Brussels, 9 November 2020
A major upset in the Belgian musical landscape: Hooverphonic have announced the return of Geike Arnaert on their instagram account.
Arnaert, who left the band in 2008 to focus on a solo career, provided the voice behind two of Hooverphonic’s biggest international hits, “Sometimes” and “Mad about you“. More recently, Arnaert collaborated with the Dutch rock band BLØF. Together they released “Zoutelande”, an upbeat poprock song that would become one of the bigger radio hits in both the Netherlands and Flanders in 2017.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0OLEgc-Glk[/embedyt]Hooverphonic frontman Alex Callier has cited that Arnaert’s return to the band is like “bringing The Maginificent Three [Callier, Arnaert and bass player Raymond Geerts] back together, the same three many consider to be Hooverphonic’s core.” It would appear that Arnaert herself expressed interest in rejoining the band, with Callier stating that Arnaert had previously left the band on “amicable terms”. Recently, Arnaert and Callier dabbled with the idea of collaborating again (this year is the 20 year anniversary of their Album “The Magnificent Tree”, the first album to feature Arnaert’s vocals), and decided to reunite once again.
What about Luka?
Arnaert’s return to Hooverphonic also means Hooverphonic as ended all cooperation with Luka Cruysberghs. The 19 year old singer who won The Voice with Alex Callier as her coach, has been Hooverphonic’s lead singer for 2.5 years, and lent her voice to hits such as “Romantic”, “Looking for stars”, “Summer Sun” and, of course, “Release me”, the band’s would-be Eurovision entry. However, Cruysberghs isn’t fully left out in the cold by Geike Arnaert’s return, as Callier arranged a record deal with Universal for her, and said that Luka will still support the band as a “soloist” [ed: I assume he means as “featured guest vocalist” but don’t quote me on that].
With Arnaert’s return to the band, it would seem that she will take over Luka’s role as the band’s lead vocalist for the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest as well. Whether this will have an impact their Eurovision 2021 song is currently unknown.
So, what do #YOU think about this sudden change? Does Geike’s return excite you or would you have rather not seen Luka released from duty? Let us know in the comments and on our forum HERE.
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