Alan created The Van Houtens back in 2008; In the early days The Van Houtens were a fake band: he wanted to taste the emotion of being in a band without the problems that bands usually have (drunken guitarists, rehearsals...).
The first few demos attracted lots of listeners on MySpace and obtained positive reviews from music industry magazines, blogs and websites.
One particular song, “(It's a) Beautiful day, was chosen by McDonald's as the jingle for the "Chicken Gourmet" TV commercial; All major italian TV networks aired the McDonald's commercial from 2008 to 2010.
The combination between one of the biggest multinational companies in the world and an ultra-independent artist made this unusual story very popular on the internet; The magazine “XL” wanted the Van Houtens drummer for an article and a photo-shooting of the 5 coolest italian female musicians, but they didn't know that Lia19, the official Van Houtens drummer at that time, wasn't a real drummer at all - she is actually an american pornstar. Alan had to ask his sister Karen a big favor: "pretend to be Lia just for one day".
In 2009 The Van Houtens with the song “Matala” won "That's Indie 2009”, a competition launched by RADIO 2 which acknowledged the most interesting young artist in Italy.
At the end of 2010 Alan finished the recording of The Van Houtens first album, which was thereafter mastered at the Air Studios in London.
In 2011, March, Alan decided that the fake-band days were over and managed to get together some musicians in order to start playing gigs; After a couple of months of rehearsing the band was finally ready to launch on stage! The first step of this new adventure was a mini-tour in some well-known events and venues in Milan (Rocket Club, Circolo Magnolia, Teatro Parenti - Elita and others).
In May 2012 The Van Houtens released the single "John Ferrara & Betty Karpoff"; It went top 20 in the Italian singles chart on iTunes.
June 2012 - "FLOP!", the first record, was finally released with "Facelikeafrog Records" and distributed by "Venus"; The cover is drawn by the talented artist Alessandro Baronciani.
In November, after the Italian summer tour, another single was released: "I Want to Tell you"; The video was shot in London and it features rockstar look-a-likes such as Elvis, Freddie Mercury, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain.
