Geike Arnaert is a Belgian singer, best known for being the lead vocalist of the bandHooverphonic from 1997 until 2008. Geike was born in Poperinge and grew up in Westouter, a town that is close to the French border. From a young age she was captivated by music and therefore she decided to audition for the Belgian band Hooverphonic, the group of guitarist Raymond Geerts and Alex Callier. Geike's first hit succeeds with luster and is preferred to the other auditors. And although the band climbs many festival stage, it takes until 2000 before Hooverphonic scores a hit in the Flemish Ultratop 50. With Mad About You the group was 14 weeks in the charts, with number 23 being the highest position. The album The Magnificent Tree, which contained Mad About You, peaked second in Flemish Ultratop 200 Albums chart, third in Walloon Ultratop 200Albums chart, as well as 25th in Italian album chart.
Career
Arnaert was born on 13 September 1979, in Heuvelland, Belgium. She has two siblings: Anne Arnaert and Kaat Arnaert, who has been a featured singer with the Belgian bands Sutrastore and Tommigun.
Hooverphonic
According to Alex Callier, when Hooverphonic was looking for a new lead singer, he asked Arnaert, "It is almost the school break, in September you'll be 18 years old, do you want to be our singer?". She immediately said: "Yes, that's OK!". After more than 10 years in the band, on 10 October 2008, Arnaert announced she would leave Hooverphonic by the end of the year to pursue her solo career. Arnaert's last concert with Hooverphonic was on 13 December of that year, in Tele-Club, Ekaterinburg, Russia. The reason to leave, as she stated in the press, was "simple and without troubles. I wish other musical and artistic projects and I want to concentrate on my own music career". Three years later, however, in a comeback interview for her new solo album, she commented on her departure: "There were several reasons. As I grew older and wiser, I developed my own character and my own artistic ideas. I tried to bring that out but there were the others who were not open to it. The roles were fixed, and mine was singing and staying silent and beautiful. I own ideas, and ten years seems long enough to go into the trip of someone else. Moreover, it was confrontational to note that men with whom I had to work and that I saw as a kind of brothers, saw me as something else. Even outside the band, I remember Mushroom of Massive Attack insisted that I contacted him. But when it turned out that I had a boyfriend, it was suddenly no longer needed. Let me also say that the humor on the tour bus was not always sophisticated and sometimes just disrespectful. Men do not understand that you are a woman sometimes feeling lonely or targeted". In February 2016, 7 years after her last performance with the band, Arnaert performed "Mad About You" together with Hooverphonic, for a special event of Radio2 in Belgium. According to Callier, that was a "once-off" cooperation.
After Hooverphonic
In 2010 Arnaert was brought together with Spinvis to work on the soundtrack of Breath, a Belgian film about young people who suffer from mucovisidosis. Having written more material than needed for the film, they released a record, calling themselves Dorleac for the project. In 2011 Arnaert released her first solo album, "For The Beauty Of Confusion." Arnaert recorded the historical French song "Le temps des cerises" with the legendary singer-songwriter and entertainer Bobbejaan Schoepen for his 2008 album "Bobbejaan", his first album in 35 years. A music video for the song was also released. Arnaert has also sung as a guest vocalist for various artists such as Ozark Henry, Flip Kowlier and Tom Helsen. She contributed vocals to "Mijn Leven", the final single by Belgian rapper Vijvenveertig. The song was recorded two weeks before Sierens died of cancer.
