Hello to You!
This is EROC, the one of the two drummers of the
former GROBSCHNITT. Many
thanks for your kind letter and your words about our music. We were amazed
to get a letter from the U.S.A. only a few weeks after the Grobschnitt album
was released.
You had written to Felix. He was the other drummer of GROBSCHNITT and gave me the letter. As I said "was". You may see that there is something going on with the group at the moment. And it IS, really! To tell you all the facts of the story it will take me to write an extensive book. But I will try to select the main things of our formation.
At the next page you will see a graph showing our origin from the beginning up to 1969. The next page shows the story of GROBSCHNITT from the beginning. The third and fourth page will give you the facts and the answers to your questions. In this letter I'll enclose some photos showing the members.
As you see our musical origin lies in 1966. The original persons of today's group are: Stefan Danielak (now called: Wildschwien)/lead voc. & guitar Gerd O. Kuhn (Lupo)/ lead guitar Joachim H. Erig (Eroc)/ dr.,perc.,electronics & acting
We three worked together for many years and were surroundedby a lot of other people working with us for some time.
The group "GROBSCHNITT" was founded in February 1971 when Lupo, who meanwhile had built up a group named "Charing Cross" with a bassist called Bar and a drummer named Felix came back to Stefan and me with these people, because we had decided to go on together.
So we went on as a five piece with two drummers. Besides there were two roadies called "Kleiner Mann" and "Porneaux". We played a lot of gigs around our town with this group. In November 1971 we decided to add an organ player to this group, with whom we went into a recording studio in February 1972 to record our first album as a six piece band. The organist, Hermann Quetting, had brought along another roadie named Fiffi. So we were 9 people forming the group GROBSCHNITT.
It was a rather large group. We had the biggest equipment in Germany (nearly 40 speaker columns and many amps). The noise we made on stage was terrible. Most of the audience put their fingers into their ears when we started. We did gigs in rooms were you could only fit 150 people. So you can surely imagine the noise we made.
I had other musical ambitions and imaginations. I didn't want to kill the audience with noise. So I split from the group in August 1972. I really shall confess that this group grew over my head.
So in September 1972 I found a new organist named Volker Kahrs coming from Bremen in Northern Germany. He was able to play organ and bass on a double keyboard organ. Besides he had an electro-piano. I made up his mind to go on with me. Two weeks later Lupo and Stefan knocked at my door asking if they could join us. So we went on as a four-piece line up with two guitars, drummer and keyboards. The two old roadies, Kleiner Mann and Porneaux, joined us too. We played on under the name GROBSCHNITT doing some numbers from the album and much new stuff.
This line up now has played all over Germany and became famous and notorious because of the uncommercial stage act.
We have developed more and more into the direction of musical theatre doing shows consisting of music and acting. The two roadies became more actors in the passing 10 months. 4 months ago we took another fellow named "Ginger" who also does acting and show to the group. These three people don't play any instruments but they operate the effects machinery consisting of light show, artificial fog, fireworks and many acting parts using costumes and so on.
With this new GROBSCHNITT we had about 80 gigs. One was recorded for German TV. We have the worst critics and the best critics in Germany because of our stage- show. Some people want to compare us with Alice Cooper. They're fools. Alice Cooper wants to sell his music by using a spectacular publicity show. Nothing to do with us.
We want to give the audience more than just music. They shall have to see more than 4 fellows working hard on their instruments when GROBSCHNITT appears.
From the album we play two numbers with the new group: Symphony and Suntrip in a very long version with much happenings in it.
Two weeks ago we decided to add a bass player to the group because Mist felt frustrated having to do all the bass parts on keyboards. The organ-bass wasn't bad, it gave a distinctive sound to the group, but Mist can do a lot more on his instruments when he doesn't have to play the bass parts. So the other members of the group agreed and we took the old bassist Bar to the group. He hadn't found another group yet and he ever wanted to join us.
Now at the moment we are rehearsing wit Bar. He will spend $3000 on new bass equipment next week. Therefore he will have to sell his car. That shows that he is a musician with all his soul.
Now to answer your questions that were not answered in the story above.
All of us except Mist are self-taught musicians. Mist had piano lessons for about 10 years.
All of our music is fully arranged and synchronized with the show for to give the audience a constant good quality. Only on the SUNTRIP every musician is able to improvise. But as I said this number is the longest of the show. It may last 40 or 50 minutes. The length of the whole show is over three hours. It's the longest from all the German groups, I think.
GROBSCHNITT means "Rough-Cut". It's the name of an old soldier-band from the days of 1918 playing around our area. We found someday an old photo of them and we liked the name. It's rather unusual today but sounds very interesting among all the other good and worse names of today's groups.
We have played all over Germany but never outside of this country. A tour throughout the Netherlands was canceled because of difficulties with the manager. Meanwhile the group does all booking themselves. Lupo is the "manager" and that saves us some more money. The reactions of the audiences were in every place very hot and we have to give encores nearly at every gig. There's nearly a fight at the end of our gigs when everybody wants to get one of our posters. Sometimes we gave away more than 400 posters during 5 minutes. There are places where we played 3 times during 4 months. And at every gig the house was full.
I see rock music going into the direction of more electronics, more show and acting and more complicated style. Someday there will be people on stage with computers making music, but the music style of natural instruments played by individuals will never die. I don't know how the other members think about it. They are not very interested in today's music scene. Stefan for instance has never heard another group live, except when we played in a festival.
I'm glad to say that the members of the group are not influenced by other musicians and groups. As I say they are not very interested in what other people do on the scene. They do like their own music, sitting around playing their instruments or sitting in some beer-joint. Only Mist says he likes the groups "Yes" and "Genesis" from Great Britain. Maybe I'm the only one besides Kleiner Mann who has a stereo record player at home. I've got a little studio where I work out the electronic and other parts for the GROBSCHNITT show. The group works also with a stereo tape recorder on stage and for that I have realized the recordings. Besides I work for some German radio station recording electronic effects and so on. I myself like the music of Frank Zappa. He's the greatest.
A few weeks ago we tried to get into contact with a new recording company. Our producer in Hamburg tried to show our new demos to some firms, for to get a recording contract for the second album. But six big firms denied our tapes. The reason: The music of GROBSCHNITT now is far too good and too complicated. It's unable to sell this in Germany. We better should try to work in a more simple rock- style for to get the chance to sell a great number of albums. You can imagine how we felt while hearing this news. Now we decided to go on in our style, maybe "too good" for Germany, but satisfying for us. We'll wait until our publicity has grown big enough that those recording companies will come knocking at OUR door. But I will bring out a double album in autumn this year with a lot of music played only by me. I did all instrument parts by using playback. It's really the kind of music I like. It has nothing to do with the group. I don't think that this album will be released in the USA. It will contain some interesting electronic parts.
Surely we would like to go on tour through the USA but therefore we must have a contract with some American agency. And we don't think any of those people have heard of us.
Most of the German groups live together on old farms and in old farmer's houses somewhere out in the country, where they can rehearse and make noise as much as they want. And living this way is quite cheap.
But this is not possible for a group like GROBSCHNITT. All members are of a very difficult character. I'm sure if we would live together in one house for only 4 weeks (!), there would be someone killed. We are the best of friends, at some time. But there are real fights on-stage sometime too. Especially based on musical differences. It's not seldom that someone swoops a bottle of Coke over another if he don't want to accent his opinion. The group GROBSCHNITT therefore disbanded itself about 60 or 70 times since 1971. But a few days later we were back together again.
That shows GROBSHCNITT is a very "wild" group which consists of members having a very strong opinion about the music they make. That's good if you look at the lethargic manner of many other groups. GROBSCHNITT never will become bankrupt and disbanded, because we become it EVERY DAY and have learned to live with it.
