Ruud Jolie

Ruud Jolie (born Rudolf Adrianus Jolie on 19 April 1976 in Tilburg, Netherlands) is the lead guitarist of the symphonic metal band Within Temptation.

Ruud started out by playing with several local bands. He joined “Brotherhood Foundation”, a nu-metal band whom he stayed with for a period of two years. When Brotherhood Foundation was playing at the 1998 “Dynamo” festival in the Czech Republic, Ruud met Within Temptation who were also playing there. Back then, Michiel Papenhove was still Within Temptation’s guitarist, and there were no initial plans for Ruud to join the symphonic metal band yet. In an interview with Starfacts, Ruud stated that his most embarrassing gig experience was when he still had long hair and it was caught in the microphone while headbanging. He thought it was doubly embarrassing because the girl he loved was in front row. They never got together.

After Brotherhood Foundation, Ruud joined an alternative rock band “Vals Licht” (False Light) in 2001. This band was known for its combination of heavy music with Dutch lyrics, something that had never been done before. They released several singles on the Dutch market, of which “Het Licht” reached the top ten charts. A month after joining “Vals Licht”, Ruud got a phone call from Within Temptation asking him to join their band seeing as to guitarist Michiel Papenhove was quitting. Ruud turned them down because he had just committed himself to “Vals Licht” and thought it was not proper to “jump from tree to tree” so quickly. A couple of months later, the late drummer of “Vals Licht” Johann De Groot was diagnosed with lung cancer. In that same week, Robert Westerholt, the founder and guitarist of Within Temptation, unaware of Johann’s condition called Ruud again with the same request. Ruud turned down Within Temptation once again due to the uneasy circumstances “Vals Licht” was going through, but in counterpart offered to become Within Temptation’s substitute guitarist until they found themselves a permanent member.

In September 2007, Ruud announced his plans for a solo project, entitled “For All We Know”.