1999–2000: Formation Di-rect began in October 1999 when 15-year-old Jamie Westland asked his father Dick to help him set up a band. Three other teenagers joined him, the oldest being 19-year-old frontman Tim Akkerman. Within a few months, Di-rect completed a five-track demo which included the song "Just the Way I Do".
3FM radio DJ
Rob Stenders saw them play live and was impressed by them. He played a song from their demo on national radio, and this generated considerable interest by record companies. Two months later Di-rect signed with Dino Music/
EMI. Bassist Bas van Wageningen came up with the band name. It was originally spelled Direct, but the band added a hyphen because the internet domain "www.direct.com" was not available.
2001–2008: Success with Akkerman In 2001, the band released "Just the Way I Do", followed by their debut album
Discover. "Just the Way I Do" became the band's first charting single in May 2001, eventually peaking at No. 24 on the
Dutch Top 40. The album's third single, "Inside My Head", became the band's first top ten hit in the Netherlands, peaking at No. 8 in March 2002. The music video for the song featured Dutch gymnast
Renske Endel, who had just won the silver medal at the
2001 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. That summer, they were also invited to appear at the
Pinkpop and
Parkpop festivals. The album was certified Gold in the Netherlands by January 2003. At the 2003
Edison Awards, "Inside My Head" won Single of the Year. The band's second album
Over the Moon was released in 2003. Its first two singles, "Adrenaline" and "She" were both top ten hits, and "She" was the band's biggest hit yet, reaching No. 2 on the Dutch Top 40. That year, Di-rect performed at the
Museumplein in Amsterdam for
Koninginnedag and signed a sponsorship contract with
Pepsi in June.
De Volkskrant noted in 2003 that Di-rect was "popular (especially among girls)" and wrote "
punky pop songs". The following singles from the album "Rollercoaster" and "Don't Kill Me Tonight" both reached the charts, but were less successful. Akkerman sang on "Als je iets kan doen", a charity single released under Artiesten voor Azië in relief for the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Di-rect's third album,
All Systems Go!, debuted at number one on the
Dutch Albums Chart in February 2005, the band's first to do so. The lead single, "Hungry for Love", was a cover of a song by
Alistair Griffin and reached No. 3 in the Netherlands. Two further singles, "Cool Without You" and "Webcam Girl", also reached the top 10, and "Blind for You", featuring the classical pianist
Wibi Soerjadi, made No. 13. In September 2005, Di-rect competed against the Belgian band
Nailpin in the Dutch
MTV show
Road Rally, where they had to travel from
California to
New York City with one full tank of gas in a van and no other expenses paid for, needing to schedule their own concerts along the way in order to make money to complete the journey. In February 2007, vocalist Tim Akkerman's first child, a daughter, was born. He married his girlfriend soon after in July 2007. On 9 April, Di-rect released "A Good Thing", the lead single for the band's self-titled fourth album. It peaked at No. 2 on the Dutch Top 40.
2009–2019: Change of frontman In March 2009, Tim Akkerman announced that he would leave Di-rect. The band's last show with Akkerman took place on 10 April 2009 at the Oude Luxor Theater in
Rotterdam, featuring the band performing
Tommy. The rest of the band expressed public disappointment in Akkerman's decision. Drummer Jamie Westland said, "We always wanted to be the new
Golden Earring and that may never happen now. We are taking a big step back with this." On November 8, in the live finale of the nationally televised
BNN program
Wie is Direct? (English:
Who is Di-rect?), the band made a unanimous decision to bring on Marcel Veenendaal from Arnhem as their new lead vocalist and frontman. The contest saw four different candidates perform against each other in three live shows at the
Paard van Troje in
The Hague. The single "Times Are Changing" was also debuted as Veenendaal's first song with them. The band also announced that keyboardist Vince van Reeken would also be a permanent member. "Times Are Changing" peaked at No. 11 on the Dutch Top 40. The band had a few minor hits soon after, but failed to chart a single for the next seven years after "Where We Belong" reached No. 24 in 2013. In 2017, Akkerman admitted that people involved with the band paid money to give Di-rect higher chart positions on the
Dutch Top 40, revealing that "there were agencies that could buy hits". He claimed the band was unaware of it at the time and said he felt the band's success was devalued because of it. In 2018, Di-rect performed at
Pinkpop Festival for the first time in 13 years, taking over for
The Kooks on the main stage as a last-minute substitution because their singer Luke Pritchard was too ill to play.
2020–present: Chart comeback In 2020, the band had a 'comeback hit' with "
Soldier On", which became the band's first top ten single in 13 years after gaining attention as an anthem of hope during the
COVID-19 lockdown in the Netherlands. In 2022, Di-rect scored a ninth top ten single with "
Through the Looking Glass", which was their second such hit with Veenendaal as lead vocalist. To celebrate the band's 25th anniversary, Di-rect announced its largest concerts yet with three shows at
De Kuip in
Rotterdam from 12 to 14 June 2025. Because the band sold 100,000 tickets within the first hour, a third show was added. They were the last concerts held at De Kuip before the stadium's ban on concerts begins in 2026. It was reported that 145,000 people attended the concerts in total. == Music and image ==