Golden Earring is the best known and internationally most succesful rock band to come out of the Netherlands. Formed in 1961, Golden Earring has been active for more than 50 years non-stop, which makes Golden Earring the world's longest surviving rock band, formed a year before The Rolling Stones. The current line-up has been unchanged since 1970. In 1961 George Kooymans (age 13) and his neighbour Rinus Gerritsen (age 15) formed The Tornados in the Zuiderpark district of their home town of The Hague, The Netherlands. ...show more

Golden Earring is the best known and internationally most succesful rock band to come out of the Netherlands. Formed in 1961, Golden Earring has been active for more than 50 years non-stop, which makes Golden Earring the world's longest surviving rock band, formed a year before The Rolling Stones. The current line-up has been unchanged since 1970. In 1961 George Kooymans (age 13) and his neighbour Rinus Gerritsen (age 15) formed The Tornados in the Zuiderpark district of their home town of The Hague, The Netherlands.

The band's first line-up mainly played The Shadows and The Ventures covers, as well as other instrumental tunes. In 1963, as the band found out that there already was a British band called The Tornados, they decided to change their name into The Golden Earrings (after a Peggy Lee song). The band soon had a devoted local following. Under the Golden Earrings moniker the band eventually recorded four albums and had twelve hit singles in the Netherlands between 1965 and 1969, of which ten reached the Dutch Top 10.

One of the band's sixties singles was their first #1 hit in The Netherlands: 1968's carnavalesque Dong-Dong-Diki-Digi-Dong, although that tune is now frowned upon by the band and generally regarded as inferior to other early Earrings gems, such as That Day (1966), Daddy Buy Me a Girl (1966) and the epic Just A Little Bit Of Peace In My Heart (1969). The band's lead singer during the early Golden Earrings years was Frans Krassenburg, who was replaced by Barry Hay (ex-the haigs) in 1967. The band's drummer for much of the 1960s was Jaap eggermont. His successors were Sieb Warner (1969) and, finally Cesar Zuiderwijk (ex-Livin' Blues) in 1970. ...show less