch with Bodine.

The story goes that Mover's drummer Klaus was following drumming lessons from Gerard Haitsma. Klaus was insisting that Arjen should come along one day to see Bodine practise. Arjen was hesitant to follow for a while, believing it was some sort of weird jazz combo. But one day he decided to come along with Klaus and was blown off his feet by what he heard.

After Jay van Feggelen left Bodine, Arjen decided to audition for a place in the band. He must have thought that Bodine's search for a new singer would be an opportunity to present himself and his song-writing and guitar playing skills to the band. Arjen took his guitar, installed his amps and played some Bodine tracks he had been rehearsing on himself for a couple of weeks.

In the beginning of the 1980's band with guitar tandems (Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Saxon) were upcoming and it was decided that Bodine switch their approach to hard rock, which gave Arjen the opportunity to join the band. The band were impressed by his ideas, lyrics and melodies and invited to join. Arjen's memories about his time with Bodine can be read on his website.

After leaving Bodine in 1984, Arjen joined Vengeance to record four albums with them. Some anthems from the Vengeance era remotely remind us of the heavier Bodine stuff: “The Power Of The Rock” on “We Have Ways To Make You Rock” (1986) and the instrumental “Engines” on “Take It Or Leave It” (1987).

When Vengeance took a break in 1992, Arjen went on to pursue his musical ambitions as Ayreon and recorded albums with the greatest hard rock and heavy metal musicians in the world (among which are Bruce Dickinson, Damian Wilson, Jorn Lande).

Arjen’s proclaimed musical influences are The Beatles, Andy Scott (The Sweet), Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple), Alice Cooper and 70's prog bands such as Emerson Lake & Palmer. On his MySpace account, Arjen lists Tony Iommi, Edward van Halen, Steve Vai and David Gilmour as musical influences.

On most songs which Xeros and Lucassen recorded together in Bodine, both Arjen and Rheno played at least one solo each. However, on all occasions Rheno played the first solo. Arjen can be heard mostly in the right channel, Xeros on the left.

Apart from MySpace, Arjen Lucassen has a profile on Facebook and a website, listing all his musical projects.


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Arjen Lucassen on MySpace

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