When I left Schmabreux in the end of 1992, I had to start my first solo project.
Why? There was a concert planned for Schmabreux, but the band split some weeks before the date. So I played my first solo concert – at “Der blaue Bock” in Bocholt, close to the Rhineland.
I had already written some new songs we never had played together. In 1993 I lent the Fostex 8-track machine from the others, some additional equipment and cables, and recorded “Geronimoe´s Donut Shot”.
The following years I made some quite “interesting” recordings, to say it that way.
Around the millenium I got to know the violinist Bert Schulte and could win him for a band project, and also our former Schmabreux drummer J. H. Angelus. He played his kit without foot pedals, that means he used no hi-hat, no bass drum.
We recorded three albums together, released now as “The Vanishing Race” Anthology. In 2005 Bert Schulte, who was very much into traditional, mainly Scandinavian Folk music, left the Band. Angelus and I continued.
A year and another album later, Nicola Nora joined the band on harmonium and vocals. The folky touch stayed, but the band got new, female and harmonic sound colours.
Our first recording with Nicola was “Busy Weekend”. We stayed for a long weekend at the Schmabreux studio, which was an old horse stable we had renovated once, somewhere close to the bogs and the green border between Holland and Germany.
We used to play in the streets sometimes, on Street Music Festivals and elsewhere, and we had ONE big concert, too big for Nicola, as she said afterwards.
She did not really leave the band, but concerts seemed no longer possible. Nonetheless we recorded a second album with her, called “Madhouse Blues”.
Around 2009, Geronimoe´s Perception finally disbanded when Nicola Nora left. After a last evening together with J. H. Angelus on drums, I decided to take up my solo career under the name Ronald Harmstein.
A handful of beautiful cover songs which had to be excluded from the digital releases, are now collected on the album “Covered Gold”, released in 2016 via Bardo Beat.