GUY SWINNEN

Ex-frontman of the Scabs, who is now trying to get a solo career off the ground.

After the split-up of one of the best Belgian rock bands, Guy Swinnen retired to his attic and started writing new material again. Not for long though, since his fingers (and voice) started itching again.

He first reemerged on the pop-scene in the project "Spelers & Drinkers" (Players and drinkers), a tribute to the wonderful artist that is Johan Verminnen. As Guy says himself : "I learned a lot from that project, by stepping out of the usual circle of friends and musicians. It was a great group of people with whom it was really neat to play a few songs and observe the others."

With one of the inspirators of that project, Patrick Riguelle (see Riguelle & Hautekiet, Kadril), he continued touring in small clubs. As he says "the beautiful thing about working with Patrick Riguelle was that I could try out new songs so easily. We rehearsed them for the first time during the sound-check and played them the same night."

He also went on a solo tour, playing acoustically. "That couldn't last forever. To stay interesting with nothing but a voice and a guitar during two hours, that's hard work".

He then started reassembling a group around his new songs. As it happened to be, some old Scabs were again at the appointment : Fons Symons, the bass-player and Luc Wijntjens, who had played keyboards during the last stages of the Scabs. Also members of his new band are Paul Van Bruystegem (better known as "Lange Polle", who played with the Wolf Banes, BJ Scott, Roland, The Pop Gun, Neeka ...) and Walter De Koninck (also a former member of the backing group for BJ Scott).

For the production of his songs he teams up once again with Werner Pensaert, long considered "the fifth Scab" since he produced almost all their records up to "Jumping the Tracks".

Together with these musicians he recorded the album "Hazy", which was released in March of 1998. The singles "S.T.O.N.E.D." and "Q&A" show that Guy Swinnen is more inclined to experiment with some new sounds than the Scabs were. Only to a certain extent though, as his bio quotes him saying "I'm a traditional songwriter. I'm not the one to act as the renewer. That doesn't mean I don't get influenced by current records. But there's no use in trying to "act new" in a forced way.I just try to bring good songs in a good way." But (in an interview with Het Nieuwsblad) he also said (about Q&A) : "I had planned to come out with something surprising. After the Scabs, for which I did about 70% of the songwriting, I decided to do what was in me. Not to try to jump on some trend. Q&A was one of the songs that were in me. You always have to have an open mind for experiments. I don't want to repeat what I've already done with the Scabs."

The album is getting a fairly good reception in the Flemish press, but Guy Swinnen has the feeling he has to prove himself all over again. As he says "I would regret it terribly if this project would fail 100%. On the other hand, the trendy audience already considers me a "has-been". Now I'm in the underdog-position once again. We have to continue stubbornly and will end up on top eventually". He clearly was "alive".

"Hazy" didn't become the "triumphant return" that was hoped for however. A commercial flop, to say the least. Gradually things grew very quiet round Guy Swinnen, but he didn't let it come to his heart, and reverted to playing solo & acoustic. Sometimes completely alone, sometimes with old friends such as Roland, Jan Hautekiet or Kris de Bruyne. There were plans in 2000 to put the material he performed there on a low-budget solo-cd, but these plans have yet to materialize.

In 2001, Guy Swinnen decided that the time had come for a band again. After much searching, he came up with the name Jonesy, and found bandmembers Tom Van Stiphout (guitar, vocals), Herman Cambré (drums), Bart Buls (bass) and Steven Cornillie (keyboards, accordion). It certainly isn't Guy's intent to create a copy of the Scabs, but he stated that "I've been writing melancholic and introverted songs for a while that were ideal to perform acoustically, but now that I return to playing in a band, I also want to return to my old love "rock & pop" again"."

Buy CD's of this band at

Albums :
- Hazy (Play It Again Sam, 1998)
Singles :
- S.T.O.N.E.D. / She moves me (PIAS, 1997)
- I'm Alive / Dry your eyes (PIAS, 1997)
- Q&A / Pretty Stupid (PIAS, 1998).

Websites :
- The official site of Guy Swinnen by Peter Boels has moved to GuySwinnen.com
- the same webmaster has also dedicated a site to Jonesy