De Mens

Frank Vander Linden had a steady gig writing for the Belgian magazine Humo when he and his old friend Michel De Coster, veterans of a string of hobby bands, decided to get serious. He quit the magazine to make music full-time, and in 1992 the Brussels band De Mens was up and running, Vander Linden singing and playing guitar, De Coster on bass.

The first demos were in English, but Vander Linden switched to standard Dutch, and it was the making of the band: in his own language he could slip in shades of meaning and wordplay, and the lyrics took on a wry, literate bite. "Dit is mijn huis" was their first single on the radio in 1992, ahead of the self-titled album De Mens, and "Jeroen Brouwers (schrijft een boek)" and "Irene" followed it out. "Irene" is plain-spoken, guitar-driven rock with a crooked smile, and it was still turning up on countdowns more than a decade later.

The second album, Ik wil meer, delivered "Nederland", "Zij zit daar en ik zit hier" and "Lachen en mooi zijn". Dirk Jans came aboard on drums and backing vocals in 1994, and the three of them still make up the band. Vander Linden, meanwhile, built a name as a writer in his own right.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.