The Band

I am drummer and singer in Silhouette and my name is Jos Uffing. I’ve been playing in various bands since I was 14. This varied from “Dutch”-pop to Hardrock. I started out as a singer and after playing the bass for a couple of years, I turned to my favourite : Drumming. I didn’t have that much experience with progressive rock. During the summer of 1999 I was part of the prog-band “Cliffhanger”, but that ended for several reasons.

Anyway, back to 2001. I concentrated on drums and played in a countryband (!), which I’d met through a friend. Very nice, but not particularly my music. I did learn how to drum, but that’s all there was to it. During that time, I saw an ad on the internet of a band that needed a singer and a drummer. Since I was both, that was perfect! There was a phone number of a guy called Brian de Graeve. I called Brian, but the band had already ceased to exist. During this conversation it appeared that we had a lot in common, music-wise, and decided to stay in touch. Every couple of weeks we met and exchanged self-made songs, listen to music and play the guitar.

After a couple of years it started to itch: wouldn’t it be great playing our own songs with a band. So, in 2004 we decided to take the plunge, and, after Brian made a tour amongst his many connections, we had a complete line-up in no time. Bass guitar player GJ Bloemink; keyboardist Toine van Riesewijk and guitar player Henny van Veenendaal joined the band.

Our temporary practice grounds was the school I’m working at, so we got started. I have to say: it felt good, finally playing our songs with a complete band. The line-up, however, started to fall apart very soon. Henny lived quite a long distance from the practice grounds away and had a lot of other things to do. He remained close to the band however as he was an excellent graphic designer and - as turned out later on - he would apply this by creating the artwork of our CDs. Toine developed health-problems and needed to stop in that same year.

Our main mission was to find a new keyboard-player. An ad was placed and in the fall of 2004 GJ, Brian and myself practised a lot to create a solid base for a new band-member. Early 2005 that band-member arrived finally: Erik Laan. Besides his (vintage) keyboards, Erik also contributed with written songs and a excellent voice. We had a more than welcome new band-member! The definitive line up was now:

Brian de Graeve: Guitars and vocals

Jos Uffing: Drums and vocals

Erik Laan: Keyboards and vocals

GJ Bloemink: Bass Guitar

We picked a name and in 2005 Silhouette was born! This line-up appeared to be rather solid and after 2005 the four of us started to rehearse every week in Brian’s studio, writing and arranging songs. The chemistry in this line up was very positive from the beginning. Although we all had slightly different musical roots, we found each other in our quest for progressive rock, with a preference for a strong, melodic song base. We tried to combine exciting and challenging instrumental parts with songs that you should be able to sing at a camp fire with a guitar.

In 2006 we started to record stuff in Erik’s studio and in 2007 we released A Maze, our debut album. Although it was a low budget production auto-release, this album was received well all over the world. In the same year we played our first gig and after that Silhouette gradually started to build up a name for its live performance act in the Netherlands.

In 2008 and 2009 Silhouette worked on its second album Moods, a 78 minute long concept album, which was released in the autumn of 2009. This album was produced more professionally (the mixing and mastering being done by Knight Area's Gerben Klazinga) and was consequently released by the Swedish label Progress Records. According to the reviews that popped up everywhere in the world and showed that Moods was enthusiastically received, the name of Silhouette was definitively settled in the world wide prog community.