Herman Brood was born in
Zwolle, and started playing the piano at age 12. He founded beat band The Moans in 1964, which would later become Long Tall Ernie and the Shakers. Brood was asked to play with
Cuby and the Blizzards, but was removed by management when the record company discovered he used drugs. For a number of years Brood was in jail (for dealing
LSD), or abroad, and had a number of short-term engagements (with The Studs, the Flash & Dance Band, Vitesse). initially with Ferdi Karmelk (guitar), Gerrit Veen (bass), Peter Walrecht (drums), and Ellen Piebes and Ria Ruiters (vocals). They played the club and bar circuit, first in
Groningen (the northeasternmost province of the Netherlands). In 1977 the band released their first album,
Street. They are still best known for their second album,
Shpritsz—a play on the German word
Spritze for
syringe—from 1978. This album contained Brood anthems like "Dope Sucks," "Rock & Roll Junkie," and their first Dutch hit single, "Saturday Night." The band went through many personnel changes over the years; the best-known formation was Freddy Cavalli (bass),
Dany Lademacher (guitar) (later replaced with David Hollestelle), and Cees 'Ani' Meerman (drums). A frequent contributor was Bertus Borgers (saxophone). Brood's outspoken statements in the press about sex and
drug use brought him into the Dutch public arena even more than his music. He was romantically involved with the German singer
Nina Hagen, with whom he appeared in the 1979 film
Cha-Cha. He is reputed to be the subject of her song "Herrmann Hiess Er" (English title "Herrmann Was His Name") from the 1979
Unbehagen album, a song about a drug addict. Brood relished the media attention and became the most famous
hard drug user in the Netherlands. "It is quite common for an artist to use drugs, but not for him to tell everybody. I admit that it scared me that my popularity could make people start using drugs," he once said in an interview. In the summer of 1979, Brood tried to enter the American market, with support from Ariola's US division, which was attempting to expand into rock music. Following on the success of
Shpritsz, the band was booked as a support act for
The Kinks and
The Cars, playing in auditoriums; "Herman Brood and His Wild Romance Tour Cha Cha '79" headlined in New York's (
Bottom Line) and Los Angeles' (
Roxy). A re-recorded version of "Saturday Night" peaked at number 35 in the
Billboard Hot 100, but the big break Brood hoped for didn't happen. When he returned to the Netherlands in October 1979, his band had begun to fall apart, and soon his popularity went downhill. The 1980 album
Wait a Minute... was a minor success, but the follow-up albums
Modern Times Revive (1981) and
Frisz & Sympatisz (1982) failed to make the Dutch album charts. Brood continued to record throughout the 1980s and had a few hits—a top-10 single, "Als Je Wint" with
Henny Vrienten, and a minor hit with a reggae song, "Tattoo Song," but he spent more and more time on his art work. At the end of the '80s he made a comeback of sorts;
Yada Yada (1988), produced by
George Kooymans, was well-received, and he toured Germany with a renewed Wild Romance (which saw the return of Dany Lademacher). In 1990, he won the BV Popprijs, one of the highest Dutch awards for popular music, and recorded
Freeze with
Clarence Clemons of the
E Street Band and
Tejano accordion player
Flaco Jiménez. A live "best of" album,
Saturday Night Live, appeared in 1992. His 50th birthday, in 1996, was celebrated with a show at the
Paradiso music and cultural center in Amsterdam, and the album (of duets) was released the same year. ==Visual arts career==