Lucassen & Soeterboek’s Plan Nine‘s The Long-Lost Songs album will be released on 17th May via Music Theories Recordings/Mascot Label and ahead of that is the single ‘Ice On Fire‘ that comes with a fun new comic-book themed animated video that you can check out here at RAMzine.
The song rockets its way out of the 80s and into a fresh faced 2024 with all the flamboyance, stadium-sized melodies and insatiable chorus of many 80s rock classics.
Talking about the song Arjen Lucassen said, “Howdy y’all! I’m proud to present to you the second Plan Nine video and single, ‘Ice On Fire’. It was very hard to pick a second single, because we love them all! So we had the label pick this one. As you can hear this track is quite different from the first bluesy song ‘Before The Morning Comes’. I think you’ll agree that this track sounds quite 80s. Which is no surprise… because we wrote it about 35 years ago!”
Regarding the video he commented: “The clip is illustrated by Elan Lopez and edited by Dionne Mokkenstorm at Mascot Label Group. We hope you will enjoy all the silliness, have a real good time and let us know what you think!”
How did Plan Nine come about? Well, it may have been an overnight decision, but it took some time for it to see fruition. As if he wasn’t busy enough in the early nineties, musical polymath Arjen Lucassen had begun working on several projects: a solo album, a progressive-rock opera and a rock album. Around this time, he watched singer Robert Soeterboek perform live with Bodine, his former early-eighties heavy metal band.
“His vocals truly impressed me, a rarity!” Lucassen recalled. “He had the charisma and power of singers like David Coverdale and Robert Plant. Discovering that we really got along personally, we decided to collaborate on some songs, just for fun.”
“We started writing songs together and found a natural flow, leading to a wealth of ideas,” remembered Soeterboek. “Our friendship grew as we spent more time together, and I remember that there were lots of shenanigans and laughter.”
They would meet daily in Lucassen’s small studio, basically a bedroom with a mattress and an old 8-track tape recorder. There, they recorded around 20 basic ideas. They brought in Peter Vink on bass, Cleem Determeijer on Hammond, and Rob van der List on drums, who has since passed away, and attracted interest from producers and labels. However, in the early-nineties grunge landscape, landing a record deal was challenging. Some labels were interested but hesitated due to fears about being able to sell albums in the era dominated by bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Eventually, the repeated rejections wore them down. “I decided to start working on my rock opera project, expecting it to be the last musical thing I would ever do. My final experiment, so to speak!” Lucassen exclaimed.
Soeterboek joined the German band Wicked Sensation and worked with Lucassen on the first Ayreon album and throughout the years in the studio and live, as well as being the frontman for The Cotton Soeterboek Band. Talking about reconnecting, Soeterboek said, “I was thinking about recording a new album. I had some songs ready and was talking to labels. Recording ‘Annie Moore’ had been a dream of mine for ages. Although Arjen was busy with various projects, he agreed to work on it. Collaborating on this track has rekindled our enjoyment, like a trip down memory lane.”
Fast forward to 2022, and they revisited those recordings. “For the song ‘Annie Moore’ we involved Peter and Cleem on bass and Hammond, and Peter’s wife Mirjam van Doorn on backing vocals, with my current go-to drummer, Koen Herfst, adding his magic,” Lucassen explained. “Everyone involved was excited by the result, and I found it so inspiring that I rewrote and rerecorded several other songs. Soon, I couldn’t stop! Robert and I spent weeks digging through our old cassettes and DAT tapes, discovering many potential gems we hadn’t yet developed. Before we knew it, we had enough songs for a full album and more.”
The upshot of this is that on 17th May Lucassen & Soeterboek’s Plan Nine album The Long-Lost Songs will be released via Music Theories Recordings/Mascot Label Group.
The album is said to encapsulate “a glorious treasure trove of 11 original songs with a loving 70s and 80s nod”. There’s a blistering romp through the good time rolling rocker of ‘Let It Ride’, The Beatles-esque ‘Doctor Robert’s Medicine Show’, the bluesy groove of ‘Annie Moore’, chugging glam stomp of ‘High-Speed Chase’ through to the 80s metal of ‘Ice On Fire’, whilst ‘The Preacher’ could fit on a number of A Lucassen’s back catalogue records. There’s also a bonus disc featuring all the demos and some more newly recorded tracks.
The full track list is ‘Doctor Robert’s Medicine Show’, ‘The Preacher’, ‘Annie Moore’, ‘Get Down To Bizniz’, ‘Before The Morning Comes’, ‘High Speed Chase’, ‘Let It Ride’, ‘Ice On Fire’, ‘Long Cold Night’, ‘Drunker Than Whiskey’ and ‘Die With Your Shades On’.
As previously noted, evidence of the music first came to the public’s ears by way of the single and video for ‘Before The Morning Comes’ that you can watch here at RAMzine.
Lucassen continued, “We wanted the best and most suitable musicians for this album who could tour with Robert. Koen handled the powerful drums. Rob van der Loo (Epica) laid down a solid bass foundation. The talented Irene Jansen delivered amazing backing vocals, as always. And, one of the world’s best guitarists, Marcel Singor, played the virtuoso solos with his immediately recognisable style.”
“I’m particularly thankful to Arjen,” Soeterboek said. “Amidst preparing for the Ayreon shows, he went above and beyond to record this album with me. Inspiring each other and enjoying the process again has meant a lot. We’re returning to a time when life was very different, and we barely had a penny to spare.”
