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 Wizo:Translated from an updated bio Read that for more!! And thanks again to Mirco for his help :):Wizo was founded in 1985 on the schoolyard as Axel Kurth, singer, guitarist, composer and mastermind of the band, was entering the 10th grade. It was really just a funny idea to escape the boredom of Daimler city and do something with themselves instead of just hanging around. At this time punk was no longer completely new but it was still exciting and even still somewhat dangerous. Punkrock was, in contrast to sterile synthie-pop or narrow-minded hairspray heavy metal, a possibility to convert sheer energy, not mattering if one could play a guitar solo or not. It took a while but eventually Wizo had their first concert in a youth club in the Swabian province and then a second and a third, playing at parties in squatted houses. Fairly early they recognized the chances that a lively scene offered. Concerts with other bands were agreed to and, in exchange, there were, early in the band history, concerts far away from Sindelfingen. A demo tape was recorded, sent, exchanged and suddenly sold on a huge scale. More concerts, changes in the cast of the band and another demo tape followed. They met people, traveled on weekends throughout the republic and played before ever more people. When Wizo one day met Fratz Thum, it wasn't even a year before they had booked a complete German tour, the first 7-inch EP, "Klebstoff", came onto the market and eventually their first album, "Für' n Arsch" was released - all on the Hulk Räckorz label. That was 1991. And it continued as on a speeding train with tours through all the German speaking areas. The second LP, "Bleib Tapfer", came out just a few months after the first and was again self financed as they couldn't get help from anyone else. The commercial interest in punk rock with German lyrics was meager at best and a distributor was almost impossible to find. Wizo played more concerts all over the country, even in Hungary and Czechoslavakia and they sold records in the thousands. In the meantime, there was always further turmoil around the three Swabians. With legal actions and scandals they managed to awaken the interest of the Boulevard-Journaille and could be seen on TV or read about in "Spiegel" or "Bild". Then their first highlight: with the idea to do a punk style cover of a current dance title, Wizo started an avalanche which still occasionally rolls through the hit parade. They even it to a music-TV that, at the time, was made in London. Their version of "All That She Wants" by Ace of Base was not only a chart success in Scandanavia but was also the only cover version that the Swedes themselves sanctioned. The video was taped with friends from a local TV station for the price of a case of beer but was then sold to Polydor for much more money. They had won over the competition that had erupted around the Swabians amongst the major labels after their MTV feature. The great deal of money was invested into a band bus with which they could drive to even more concerts. Polydor was gone as quickly as they'd appeared and the next album by Wizo was once again released on Hulk Räckorz. It was a milestone of German punk rock music which is, even to this day, almost unbroken in further sales. "UUAARRGH!" touched the nerves of kids in 1994 who worldwide appeared to be stuck in the cracks. Wizo was the band from Germany that happened to be in the right place at the right time as the punk wave rolled into Germany. The album quickly crossed store counters ten thousand times, concerts were sold out and events came fast and furiously. A license with the California label, "Fat Wreck Chords", brought the album to the entire world, exciting punk rockers from Canada to New Zealand. In Germany also, the interest was big as music magazines had the lines, "Die Ärzte want Wizo as their support band in autumn, '94, Before that they (Wizo) went on the Warped - Tour in the USA and Canada then on a club tour through the southern states". Back at home, things were grinding. The sudden success and the people who were always around when money is in sight brought a bad smell with them. Tensions between one another developed. The hectic recording of the new album, "Herrénhandtasche", which came out during the tour with Die Ärzte, shot into the German album charts, MTV was begging for a video clip and 10,000 people in Essen's Grugahalle celebrated a support band until the floor began to shake. At the end of the year their drummer had to leave. The rest of the band tried to withstand this sudden development and everything was becoming bigger, more expensive and more important. Within a few months, Wizo had mutated into a rock machinery. Tensions between why they had first begun everything and what they had become became ever more unbearable. The new drummer, an old friend, played one of his first Wizo concerts in front of 35,000 people at the Bizarre Festival. The long overdue blast at the end was vented on some WDR cameras. Despite that, things pretty much continued on its unrelentless pace. The 1996 tour was sold out almost everywhere and Wizo was swimming in success, money and contradictions. No one would have dreamed that a schoolyard punk rock band could come so far. Suddenly they were traveling to Japan to play concerts and, after that, Canada. In Quebec city it was almost like being back home in Stuttgart - 2000 people sang Wizo songs and cheered the band on , who couldn't believe it. Tours to France and England appeared comprehensible and full of liveliness. Few bands with German lyrics have played in their neighboring country or the motherland of punk but Wizo found themselves again in sold out clubs.
Meanwhile there was again a new drummer. Finally The band wanted to record a worthy successor to "UUAARRGH!" and got themselves entangled in their own ambition. Their own studio was built, new songs polished and eventually arranged to death. In the meantime, indivual new pieces were always being released, such as sampler contributions, and only very seldomly, performances, most at big festivals. They didn't want to anticipate anything of the new album, to which the new big tour should come. Everything was just perfect, just as everyone expected from the three successful Swabens. But somehow something was missing and had been for some time. As they set off in 2003 for their second tour through Japan, internally much effort was required to carry on so the courteous Japanese didn't notice anything. That actually no one did notice it was a last proof of the hard working methods of the Sindelfinger. When they returned home, a huge hole awaited them. The recording of the album had, factually, come to a standstill, the band no longer practiced and concerts weren't planned. Nearly in a solo effort, Axel now patched together song constructions, mixed pre-productions, built finished pieces from pilot tracks and eventually produced a new Wizo album in order to get the songs out of his head, which he had written for a band that had somehow lost their innocence and lost touch with who they were. In the middle of the production, more inconsistently it could hardly be, Wizo catapulted once again into worldwide attention with the revolutionary recording concept of the "Stick-EP", a re-recordable USB stick which supplied fans a worldwide first that through it's re-usability gave it more value. Axel first came upon the idea as he searched for a solution to the music business treadmill. The by-product was so good that, it had to be released to the public, despite its signs of decay. The reaction was extreme excitement and the sales of the Stick broke all expectations. The included song material on the "Stick-EP" was already the basic structure of the planned final album. This was swiftly put together, a name already existed from before but not an idea for the cover. On the morning of the self imposed deadline, Axel photographed an empty toilet paper roller in the studio and chose it for the cover. The last Wizo CD, "Anderster" was finished. In a consistent manner, he refused to promote the result as "the best he had ever done", as is normal in the business where it's thought such marketing plans are good for sales. There were no advertisements, no free samples, not a single press release for the new CD, just a comment in the band's own e-mail newsletter. The mark of 10,000 albums sold was nonetheless cracked in a few weeks. In conclusion there was a big farewell tour, a last show of strength in order to send the once great band, Wizo, to the grave with dignity. The tour consisted of 35 concerts through all of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, one in Hungary as well as the first and, at the same time, last Wizo concert in Italy. The three stood on the stage for two hours, playing songs from all their albums, celebrating the farewell with their fans. Some may became nostalgiac, thinking about supposed better times. Others may be seeing the Sindelfingers for the first time and, maybe afterwards, discover the beautifully dirty punk rock universe that bands such as Wizo, in their musical power and contradictoriness, had brought forth. Axel Kurth will leave this chapter of his life behind him. Certainly with wistfulness and uncertainty but also with the prospect of new deeds. And when he thinks about plunging in future musical projects after the tour, it pleases him almost as much as the time in the schoolyard. -Mikki 1/08 More at: |
