Thus, after he was done with high school, Ruud attended the conservatory for his college education majoring in jazz guitar.

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.

After Brotherhood Foundation, Ruud joined an alternative rock band "Vals Licht" (False Light) in 2001.

They released several singles on the Dutch market, of which "Het Licht" reached the top ten charts.

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.

In a post on his Myspace blog, Ruud said "I decided to call it that because I think that name raises all the questions that don't have immediate answers in an instant.

When the Dutch Iron Maiden fan club asked Joey Bruers to do a special show it had to be something other than the regular tribute or cover band.

He asked Ruud to join him together with other musicians from several bands to perform a set of rearranged acoustic Maiden songs.

He uses Mesa Boogie rectifier, Diezel VH-4 amplifiers, Fractal Audio Systems Axe-Fx II and Kemper Profiling Amps.