Feat.Artist of November 1, 2023
With the Album: Mayday Right Now


The Artist

On August 27 2016 they made their successful debut on Culemborg Blues and played on several Dutch Stages. In the meantime they shot some remarkable videoclips. With the line-up with harmonica legend Kim Snelten and the Australian guitar player Sam Shine in 2018 they made the debut album ‘Dance Like A Windmill’. The reviews were very positive! BluesMagazine: 'A very impressive overwhelming home-grown bluesrock album!’
After the ‘Dance Like A Windmill’ tour Kim and Sam left the band. With guitarist Roy van Oost they found a very good successor to take off in a new direction. Their second album, ‘High On destruction’, was released on April 3 2020. The mastering was by Pete Maher, who worked for bands like Rolling Stones, U2, Pixies, Liam Gallagher, Jack White and many others. According to the reviews, it was even better than their debut album! ConcertMonkey: '..even more raw and sturdy than their first album!', Bluestown Music: 'Overwhelming, intense, loud, and above all unique. Top band!', and Rootstime.be: 'superlatives simply fail! The song ‘High On Destruction’ was included in Radio Wigwam Greatest Hits of 2020.
Due to the covid restrictions, the band couldn't do gigs and used their time to work on new material. Their album 'The Year Of The Rat' was published on November 26 2021. As a foretaste, on September the 17th they released their single 'Free world' on all digital platforms! Bluestown Music on 'The Year Of The Rat: 'Can I say it at last? At this moment Black Hammer Voodoo is the best band of Holland!'. De Blueskrant: 'This album will still this year end up high on the yearlists of music lovers, radiomakers and reviewers'.
And now the fourth album 'Mayday Right Now' is ready to be released. Black Hammer Voodoo is now a one man band, combining drum computers, synths, sequencers and samples with heavy guitars and passionate vocals. The songs on the album reflect the confusing times we're going through so there's a lot of rage, fear, astonishment, grief and bewilderment. And love. The singles that were released the past year are on it but there's some exciting new stuff as well. 'Mayday Right Now' will be released on electronic platforms on November the 3rd. As a foretaste the title song, 'Mayday Right Now', came out as a single on September the 29th.

Michiel van Leeuwen grew up on the swampy peatlands by the North Sea and when he was twenty he moved to Amsterdam, well known for its nice anarchist atmosphere in the eighties, to become a psychologist but gradually he was overcome by musical maddness and he chose a more adventurous career. After studying the ‘Holy doctrines’ of John Coltrane and other jazz heroes he played sax in bands like Gruppo Sportivo, Bombitas, De Dijk, Painting Over Picasso (USA) and did session work with among others Herman Brood, The Scene, Lois Lane, hans Dulfer and the Raggende Manne. Together with Theo Sieben he started the shockrock band Rudolph Dancer, a mixture of metal, freejazz and funk who recorded the ‘blasphemous’ cd ‘Oh God’ which made many right-minded Christians run for cover also because of the provocative clothing style.
After this he dropped his sax and started working on a school, learned website programming, made electronic music and played guitar and bass.
In addition to his work with hightech he felt a need to play the roof off in the old analog way. With Mike Meijer he founded Rusty Apollo who toured through Holland and Belgium and recorded the well received cd 'OH YEAH!'.
End 2015 he left this band to start something new: Black Hammer Voodoo, 'deep dark shit!'

Featured Album of February 12, 2020
"Full Album" show High OnDestruction

'Raw, exciting and inevitable. Holland is enriched by a new blues sensation’, according to Marcel Haerkens in Jazzism. Gruppo Sportivo legende Hans Vandenburg: ‘scorching, screaming, stieing, pumping, dirty, sucking, stomping, hard, raw, persuasive, impressive, cutting, indecent, menacing, crying, yelling, roaring, pounding, sucocating, rumbling and mean’. This is just a selection of the enthusiastic reactions to the debut album ‘Dance Like A Windmill’!
Black Hammer Voodoo is ‘Deep Dark Shit’ with a distinct style and sound! Sharp vocals, rough guitar, heavy groove. Stomping rock with a blues injection diluted with some glamrock and a dose of psychedelics. A little eccentric? These gentlemen don’t do routine tunes.
Singer/bassplayer Michiel van Leeuwen, guitarplayer/gutist Roy van Oost and drummer Francesco Libero bring a truckload of experience to the table but they refuse to make a nostalgic trip. They wanna move on!
On August 27 2016 they made their successful debut on Culemborg Blues and played on several Dutch Stages. In the meantime they shot some remarkable videoclips. With their former line-up with harmonica legend Kim Snelten and the Australian guitar player Sam Shine in 2018 they made the debut album ‘Dance Like A Windmill’. The reviews were very positive! BluesMagazine: 'A very impressive overwhelming home-grown bluesrock album!’ After the ‘Dance Like A Windmill’ tour Kim and Sam left the band. With guitarist Roy van Oost they found a very good successor to take oc in a new direction.

ALBUM: High OnDestruction
About the Album: Their second album, ‘High On destruction’, will be released on April 3 2020. The mastering is by Pete Maher, who worked for bands like Rolling Stones, U2, Pixies, Liam Gallagher, Jack White and many others. According to those who’ve heard it, it’s even better than their debut album!

Featured Artist of March 5, 2019
with the Song: Catfish

Black Hammer Voodoo is Deep Dark Shit with a distinct style! Sharp vocals, cutting harmonica, rough guitar, heavy groove.
Singer/bassplayer Michiel van Leeuwen Gruppo Sportivo, Bombitas, De Dijk, Painting Over Picasso) and Kim Snelten (The Scene, Jack Of Hearts, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Drippin Honey, AJ Plug) know each other from Rusty Apollo. Sam ‘Smokehouse’ Shine (Vanessa Baker and the Electric Eclectic, Anthony David and Toni Child) is ‘a renegade outlaw and voodoo guitar magician from the badlands of downunder’. Drumtalent Francesco Libero comes from the hot deep south of Italy. These men bring a truckload of experience to the table but they refuse to make a nostalgic trip. They wanna move on!
On August 27 2016 they made their successful debut on Culemborg Blues and played on several Dutch Stages. In the meantime they shot some remarkable videoclips Their debut album ‘Dance Like A Windmill’ will be released on digital streaming platforms. They’ll present the album on November 30 in De Nieuwe Anita in Amsterdam at 9PM.

Featured Album of November 14, 2018

Album: Dance Like A Windmill (2018)
The album ‘DanceLike A windmill’ emerged from various sessions over a period of two years. Some recorded ‘live’ at Studio Schenk in Amsterdam but most recorded at the singer’s house (I guess the neighbors were glad when it was finished!). It gave us the opportunity to experiment with different arrangements without emptying our bank accounts! On some tracks there are many layers of harmonica. We tried to break away from the usual role of the bluesharp. Same goes for the guitar. Black Hammer Voodoo started off as a bluesrock trio but more and more moved towards a modern, creative version of this old genre.
Some tracks are based on glamrock grooves, there is a (cynical) gospel and some are very roomy with a lot of surprises, so you can listen over and over and discover new elements. There’s a lot of nostalgic rock music nowadays but we try to move on in new directions!