After a tough year, music is coming out of Zwartemeer again: The Dutch Boys are back. In December 2024, Henk de Roo, better known as Boer Harms and singer of the band, passed away. His death seemed to mean the end of The Dutch Boys, but his son Hendry took over the baton and the microphone. Now there is even a brand new single.
The fact that the band from Zwartemeer is running at full speed again actually surprises the band members themselves. “We thought: this is the end for The Dutch Boys. And that would have been fine. That’s how we were all in it,” says Hendry de Roo. “What they as The Dutch Boys have achieved in all these years is truly unprecedented.”
“I’ll be very honest: in the beginning I had difficulty with it. I stood next to Henk for 52 years and I actually didn’t feel like continuing in a different composition,” Cor Maatje admits. “It wasn’t Hendry’s fault at all, I wasn’t ready for it yet. But in the end we decided to try it a few times. I was convinced the first time.”
It was an emotional moment when Hendry started singing. “Then you think: Henk is just there again. It gave me goosebumps,” Maatje remembers. To honor his father, Hendry wears his straw hat and his dust coat. “Then he looks exactly like him. He is a young Henkie,” laughs Maatje. “The humor, the voice, everything is exactly the same.”
“It has often been said that I could take over from my father, but I held off on doing so for a long time. But at a certain point everything moved at a rapid pace,” says De Roo junior. “Now I think it is very cool and special that I have been able to take over his role. I am still amazed every day. I remain very proud of what my father has done with his comrades.”
And now there is a new single from The Dutch Boys, with the title Heinrich DeWolf. “Jans was listening to Radio Drenthe and it was about the wolf. Then he thought: can we do something with that? He then called producer Janderman van den Berg and then lyrics were written and a melody was put together,” says Maatje.
“We immediately said: it will not be political. The intention was to make a light-hearted song. In the video clip, Jans walks around in a wolf suit, he is beyond shame. And we thought it was wonderful. If you see most of the clips today, they were all recorded abroad. We simply stayed in Zwartemeer, in a field next to Jans’ home.”
The new song will undoubtedly increase the band’s performances. “We said earlier this year that we actually want to approach it as a hobby. Just doing something together a few times a month is enough for me. But this is slowly starting to look like work again. So we have to be a little careful,” jokes Maatje.