Stef Broks (Tilburg, 1981) plays drums in Dutch technical progressive metallers Textures. He co-formed the band in 2000.



Stef Broks' biography - in his own words:

Not until I was five years old, I was dragged out of my flush of birth by a stunning album called The Joshua Tree of U2. That band founded my first musical visions and formed a huge part of my character for the future. However, playing drums was not bound to happen ‘till I was eight. Inspired by U2’s Larry Mullen, Yes’ Bill Bruford and The Cream’s Ginger Baker I hit my first improvisations on an old Condor-drumkit.



After four years of lessons I was not the drummer I thought I would be. And because of the lack of trust from the teachers, I decided to go play in a band. So I stopped taking lessons at the age of fifteen. After all, these first bandexperiences were my first steps as a real musician. In my opinion a musician is somebody who creates music himself, not a person playing music from sheets, clinically and without expression.



The first five years I felt like I discovered music for the second time. I spent my time playing in two bands called Lost Sacrament and Empty. Two progressive death-metalbands, with which each of them I recorded a demo.



Always I’ve been fascinated by creating long, but still catchy songs in combination with good, not too cliché, arrangements. Yes, Death and Tool were of major influence for my later drumming style. Their combination of jazzy, polyrhythmic rhythms with a grooving and hammering touch, were a real eye-opener to me.



These drummers showed me that metal and rock, not always have to be blunt and one-dimensional. Besides that, they showed me that a drummer is not only the engine of the band, but he is also of huge influence when it comes to the dynamics of a song.



After the split of my first bands, I decided to take command of my own destiny. I asked talented local guitarist Jochem Jacobs to do ‘just something progressive’. Progressive in any way.



At the end of 2000 we founded the band Textures, which gave my musical career a enormous boost. Until this day I consider Textures as a maximum for myself in creating music. Not only by the fact that all bandmembers have the same goal to strife for. But also by the fact that we want to do that, in the musically most open way that is possible. Our first record Polars was recorded at the end of 2001 in a self-made studio in Etten-Leur (Holland).



The complete production and artwork were lying in the hands of the band. Almost directly after the album was released by ourselves, we signed for a worldwide recorddeal with Listenable Records and we threw our lot with managements and bookers.

The reviews were overwhelming without exception. Most-read metal-magazine in Holland Aardschok appointed Polars with 91 points as CD of the Month and English magazine Kerrang spoke about "a truly remarkable group of musicians". Dutch most-read rockmag Oor declared Polars as "the best metalrecord ever made on Dutch soil".



In the meantime we played as clubshow-support for international acts like Sepultura, Machinehead, Meshuggah, Dillinger Escape Plan and Morbid Angel. In 2004 we played over seventy shows in total. More than fifty were headline shows in our own country. Also Dutch biggest open air fest Lowlands (Chemical Brothers, Velvet Revolver, Offspring) and Fury Fest in France (Slipknot, Morbid Angel, Fear Factory) passed by. The end of that year Textures went on European tour with Alchemist (Australia) and Cult Of Luna (Sweden). The video of the song Ostensibly Impregnable was broadcasted many times on MTV and The Box.



To gain a better combination of the band and my future I decided, after my graduation from Journalism, to do a next study at the pop department of the Conservatory of Rotterdam.



In July 2004 I passed the entrance examination playing with Textures.