When Rich met up with his good friend drummer Sebastiaan Cornelissen summer 2002 to record the track ‘Seasons’ for the collection album ‘The Alchemists’, they were done early and left with some time off to sit down and chat for a while.
‘Rich, isn’t it time to do it your way, all the way?’ Those words were quite true. Richard had released the cd ‘Generator’ in 1995 on Mark Varney’s Legato label during a study at GIT and an extended stay afterwards in Los Angeles. After doing lots of side man gigs in the ‘90s, two tours in Finland, playing musicals, doing cover bands and countless studio gigs, it was indeed time to release something more personal.
Richard started off by putting a band together with his good friend Sebastiaan Cornelissen on drums and Udo Pannekeet on bass. During his study at GIT Rich had heard otherwordly cassette tapes from a Swedish keyboardplayer named Lalle Larsson. Back in Holland, thanks to the internet and budget air flight tickets, Rich and Lalle met up and soon started working on different recordings together, such as the track ‘Seasons’ from 'The Alchemists' guitar collection album and on new tracks for a now called 'Richard Hallebeek Project' album. To add some icing on the cake, Rich invited a couple of his musical friends and personal heroes: Shawn Lane, whom Rich had been in touch with while he stayed in The Hague for extensive periods of time, heard the tracks, enjoyed the songs and joined in, and also Brett Garsed participated, each providing four solos to the fusion project.
Matt Williams, founder of Liquid Note Records gave the band the green light to go ahead and play the music they loved without holding back.. full blown fusion, guitar synths, odd meters, long melodies, trading solos...Matt was into it!
In 2004, the Richard Hallebeek Project (RHP) was released. It was an artistic as wel as quite a commercial succes. The album was a best-seller on the well-known guitar 9 website while other guitar related sites gave the cd a top rating, mentioning the solid songwriting, an outstanding band, over the top guitar playing and calling Richard a new voice to be reckoned with.
Fast forward to 2011. Richard has played on the series of 'One Spirit' cd's, Lalle Larsson’s 'Weaveworld' trilogy, played in commercial vocal groups and on various guitar compilation albums...and felt it’s about time again.. to do it his way..from start to finish..all the way. Plans originally start for a solo cd, but why not a new Richard Hallebeek Project?
Getting a positive energy boost from playing at various guitarfestivals throughout Europe and, from the enthusiastic audience, experiencing that instrumental guitar music is very much alive; a plan slowly starts to take shape in Richard’s head and evolves in his studio 'Richie's Lab';RHP the sequel -part II. A more hard hitting fusion/rock cd, this time with more special guests, a guitarparty with lots of great guitarists with varied backgrounds..trying to maintain solid songwriting...keeping a real band feel throughout to make it a cohesive whole...
At the end of 2010, writing begins and in 2011 different recording sessions take place at various studios to complete the task of recording the 10 songs that have emerged from all the band members for this project, all written with a series of 8 special guests in mind.
At the start of 2012, the special guests that the songs were composed for are approached and, all enthusiastic to track along, soloparts to record are scheduled and files are sent back and forth through the internet.
RHP is back! Only this time it’s bigger, better, louder and goes even higher!
RHPII has 8 guestplayers, a backing band throughout the cd consisting of Sebastiaan Cornelissen on drums, Frans Vollink on Bass and Lalle Larsson on keys. The co-writing from each of the players and the interactive, mostly live, band recordings make it a solid band effort with strong song material and enough over the top guitar playing to satisfy the biggest guitar heads.
