So to cut a long story short, by the end of the evening, and several bottles of fine red wine later, LEO had convinced me to set up a heavy metal label. The next day, not yet fully recovered from an awful hangover (cause otherwise I probably would have decided to call it something else) I came up with the name MAUSOLEUM. My art school background finally paying off – I personally designed the red blood-dripping logo, while sitting at a table in the bar of the LAMBERMONT Hotel where I used to live in those days after my marriage to MARIE-LOUISE went down the toilet and my girlfriend MYRIAM ran back to her mommy and daddy – but that again is another soap opera altogether. And so dear reader, MAUSOLEUM was born.

In January 1983 I went to MIDEM, the annual music convention for professionals in Cannes, in the south of France, and signed UNDERDOG, a band from the Cologne area in Germany, produced by the eccentric ALEX GIETZ (his dress code was more Sherlock Holmes than leather and studs). A couple of years later ALEX also produced OSTROGOTH'S sadly underrated third album: "TOO HOT". That week I also inked a deal with Italian band VANDIUM. Returning from France I moved into a back room at STONNE and LEO’S wholesale operation in Antwerp, and prepared the initial releases as well as the formation of a proper limited company. Finally, in April, we released WILDFIRE, UNDERDOG and VANADIUM, and, I believe almost simultaneously, re-released the first two KILLER albums, the WHITE HEAT record and the DANGER long player. MAUSOLEUM was an instant success. WILDFIRE became a critically acclaimed album, and sold well, and the two KILLER albums – which had previously not been generally available outside the Benelux – also sold like the proverbial hotcakes.

MAUSOLEUM not only quickly gained recognition because we released electrifying hard-rocking records produced by eminent bands, but our output was also "outstanding" from a visual point of view. We not only employed BLUEPRINT, a graphic design company where especially PATRICK MEEZE and JOHAN STUYCK created stunning illustrations, but also had our own in-house art department where ERIC PHILIPPE, and later MICHEL BOUCHAT, worked nearly around the clock designing the eye-catching artwork which had equally become a MAUSOLEUM trademark.

From the small one-room back office we moved upstairs and took over the whole first floor of the same building. Our roster of quality metal acts made it possible to rapidly build up a network of distributors all over Europe and North America. I was working day and night (well – some things never change) and desperately needed help so I lured away JAQUELINE VANDENBORRE, my trusted ex-secretary at INELCO, from the security of her well paying job to the hand-to-mouth life of working for an Indie heavy metal label. For the next three years we were virtually inseparable, and became more than just good friends. I will be eternally grateful to her for her dedication and hard work. After the demise of MAUSOLEUM she landed a job at CBS (now SONY), and she still works there today.

On a roll, we acquired the rights to "FIRE RAISER", a dynamite record by Finish act TORCH, and licensed VANADIUM’S second album: "A RACE WITH THE DEVIL". In the meantime LEO had produced another classic MAUSOLEUM album: "SEE YOU IN HELL" by CROSSFIRE, and OSTROGOTH delivered their self-produced "ECSTASY AND DANGER", their tour de force follow-up to "FULL MOON’S EYES" the mini-album which, half a year earlier, had already catapulted them into the cult-status zone of the heavy-metal-world.

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