Richard [ guitar, vocals ]
Was a member from: 2002 - 2007

Day of Birth: December 20, 1985
Full name: Richard de Gans





Equipment:
Jackson DXMG Dinky (2x EMG-HZ)
BCRich Warlock

Laney MXD120 Head
Marshall 1960a JCM900 4x12" cabinet

Rocktron Rampage distortion (original series)
Boss GT-3 multi-effect

DR strings (.011-.050)
Dunlop Tortex 1.0mm picks
Schaller straplocks

Personal biography:
Once upon a time, in a land far far away...ehh no, actually I was born on the 20th of December 1985 in Dirksland, The Netherlands. I currently live in a small village called Stad aan 't Haringvliet, a few miles from my birthplace. In 1989 my parents provided me with one younger sister. After primary school I went to HAVO for which I graduated in 2003. I'm currently studying for processoperator (powerplants, refineries and other industrial complexes involving processes) at the "Scheepvaart en Transportcollege" in Brielle (NL).

I started playing guitar seriously when I was around 14 years old. I already had some musical experience, for I had played several instruments before (flute, organ and that kind of traditional stuff) and always have been into music in one way or the other. I got my first electric guitar (a transparent red Peavey Predator Plus) on my 15th birthday and took private guitar lessons. I learned the basic notes and chords. Later on I got to know the more interesting stuff like blues chords and schemes. As I was mainly listening to bands like Metallica and The Offspring at that time, I started practising songs of my favorite bands. But by discovering more bands and subgenres I got into the more extreme kind of metal. Bands like Slayer, Morbid Angel, Vader, Six Feet Under and Cannibal Corpse were repeatedly heard and hated by parents and neighbours. I started wearing bandshirts, which the school that I attended back then (a christian school!) could not really apreciate. They often have send me home, with the intention of a change of clothes. My parents even recieved letters from the school board, that wished them all the best regarding my upbringing!

Then in the 3rd grade of HAVO I formed a band with 2 friends of mine (including Samuel who also joined Sohaitan in 2002) and started jamming. We played covers of bands like Metallica and some older stuff from Deep Purple and even Jefferson Airplane. With this band not really coming off the ground and not taken very seriously we decided to quit. I soon cought up with Pepijn, a friend of mine for some time who had sort of the same interests and taste of music. Influenced by bands like Cannibal Corpse and Six Feet Under we started an old school death metal band wich was later designated as "Sohaitan". We thought it was pretty cool and we wanted to put our musical ambitions to good use. We acquired some other members (Roland, Ivo and Samuel), did some gigs and made a crappy demo, but after a lot of changes in the band's line up the bandname was changed into 'In Age and Sadness' and the musical style went from old school death to a more progressive kind of doom/death metal. The rest of the In Age and Sadness history can be found elsewhere on this website or has yet to be written...

Most influential bands: Decapitated, Hate Eternal, Cannibal Corpse, Opeth, Marduk, Immortal, Devin Townsend Band, Slayer, My Dying Bride, Metallica, Morbid Angel, Anathema, Dying Fetus, Suffocation, Behemoth, Dark Funeral, Houwitser, Porcupine Tree, Dream Theater and much more...
Most influential musicians: Pat O'Brien, Eric Rutan, Devin Townsend, Mikael Äkerfeldt, Derek Roddy, Kirk Hammet, Steve Vai, James Hetfield, Jeff Hanneman, Kerry King, Steve Tucker, John Petrucci, Marcel Coenen

Current playlist (13-03-06):
Decapitated - Organic Hallucinosis
Hate Eternal - I, Monarch
Hate - Anaclasis (A Haunting Gospel Of Malice And Hatred)
Devin Townsend Band - Synchestra
Death - Human
Dark Funeral - Attera Totus Sanctus
Buckethead - The Cuckoo Clocks Of Hell

GT Legends (PC)
NFS Most Wanted (Black Edition)
rFactor (PC)

Favorite Movies: Behind Enemy Lines, American History X, The Passion of Christ, Once upon a Time in the West, Once upon a Time in Mexico, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, A Bridge too Far, What Lies Beneath, Jurassic Park (first movie I ever saw in theater), The Incredibles (big fun!), The Matrix series, Terminator series, Star Wars series. I'm also a great fan of Tom Clancy novels and the movies based on them, such as The Hunt for Red October, The Sum of all Fears.
Favorite Actors: Natalie Imbruglia, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderaz, Johnny Depp, Leslie Nielsen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neil

Favorite books:
Red Storm Rising (Tom Clancy, 1986)
Lords of Chaos (Micheal Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind, 1998)
Het Behouden Huis (W.F. Hermans, 1950)

Favorite IAAS song:
I guess I would choose 'White Meadows' as my favorite. It has all the IAaS elements in it; slightly technical but with a good groove.
Least favorite IAAS song:
I guess that would be Abstracted, though I don't know why.

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