About Michael

Michael started playing drums at school, like so many other musicians did. After picking up a guitar he decided to continue playing both instruments. 

In 1987 Michael joined the Hardrock cover band "Fingers Crossed" as their drummer. In this band he had his first live and studio experiences. "Fingers Crossed" split up and Michael ended up with the American sessionplayer Donny Dean (Michael Jackson, Commodores, Jody Watley) in his band "The Donny Dean Explosion" on drums. Michael left this band to join the Melodic Hardrock group "Dawn" in 1989. 

After leaving Dawn in 1990 he decided it was best for him to not join a new band, but to form his own one. "Alibi" was born in 1990. A demo called "Alibi" (containing three original songs written by Michael) was recorded. A second demo ("Judgement Day") was recorded two years after that, and contained one Riesenbeck original ("Push The Button", which later was renamed and re-recorded to become "Telling Lies"). They decided to try to make heavy rock songs in the Dutch language, which ended up on the CD "Natasja & Andere Stukken". 

After quitting Alibi Michael picked up the work for his solo album and the Toto Tribute Album, Fanfields. This album was released April 2001. Michael's solo album "Shouting Silence" was released worldwide through Perris Records in 2004 and contains songs he wrote during and after his time with various bands. The album received raving reviews and did very well for a debut album. 

In 2005 Target Records did a re-release of the Remastered version of Fanfields, which sold out within a few months. With Art.461 Michael released the album "The Evolution of Movement" in 2007. Art.461 quit shortly after the release. 

With the Vitesse tribute band 'Viteffe" Michael did a very well received one-night only concert on October, 13th 2007. This concert was recorded and was released in December 2008 as DVD / 2CD (7 camera's, 30 tracks of audio). This album was a number one selling record for 2 months. 

Michael's second solo album, "II" was released in the fall of 2014, as a result of a successful Kickstarter campaign. 

He was and is the driving force behind the Fanfields TOTO Tribute Project, which released Fanfields 2 on October 1st, 2016 for the crowd fund fans and will shortly release worldwide in 2017.

Besides being a band musician and a solo artist Michael has been working as session guitarist, engineer and producer for other artists and bands.