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 Die Ärzte:The story of Die Ärzte began in 1980 when Dirk "Bela B." Felsenheimer met Jan "Farin Urlaub" Vetter in the punk club, Ballhaus Spandau. Jan joined Dirk's band, Soilent Grün, & when it disbanded they wooed bass player, Hans "Sahnie" Runge, from his band, Frau Suurbier, & Die Ärzte was formed.In 1984 they won the Berliner Senatsrockwettbewerbs (a rock competition) & with their 10,000DM prize money they recorded their first mini-LP, "Uns Geht's Prima". CBS took the wild boys under contract & by the end of 1984 they'd released their, later to be indexed, debut, "Debil", along with the single, "Paul". By the beginning of 1986 the band had acquired a considerable fanbase but it all kind of went to Sahnie's head. When he left they recorded the album, "Die Ärzte" as a duo with the help of bassist, Hagen "The Incredible Hagen" Liebing who they engaged as a live musician. In 1987, the Bundeszentrale für jugendgefährende Schriften (some sort of government censorship organization that "indexes" things they find objectionable, apparently in the name of protecting children. Well... it's something like that anyway...) entered the lives of Die Ärzte, indexing "Geschwisterliebe", "Claudia hat 'nen Schäferhund" & "Schlaflied". This resulted in people taking even more notice of the band but amidst stage bans, citizen initiatives, injunctions & demonstrations "Die Beste Band der Welt" wouldn't be stopped. In the middle of 1988 they announced they were breaking up in order to pursue other musical paths. This was during the "Wahrheit"-Tour & their farewell concert was on July 9 in Westerland auf Sylt. At the end of 1988, as a sort of farewell gift, they released the 3-LP live album, "Nach Uns Die Sintflut", which went to #1 on the German sales charts. Bela applied himself to different projects, appearing as a guest for various artists & bands & ended up founding Depp Jones while Farin tried his luck with a band called King Kong. Neither were much of a success & in 1993 they announced their return, this time with ex-Depp Jones guitarrist, Rodrigo Gonzalez, on board. After making themselves known with the album "Bie Bestie in Menschgestalt", they shook things up w/ an announcement in Musikmarkt stating "Die Äzte (Best Band in the World) are searching for a record label." They finally signed on w/ Metronome who released their reunion debut followed by "Planet Punk" & "Le Frisur" all of which hit gold & platinum. When Metronome Deutschland dissolved they founded Hot Action Records on which, since 1998, all their albums have appeared. In 2000, "Runter Mit Den Spendierhosen, Unsichtbarer!" came out & went straight to #1 and on Sept. 8, 2001 they again played a concert in Westerland. A short time later they went on a reading tour presenting passages from the authorised biography, "Ein überdimensionales Meerschwein frisst die Erde auf". Rod put out his solo-single, "I'll fight hell to hold you" & Farin put out the single "Glücklich". His first solo album "Endlich Urlaub!" followed a short time later. -Mikki 4/02 More at: |
