Q65 - The Book

To their fans then and now Holland's Q65 were more than a musical group, they represented a way of life. With their music, their image, their every move and action, they rejected conformity, and challenged us to follow in their wake. The five original members of Q65 first banded together in The Hague in the Netherlands in 1965. Joop Roelofs, Frank Nuyens, Willem Bieler, Peter Vink and Jay Baar were an unlikely, often volatile gang of outcasts and misfits, but with their raw, unconventional music and rowdy, unkempt image they quickly built up a large and fiercely loyal following. Their first record, You re the Victor, kicked off a string of hit singles for the group including The Life I Live, From Above and World of Birds. Their 1966 debut LP, Revolution, sold over 50,000 copies, topping the Dutch album charts ahead of new releases by the Rolling Stones, the Troggs and the Animals. By 1969 it had all fallen apart, but in the few short years they were together Q65 recorded some truly extraordinary music. They continue to be regarded, quite rightly, as one of the great, unsung bands of the era. Pim Scheelings has captured their story in all its strange, stoned, comical, complicated, tragic glory the drink, the drugs, the fights and, of course, the music all discussed and dissected in frank, often brutally honest words by the surviving band members and their collaborators. This is the story of no punches pulled the whole truth and nothing but the truth.