Herman Brood & His Wild Romance

Herman Brood (born Zwolle, The Netherlands, 05 November 1946; died Amsterdam, 11 July 2001) was a Dutch rock and roll musician, painter and media personality. After playing piano in Cuby + Blizzards and several other bands since 1964, Brood started his own group, Herman Brood & His Wild Romance, in 1977. The band had their first hit single, Saturday Night, in 1978. It was taken from their best known and most succesful studio album, 1978's Shpritsz. A a live band, the leather-clad Wild Romance took The Netherlands (and Germany) by storm. Read more on Last.fm

Herman Brood (born Zwolle, The Netherlands, 05 November 1946; died Amsterdam, 11 July 2001) was a Dutch rock and roll musician, painter and media personality. After playing piano in Cuby + Blizzards and several other bands since 1964, Brood started his own group, Herman Brood & His Wild Romance, in 1977. The band had their first hit single, Saturday Night, in 1978. It was taken from their best known and most succesful studio album, 1978's Shpritsz. A a live band, the leather-clad Wild Romance took The Netherlands (and Germany) by storm. But even more than his music, it was his outspoken statements in the press about sex and drug use that brought Herman Brood into the public arena in The Netherlands. In the early 1980s he was romantically involved with the German artist, Nina Hagen, with whom he appeared in the film Cha Cha. Brood relished the media attention and became the most famous hard drug user in the Netherlands. In the 1990s he took up painting and soon became more successful as a painter athan he was as a musician (for a rock musician as legendary as Herman Brood, his studio LPs after 1980 sold remarkably poorly). Brood swore off most drugs, reducing his drug use to alcohol and a daily shot of speed. Sadly (and ironically), this healthier lifestyle turned him into a vulnerable man almost overnight. He decided to take matters into his own hands and committed suicide: on 11 July 2001 he jumped off the roof of the Amsterdam Hilton hotel, at aged of 54. Close friend, Bart Chabot, wrote about Brood's life in a string of biographies: "Broodje gezond", "Broodje halfom", "Brood en spelen" and "Broodje springlevend". Admirer, Black Francis, recorded a studio album (Bluefinger) as a tribute to Herman Brood. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.