George Kooymans, Golden Earring guitarist and driving force of Europe’s hard rock evolution, dies aged 77

Golden Earring guitarist George Kooymans – who wrote the driving anthem Radar Love, and helped spearhead Europe's hard rock evolution – has died aged 77.

Radar Love, which has been covered by wide-ranging acts including REM, Def Leppard, and the Blue Man Group, became the Dutch band's signature hit when it was released in 1973. At the time of writing, it's amassed a staggering 174 million Spotify streams.

“We say goodbye to a great musician and composer whose work extended beyond Golden Earring,” Kooymans’ family say in an official statement. “George was a beloved husband, father, grandfather, but above all, a friend.”

The band had folded in 2021 in light of Kooymans’ Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis the previous year. Speaking at the time of the group’s disbandment, the guitarist had said it was “a very bad prognosis.” He had undergone treatment at the University Hospital in Leuven, Netherlands. However, he conceded that “performing is no longer possible.”

Born in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1948, Kooymans formed Golden Earring – who were initially known as The Tornados – in 1961 at the age of 20. Their first taste of success came in 1968 when Dong-Dong-Di-Ki-Di-Gi-Dong topped their home nation’s charts.

Their greatest successes came in the 1970s, and the group even toured the US with Kiss and Aerosmith as support acts while Radar Love was dominating the airwaves. They also toured with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton.

Their 1982 hit, Twilight Zone, then saw the band make a resurgence, with the song breaking onto MTV. It spent 27 weeks on the US Billboard chart.

Radar Love featured in the 1993 film Wayne's World 2, while The Twilight Zone was used in the 2024 action epic Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and in the Netflix crime drama, Ozark.

In January, the band announced they would play one final show, in Rotterdam, in January 2026. Kooymans' place in the band is due to be filled by a revolving cast of Dutch artists taking his place. Proceeds from the show will go towards ALS research, with four shows having now sold out.

Alongside Michael and Rudolf Schenker, Kooymans helped put a European spin on the art of the electric guitar during rock's heyday, Guitar Player wrote of his legacy in 2021. Today, Radar Love is still ranked as one of the greatest driving songs ever written, sitting in the upper echelons of each compiled list.

The band’s influence also had an unlikely impact on Iron Maiden, who would go on to cover their (Kill Me) Ce Soir for the B-side of the 1990 single, Holy Smoke.

“I first saw Golden Earring in 1973 at the Rainbow in London, when Lynyrd Skynyrd supported, and they were just unbelievable,” Band leader Steve Harris recollected with Classic Rock. “I remember the music press giving them a hard time because everyone was excited about Skynyrd at the time: Skynyrd are a great band, but Golden Earring were on a different level.”