Barry Hay

Barry Andrew Hay (born 16 August 1948) is an Indian-born Dutch musician best known as the leading vocalist and frontman for Dutch rock band Golden Earring.

Biography

Hay was born in Faizabad, India to a Dutch Jewish mother, Sofia Maria née Sluijter (b. 1922 in Makassar), and a Scottish commissioned officer, Philip Aubrey Hay (1923-1980). He moved to the Netherlands at the age of eight to live with his mother. He lived in Amsterdam and later in The Hague, attending an English boarding school. After graduating from secondary school, he took courses at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. In the summer of 1967, he joined the Golden Earrings, as they were then called, replacing Frans Krassenburg. Hay created the cover art for some of Golden Earring's albums.

He has also made two solo albums, Only Parrots Frogs and Angels (1972) and Victory of Bad Taste (1987), but both met with little success.

In 1994, he sang lead vocals and played alto flute on the Ayreon song "Sail Away to Avalon," the single from the latter's debut album, The Final Experiment.

In 2001, Hay left The Hague and moved back to Amsterdam. He voices Rock Zilla, in the Dutch version of Gene Simmons' cartoon series My Dad The Rock Star and appears in a commercial for prescription sunglasses.