Bio Band Besides That (Bedum) 1988-2008

The band Besides That was founded in the summer of 1988 by singer and guitarist Berry Hoeksema. The official spelling was Besides That… In the first months the band had Gert B. on drums. In 1988 around the fall Gert Zwerver was replacing him on drums. In 1988, Besides That was one of many bands from Bedum with an active music culture, this band drawing inspiration from groups such as The Cure, U2, Simple minds, The Church and The Alarm. Their first demo was recorded in December 1988 and featured four pop-rock songs. As with many starting bands, there were numerous lineup changes the first years. See chart below:

Image 1. Time line Besides That

Image 2. Besides That (1989) Joop, bass, Berry guitar vocals and Gert Z drums. The first demo “Chinese food in Belgium” in 1988 was made in this line up.

1991, Mark Steenhuis (lead guitar and keyboards) joined the band. Berry stopped playing guitar and focused in lead vocals. Joop on bass made room in 1991 for Jan on bass. The band made the second demo “Visions”(1991).

Image 2b. Jan on bass (with beard) played only a year, Rob replaced Jan in 1992 on bass guitar. Picture in bar Pican Tropics 1991.

Image 3. Besides That at Beempop (1992). Mark, Berry and Rob on bass.

Nice peak moment for the band. In 1992, at Beempop festival, Besides That performed as the opening act for the Muskee Gang. In the winter of 1992 a third demo was released “Land of lies”.

Mark brought later along keyboard player Jeroen Bruintjes from his earlier bands, and in 1994 Cees de Jong joined as permanent bass player.

Audio engineer and soundscape artist Bruintjes left his mark on the fourth demo Burn (1994) and also on the first CD Lament of the Naiad (1995). The music of Besides That shifted from light pop-rock to rock-pop with heavy keyboard arrangements.

Main lineup from 1994 tot 1997:

Vocals – Berry Hoeksema
Bass – Cees de Jong
Drums – Gert Zwerver
Guitar – Mark Steenhuis
Keyboards – Jeroen Bruintjes

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Image 4. Tonika Award. 1995

The years 1995 and 1996 were good ones for Besides That, with an honorable participation in the Tonika Award (1995) and the opening act at Pagepop (1996) with Benjamin B and SKIK.

Image 5 and 6. Pagepop (1996)

All things come to an end, and Bruintjes moved to Amsterdam, leaving Besides That. In 1998, the band celebrated its tenth anniversary. With the second album, CD The Sign (1998) the band, now four people, launched a own website. That was a thing back then. Hand coded HTML.

Image 7. Live Appingedam (1998)

Image 8. Local News on the gig in Appingedam.

One of the highlights in the nineties was a concert at Noorderzon on August 28, 1999.

Image 9. Rockblock at Noorderzon (1999).

Besides That released two official music video’s.

Love is a secret place (Video by Richard Dijkema) and Do you know what love means (Video by Richard Dijkema). Songs are from 1995 so there is keyboards on this video.

Image 10. Official Video clips (1998). Direct link here.

Since 1996, the unchanged four piece lineup has formed a tight-knit band with dark compositions. The songs became harder, shorter, and sharper, as can be heard on the third CD Driven (2001). Recorded in Beaufort Studio’s Amsterdam. Mark played keyboards on that album too. This is one of the best sounding records.

Image 11. Berry filming Cees and Mark listening to the master tracks in Studio Beaufort (2001).

Image 12 – poster, 13 Besides That live in bar “Achterdek”. (2002).

Image 14 Besides That playing a small setup live on the OOG radio. (2003). Unplugged was hip back then.

Image 15 Besides That live in bar “Cafe Koster”. (2004) with our band manager Aaltje on the left.

A very nice gig and with a good quality recording was the 2005 festival at Harry Loco’s his bar. Don’t know who took the pictures but good eye! The recording is on youtube. We remember, no soundcheck! Plugin and play.

Image 16. Besides That live at Harry Loco (2005).

Image 17. Gert Zwerver behind the kit. Harry Loco gig. (2005).

Image 18. (VIDEO the gig at Harry Loco Youtube)

Big highlight in 2006 was a performance on Sunstation, a famous festival in Middelstum. Opening for Hydrofish and VAN DIKHOUT.

Image 19. Besides That live on the stage at Sunsation (2006)

Things were getting slow. The landscape of music also changed around us with DJ’s all over the place and less live music. And 95% electronic music in the charts.

In 2007 the band released the fourth and last album ever, called 24-7.(The demo burn and four albums are on Spotify ). The album “24-7” was Recorded by Mark on 16 tracks in our rehearsal space between 2006 and 2007.

Image 20. Draft print and official print of the cover of the album 24-7

Image 21. Besides That live in Simplon to celebrate the release the fourth album (2007).

Image 22. Video still and link from the CD launch party Concert in Simplon (2007).

2008 was the last year of Besides That, some cool gigs!

Image 23. Delfzijl Harley dag gig (2008).

In 2008 three songs, Trip, Superman and Red Alert were released as leftovers because there was not going to be a new album.

Image 24 and 25. Gig at Queensday Bar Marleen/Karakter. *(2008)*

The last gig ever was in cafe Den Hertog. Sunday evening November 30.

Screenshot from the video from the last gig. We did not made a big deal out of it.

“Is that all ”

In 2019 there were plans to perform once more but after two rehearsals Covid19 invaded our country and the plans were put in the fridge. After the covid break we rehearsed again for the reunion concert but health issues with Gert our drummer made us put the plan on halt again.
On our Youtube channel there is a nice rehearsal 360 video of one of our songs (Love will rescue you) – we still got it and we had fun playing.

With the passing of Gert in 2026 this really means the end of this band. Gert was besides from a amazing drummer a kind and gentle soul.

Gert 1967-2026.