|The band started in 1999 when 15 year old Jamie Westland (drums) asked his father Dick to help him set up a band. Three other teenagers joined him which are Tim Akkerman (vocals), Frans ‘Spike’ van Zoest (guitar and background vocals) and Bas van Wageningen (bass). The singer, Tim Akkerman was just 19, the guitar player and the drummer were only 15 years old at that time. Within a few months Di-rect had completed a five track demo which included the song “Just the Way I Do”. 3FM radio DJ Rob Stenders saw them play live and was impressed by them. He played a song from their demo on national radio. This generated considerable interest by record companies. Two months later Di-rect signed with Dino Music/EMI. In the year 2002, they played on every big festival in Holland and their debut album “Discover” came out. Over the next few years, Di-rect released various albums. In 2003, they released “Over The Moon”, containing the singles “Adrenaline”, “She” and “Rollercoaster”. Two years later, they released a new album called “All Systems Go!”. After releasing this album, Di-rect joined the MTV-program “RoadRally”. After this show, the band almost broke up, but in 2007 they released their 4th album (nameless). The latest album is a live-album, recored in Diligentia in The Hague. In 2008 and 2009, Di-rect toured with their new show named “Di-rect doet Tommy”, a Dutch cover of the rock opera, written by Pete Townshend.|On March 12th, 2009, Tim Akkerman announced to quit the band, his last performance was at April 10th, 2009 in the Luxor Theatre in Rotterdam, also being the last performance of Tommy. |In the programme Wie Is Di-rect, Di-rect searched for a new singer, and they found him! Marcel Veenendaal is the name of the new singer of Di-rect |
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