Sören van Heek (1971, Bocholt, Germany) is better known as Snoppi, drummer in Wizard. Previously he played with Vebrifuge, Derb, No Inner Limits and a school musical.



Van Heek started playing drums at age sixteen. He received lessons from Tony Kampermann in The Netherlands. He started on a NewSound kit, than Tama and now Pearl. Van Heek:

"The sound of the Pearl set is great, but the tom holders are shit. That was better with the Tama kit. As cymbals I have tried everything: Paiste, Sabian, Zildjian, Meinl and they all broke very soon. So I only buy cheap cymbals nowadays, it would be too expensive to pay 200-300 euros each time a crash cymbal breaks."

Van Heek started playing drums with two friends (guitar and keyboard), than after half a year he played together with Michael Maass, than also with Dano Boloan (both Wizard now) and next he founded Wizard with Sven and Volker. Asked what he has learned recently, Van Heek answers:

"I did not improve the last eight years, because I did not take lessons any more and Wizard needs very less technical drums. When I played more technical in the early beginning, the other guys in the band always told me to stop it. So I concentrated more on drinking beer and watching chicks while playing … So I know that I am not the best drummer, but who cares? As long as it is fun, everything is OK."

Sören van Heek is planning to continue with Wizard and do a better job on the next album than on the 2005 release "Magic Circle":

"I don't like to remember the last release. A lot of things went wrong and I am not very satisfied with the drum sound."

Since Sören van Heek/Snoppi has already recorded six albums with Wizard and still thinks it's fun playing with the band, we are pretty confident more albums are on their way, giving the drummer plenty of chances to search for the perfect drum sound.