Rowwen Hèze is a dutch band with frontman Jack Poels from the southern province Limburg in The Netherlands.

The band is well known for its poetic lyrics and partysongs in the Limburg dialect. They're strongly influenced by tex-mex and polka music.

Many of the lyrics picture mundane items, like a young bird falling from a tree, a famous person in the village, a funeral, praying to find a missing item, the local bar or just waking up with a hangover. Fortunately there is quite something more behind these lyrics. They go deeper than people might think.

The band was founded in 1985. Jack Poels joined a band who called themselves 'The Legendary Texas Four', who were looking for a new frontman. Poels joined them on one condition; He wanted to play one song in the local dialect of Limburg. The other members agreed and Rowwen Hèze was born.

Rowwen Hèze got their name from a local person, Christiaan Hesen, who got the same nickname. Roughly translated, this nickname means 'Rough Hesen'. Under this new name, the band started covering songs from Thin Lizzy. The band also wrote dutch carnaval songs every year.

The band saw two members leave through the first years. Mart Deckers (drums) and Geert Hermkes (accordeon) left the band.

In 1991 the band existed of:

- Jack Poels (lead singer, guitar)

- Tren van Enckevort (accordeon, piano, trombone)

- Jan Philipsen (bass)

- Theo Joosten (guitar, mandoline, tin whistle, percussion)

- Jack Haegens (trumpet, trombone, percussion)

These are still the current members of the band.

The band performed at the 1992 Pinkpop festival in Landgraaf, Netherlands. It became a great success, there was a live broadcast on the dutch television of the performance. At the time, the band had released four albums; 'Rowwen Hèze' in 1987, 'Blieve Loepe' in 1990, 'Boem' in 1991 and 'In De Wei' in 1992.

In the following years, the band released several albums. 'Station America' was the fifth studio album, released in 1993. In 1995, 'Zondag in het Zuiden' was released and two years later 'Water, Lucht & Liefde' followed. In 1999 the band released a live theater recording by the name of 'Het Beste van 2 Werelden'.

Since the theater album, the band again released four albums. After 2000's 'Vandaag' and 2003's 'Dageraad', the band released an anniversary album. This album, released in 2005, was called ''Het Beste van 20 Joar' (The Best of 20 Years) and contains a live performance.

But, even after 20 years, Rowwen Hèze continued releasing new singles and albums. 'Rodus & Lucius' was released in 2006 and in 2008 there was another album, called 'Saus'. The 'Saus' album contained a live performance of their theater tour, with (mostly) new versions of their classic songs.

Their 2008 single 'Nar Boave' was used for the 'Radio Tour de France' radio program.

Official site: www.rowwenheze.nl

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