George Kooymans

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

George Kooymans was born on 11 March 1948 in The Hague. In 1961 the thirteen-year-old started a band with his neighbour Rinus Gerritsen. They first called themselves The Tornados, but when it turned out that a British group with that name had just had a hit, it became The Golden Earrings. In 1965 the breakthrough came with the first single Please Go. Shortly afterwards the singer Barry Hay joined, and in 1970, with the drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk, the line-up was complete that would stay together for fifty years.

Music and breakthrough

Kooymans played guitar, sang and wrote most of the music and lyrics of what later became Golden Earring. The band became world famous with Radar Love (1973), Twilight Zone (1982) and When the Lady Smiles (1984). Twilight Zone, written by him, became the group's only top ten hit on the American Billboard Hot 100. Golden Earring had almost thirty top ten hits in the Netherlands and made 25 studio albums.

Influence

Kooymans also wrote and produced for others. He launched the singer Bojoura, discovered Earth and Fire and wrote their hit Seasons. Later he also wrote the Kinderen voor Kinderen hit Vuur en Vlam. From 2017 to 2023 he made three albums with Henny Vrienten and Boudewijn de Groot as the Dutch-language supergroup Vreemde Kostgangers. In February 2021 he announced that he had ALS and stopped making music, after which Golden Earring ceased to exist. He died in July 2025, aged 77.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1973Jojo
• 1987Solo
• 2010On Location
• 2022Mirage

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Mixtape 11: Nederpop^NL Reader
• Magazine: Nederpop in the Cold War^NL Magazine

Mentioned in other articles

• Radar Love SongThe band stopped when the guitarist George Kooymans was diagnosed with ALS.