We’ve got a thing and that’s a-called radar love, wails the Dutch rock outfit Golden Earring. Their 1973 raucous anthem “Radar Love” may have been one of the group’s only widespread hits, but what a hit it was. The song launched Golden Earring to international acclaim and made them a household name, a name that still glimmers and glints today.
Videos by American Songwriter
Behind the Name
The band that would become Golden Earring began in the early 1960s with two teens and neighbors, George Kooymans and Rinus Gerritsen. The decade saw a number of personnel changes within the rock group that was then known under the moniker, the Tornados.
The band’s concrete line-up was not cemented until 1970 – eventually comprised of Kooymans as guitarist and Gerritsen on bass and keyboards with frontman Barry Hay and percussionist Cesar Zuiderwijk having joined in – a good time after they had landed on their accessorized new name.
However, their moniker, first stylized as The Golden Earrings, was not inspired by the jewelry. Instead, it was taken from the name of an instrumental tune by a band called The Hunters, according to their website. The Hunters played a rollicking song, titled “Golden Earrings,” and so the name came to be. By 1970, they had drooped the “The” and ditched the “s” at the end to be simply Golden Earring.
Listen to “Golden Earrings” that inspired the moniker Golden Earring below.
Golden Earring Today
For decades, Golden Earring were mainstays in Dutch rock, having released more than a dozen albums after the success of “Radar Love.” While their last studio album arrived in 2012, they continued to tour extensively for another decade. It wasn’t until 2021 when Kooymans revealed he was diagnosed with ALS that the band decided to call it quits.
“This is a death blow,” Hay told Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (via Ultimate Classic Rock). “We always said we would keep going until one of us fell over.
“I didn’t expect George to be the first,” the frontman continued. “Kooymans was always the toughest of the four of us. … It sucks; we would have preferred a farewell tour, but unfortunately this is what it is. Our last performance appears to have been in Ahoy (a conversion center in Rotterdam, Netherlands) in 2019. That was a great show with family and friends, but we would have preferred it differently.”
(Photo by Ian Dickson/Redferns)
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.