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8-26-2003

Bram Bos is the soft-spoken originator of the Tu Tribe. Having found himself drowning in the underground success of his on-the-fly virtual drum machine Hammerhead, he continues the legacy of providing the PC musician with tools to further the art of home recording. Tu2, an updated version of the popular Tuareg software, continues to inspire and enable computer musicians worldwide to express themselves in an intuitive, inexpensive and unique manner.

What book are you reading now?

"In the footsteps of Tibetan Buddhism"

If you could meet one person dead or alive, who would that be?

I would prefer to meet her alive :-)

What are the primary ingredients for a great song?

The single most important thing in music (imho) is "atmosphere", which determines the emotion a song evokes. I can appreciate music from a lot of different genres, but in the end most of those songs/pieces have a certain character in common. Some sort of soul beneath the surface of the basic melody. For example, I can name some tracks from BT, Tool and Portishead that sound radically different from each other, but manage to trigger the same chills in my mind because they share the same kind of atmosphere.

I'm guessing that your musical forays have not made you a millionaire... do you have "real" job?

Heh. I promised myself never to become a professional musician. The European music business is so rotten that I want to save myself some major frustrations. I won't let it become more serious than a hobby (though I hate the word "hobby"). In real life, I am an interaction designer. Someone who designs the way we interact with complex technology. In other words; I make things user-friendly. A great combination of being creative, using my brain to solve problems/puzzles, and make useful products. A very rewarding thing to do..

Tell a horrible road trip story.

Lol! A road trip in The Netherlands? It takes only two hours to drive from one side of the country to the other side - without breaking any speed limit. Driving from one urban area into the next takes 10 minutes, tops. That's not enough time to experience something horrible enough worth telling here.. I guess this is not exactly the right place for groovy road-trips :-)

Do you have any favorite local bands or artists?

Local as in Dutch? Hmmm.. I like Anouk.. a rock-chick with an attitude who makes some nice rock/metal music. We also have some very talented DJ's running around, like Tiesto, Armin van Buuren etc.

When you travel, what do you do for fun?

Oh.. I just love traveling. Especially in combination with my other hobby: photography. I like to visit countries that aren't too spoiled by tourism yet, and if there are some mountains to climb, all the better. That is something I seriously miss in The Netherland: it's so darned flat over here!! But there's a pattern in the places I visit. I remember having a book about lost civilisations back when I was kid. It was full of black and white pictures of huge temple ruins covered by jungle. Now, many years later, I have the chance to travel around the world and I am trying to visit all those places in real life. Which has already led me from the humid jungles of Cambodia to the foggy mountains of Peru and the mysterious valleys of Tibet.

What was the first instrument you learned, and what other instruments do you play?

Like many others, I started out playing the recorder (flute). Didn't like it, so after learning the basics I quit. Years later I decided I wanted to be drummer. Now, that was something I loved. Those were the days of crossover; Rage against the Machine, Helmet, Urban Dance Squad. When my band split up after a couple of years I decided to go the electronic way so I could do anything I thought was nice. But percussion and drums have always been an important element in my music. By the way.. I've just bought some real tablas in India, but I can't play them yet. Love the sound of 'em though..

What is your greatest achievement so far?

The creation of Hammerhead. Many years ago. When I made that drum-computer on a rainy Wednesday afternoon I really had no idea that over a million copies of it would be floating over the world in a matter of months..