Mathias FranssensMathias Franssens was born in Antwerp, Belgium. He started to play the drum as drummer boy in a school drum band. At home he had a band with his brothers. (the ramalafafarangers) Where they already made there own stuff.
At the age of seventeen he bought his first drum kit and after a while he formed ‘The Morning After Pill’ (1988-1990) together with Marc Devisscher (bass) and Bert D’hooge (guitar, now known for his band ‘ZAAM’ and a lot of previous bands e.g. ‘Planet G-Force’). They played some gigs in bars like Pastel in Ekeren. After Bert D’hooge left ‘The morning After Pill’, a new band was formed with guitar player Andy Giebens (also known from ‘Oeps, wrong planet’): ‘Maja’. ‘Maja’ was a psychedelic instrumental music-band. After a few gigs, Andy left the band. Marc and Mathias were searching to form a new band and found a bunch of freaky people to restart Maya (now with a ‘y’) (Marc Devisscher (bass), Mathias Franssens (drum), Thomas Franssens (trumpet), Tom Vervoort (didgeridoo), Peter Verwimp (guitar and vocals), Patrick De Bekker (guitar), Kris van Deuren (samples), Jasper (percussion)). Maya was a well-known underground psychedelic core band. They released two albums: ‘Slow escape’ (1996) and ‘Biocide’ (1997) and played in several European country’s both as main- and support-act (e.g. support for ‘Boy’s against Girls’ in Köln). After the second album Maya split up. Again Marc and Mathias were bandless. Nevertheless, there were a lot of opportunity’s to play music with other musicians at Muziekruimte (‘Musicspace’), a rehearsal community founded by Marc in 1993. A lot of friends and musicians of the region of Antwerp used the facilities of Muziekruimte and enjoyed the philosophy and spirit of freedom that lived in this community. After a while, the new band ‘Ploink’ emerged from Muziekruimte: The very start of it was a gig at ‘Pulptuur’ in 2001. Only for this event ‘Ploïnk’ consisted of Dimitri Daggelinckx, Mathias Franssens, Rohal de Ridder (played with El Fish, Roland Van Campenhout, Oeps wrong planet, Durango…), Kris van Deuren and Marc Devisscher. After this one-off event, ‘Ploïnk’ went on with two bass players (Dimitri Daggelinckx and Marc Devisscher) and a drummer (Mathias Franssens) performing instrumental music, aiming for filmic atmospheres and emotional floatings. For a short period the band was supported by Kris van Deuren (samples). After a long period of enjoying the rehearsals and chilling on a regular basis (musical chilling was the main aim), Mathias introduced new influences by engaging Carry van Hoof with her inspiring vocals. The second rehearsal, Carry introduced guitar player Michael Taeymans. They already played together in an acoustic project in the Muziekruimte rehearsal room next to ‘Ploïk’. This collaboration transformed ‘Ploïnk’ into ‘Moïst’: a full-grown band with mutual influences of acoustic guitar, psychedelic sounds, heavy core, freaky drums, sometimes wicked and breakable vocals on a foundation of take-it-low-and-slow basses. Moïst always tends to create filmic or epic sound stories with punchy serendipity’s. This is what you can expect from the present-day ‘Moïst’. |