I was born with a love of singing. I can’t recall when it started, but for as long as I can remember, I was always singing. I was born in Amsterdam and we lived on a square.
I climbed the phonebooths on that square, to sing from atop of them and everybody had to hear me – I guess that was the start for me as an entertainer. At the age of 18 I started singing in a band called Chinee. I wrote my own lyrics and vocal lines from then and after tryouts with other bands, I finally ended up with Jewel. After a phone call and a visit to the band, I finally heard the music for the first time. Once I heard the song that later became Mystery Of Fate, I was sure this would be my destination as a singer. I felt the need to change all the lyrics and vocal lines just to make it more a piece of myself and fortunately this worked out perfectly. The music of Henky Backer and my vocals became the sound of the band Jewel – we were wild and ready.
We shared good and bad times together which created a bond and one of the best things that happened to this band was a trip to the USSR in August 1989. This was far beyond adventure. What we experienced there in three weeks would have taken a year in Europe. It was crazy, dangerous, extraordinary, emotional, powerful and above all, an amazing trip. We were the first Metal band that played in Georgia in the south of the USSR. For us, the football stadiums we played in was unforgettable, with a huge highlight, two concerts in the Lenin Dinamo stadium, home of Dinamo Tbilisi in Tbilisi. The cherry on the cake was the recording of Revolution In Heaven. Still, without a record label, we knew we couldn’t continue forever and when that frustration hit us all, we decided to call it quits.
Never the less I don’t look back to the bad part of the years in Jewel. I look back on some wonderful years with an awesome experience. It’s like I lived a dream, but when I have the new Revolution In Heaven on vinyl in my hands, I know that everything we experienced thru the years was worth every second of it.
Rick Ambrose