Hein Hoven

Hein was born in the Netherlands but his family emigrated to California, where, when he was eight, he started playing the viola (the first of many instruments). At 16, he continued his education on the road working not only with the Doobie Brothers, but also Journey, Fleetwood Mac, Pablo Cruise, The Sales Brothers, Foreigner, The Babys, Rush, Cheap Trick, Little River Band, Earth Wind and Fire, Borealis and (during what he considers to be his Las Vegas stint) even Connie Stevens!

After the Doobie's, Hein spent a spell in the late 1970's as the house soundman at the world-famous Max's Kansas City in New York - during the zenith of Punk. The bands which rolled through that club are, quite literally, too numerous to mention...but notables would have to include Talking Heads, New York Dolls, Johnnie Thunders, REM, B-52s, Patty Smith, Ramones, Dictators, Jane County and the Tom Cats (not to mention of course Sid Vicious and Nancy). In and amongst all this, there was also somehow the time to tour with Blondie, Cyndi Lauper, Iggy Pop, The Helen Shipley Band, The Plasmatics, Levi and The Rock Cats, The Billies and The Clash. For Hein, this was an unforgettable episode in a career which has not exactly had too many forgettable periods.

But all experiences, however enjoyable, must draw to a close and Hein eventually moved to London to take up an opportunity to work with The Tom Robinson Band. It was in London that he produced, engineered and re-mixed many top recording artists of the day, including, Roger Daltrey, Flesh For Lulu, The Damned, The Truth, DKP, Plain Jane, Amazulu, Getting the Fear, Then Jericho, T.I.C. Circus Circus Circus and It Bites. Notably, Hein also produced, mixed and toured with The Stray Cats for their first three albums. From the mid-1980's, Hein was kept busy writing, producing and re-mixing over 30 dance tracks.Ê Six of these tracks went to Number One and seven others made the Top Ten.

In 1989 Hein made a decision to return to Los Angeles to take up an offer to work with Jane Child. That collaboration yielded him yet another Number One single and a Top Ten album. He stayed on in L.A., and in 1993 he produced a track for Sade before providing the underscore for the motion picture, Philadelphia, for which he received a GRAMMY¨ Award nomination. He went on to work with Joe Strummer on the score for Grosse Pointe Blank before producing and mixing a track for Bush (called "Mouth" which was used extensively in the movie An American Werewolf in Paris and was another Top Ten hit). During this L.A. stage of his career, Hein also worked with such diverse talent as Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Call, Ice Cube, Black Grape, Brian Setzer, Jesse James, Machele, Dudley Moore, Low Pop Suicide, Elastic Purejoy, Vitamade, El Centro and System 7.

Together with John Taylor of Duran Duran, Powerstation and Neurotic Outsiders, Hein established B5 Records. They released four records by John Taylor and signed a couple of bands. Hein was also the creator and producer of the Clash Tribute album "Burning London" and the Roxy Music Tribute (with JT) album "Dream Home Heartaches". These albums were released on the B5 Atomic label and distributed by Sony Records.Ê They featured acclaimed talents such as Rancid, Third Eye Blind, 311, No Doubt, Billy Idol and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Hein is proud of the fact that all royalties from these projects were donated to charity.

B5 also provided music for movie soundtracks ranging from a trio of films for Extreme Ski filmmaker, Greg Stump, to Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia. Hein also worked on the title theme-song for Batman Beyond with Melissa Etheridge and also composed and mixed the scores for both I Woke Up Early The Day I Died and Big Kiss starring Billy Zane.

Throughout his career, Hein has also been creative and expressed himself in other forms of media. He has provided original tracks for the PS2 games SSX Tricky, Triple Play, and World Cup Soccer for Electronic Arts. Hein has also had considerable and extensive opportunity to work in the advertising world. His began this aspect of his career with seven J.C. Penney spots which aired during the telecast of the 61st Academy Awards®. It was their success which led him to establish B5 Studios in 1990, together with its state-of-the-art recording facilities. This highly successful venture led to the opening at two further locations in London and New York. B5 Atomic (as it was later re-branded) worked at the highest national and international levels of the commercial and movie industries for 12 years. In that time it produced music for ten international feature films and over 400 commercials.

In 2002, having decided it was time for another challenge, Hein established Finger Music. His co-partners and his good friends were John Murrell (London) and Dave Hodge in (L.A.). Until 2007, Hein was also the Creative Director at Finger Music whose clients included: Coca-Cola, Reebok, AT&T, McDonalds, Nike, Nissan, Ford, Gatorade, Carlsberg, Levis, Nicorette, Toyota, BMW, Tropicana, T-mobile, Pizza Hut, Peugeot, Sony and FedEx. In 2006, Boards Magazine voted Finger Music a place in the Top Ten of International Music Houses. In July 2007, Hein sold his interest in Finger Music.

Today, Hein can be found hard at work at his own company Beathoven Music and works out of his studio in Notting Hill, London where he is principally based. Most recently he has finished a Wrigley's spot for Noam Murro and a track for the feature film Franklyn directed by Gerald McMorrow.

Hein Hoven is represented in the UK by Elise Bennett (elise@beathovenmusic.com) 07809 82 84 86. A complete list of credits for album, commercials, re-mixes and movies is available upon request.