Guus Diderich was born in Maassluis in 1975. That turned out to be a pretty good year (for rock music). After moving several times he suddenly found himself living in Limburg, in Grevenbicht to be precise. There at the age of nine he made a radical decision: 'I'm going to learn to play the guitar!'. So he convinced his parents to buy him a 3/4 accoustic guitar (quite an instrument for a nine-year -old). Every week he cycled to the next village for his private lessons and in three years he learned to play some classical guitar.
Then the family moved again. What now? Play the classical guitar (by now a full size one!) or join the real men? In Hilversum he decided to switch to electric guitar and take lessons from the jazzmaster Uli Kürmer (who is mentioned in de thanx-section of Daylight). Mainly influenced by Prince and Deep Purple the (german) guitarmaster tried to teach Guus about pop and rock music. It went from The Beatles to the Rolling Stones to David Bowie, etc. etc. so Guus aquired a pretty general idea of playing rock guitar. Then his sister moved to the US for a year and when she returned she brought Guus a present that still frequently occupies his cd-player today: a cd called 'Piece of Mind' by Iron Maiden. From that moment on Guus knew what kind of rock music he wanted to play. Several friends turned out to be rock fans also and they supplied Guus with all kinds of copies of Slayer, Sepultura, Metallica, Megadeth and Paradise Lost records. For 5 years he stayed in Hilversum and during those years Uli was kind enough to bias his study material on rock music so Guus was soon able to play along with Iron Maiden, Metallica and so forth. He even played in a band for a short time called Funeral Pire (a name made up by Sebastien Latten, one of his best friends also mentioned in the thanx-section of Daylight). The band was not a success and when his parents moved again (to Lelystad) he no longer played in a band and no longer took lessons. He did think of a brilliant name for a band and with a friend who played bass guitar hemade all kinds of plans for the band to do some world tours and festivals, but Get Real was never ment to be. That turned out to be agood decision when a couple of years later he encountered a band called Get Busy......don't even go there!
After graduating highschool Guus decided to go to Groningen to study law. He still played the guitar but he wasn't as ambitious as he used to be. He remained to be a huge rock fan and he listened to Dio, Maiden, Van Halen and also other kinds of music like the Walter Trout Band, Body Count and The Stones. After two years or so he saw the light!: why not start a band again or find a band in need of a guitar player? 'Desparate rock-guitar player seeking band or something.....' These lines could be read on the advertboard in the local library. The reaction came sooner than he had thought and Siger Riddersma was on the line: wanna play in a cool rockband? They got together and talked strategy. Now, almost seven years later, the two still form the hard core of Awake. Together Siger and Guus manage the business end of the band. Guus is the only band member who has never played with other bands. Rumour has it, however, that he will be playing bass in a resurrected Epsolutely, former singer Egbert's new band (see also Siger's bio). Guus is also the only band member who has never played with Johan Dijkhuis from Vicious Visjes. If you read the bios from Johan, Danny and Siger, you will agree that this is quite an accomplishment.
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