Bernhard Lloyd
Bernhard Lloyd (born June 2, 1960 in Enger ; real name Bernd Gössling) is a German musician and co-founder of the synth pop band Alphaville .
In 1981 Bernhard Lloyd was active, together with Marian Gold , in the student and artist collective Nelson Community , with whom they had their first live appearance in December 1981. A year later, Lloyd and Gold founded the pop trio Forever Young together with Frank Mertens (real name Frank Sorgatz) and performed their first joint and - typical for a future studio project - their last live performance at the end of 1982.
In 1982 Alphaville was renamed and founded at the same time . The film of the same name by Jean-Luc Godard from 1965 was the inspiration for the band name, under which they signed a record deal in the same year. Aided by the emerging synth-pop wave and Gold's outstanding voice, a major deal was concluded with Warner Brothers Germany . It was immediately a worldwide success. In January 1984 her first single, Big, was released in Japan , which became a worldwide hit, including first place in the US dance charts.
In 1984, after further hits - Sounds Like a Melody and Forever Young , from the debut album of the same name , the shy and media-shy Mertens left the band. Bernhard Lloyd and Marian Gold continued until Lloyd left in 2003. Today Lloyd lives in Berlin, where he also runs his own project studio. There he has been working with a RedNet system from Focusrite since 2015 and almost exclusively produces electronic music.
Live and act
Born and raised in Herford, North Rhine-Westphalia in 1960, he moved to Münster, where he began to sing in the Nelson student group and two years later he founded the Forever Young music trio with Bernhard Lloyd and Frank Merten . It was renamed Alphaville. Hartwig himself adopted the stage name Marian Gold, for his singing talent with high notes, moving and falsetto and reminiscent of Marian songs. Talented and strongly supported by German record labels such as Stradivari GmbH and the German WEA (in great development in the synth-pop environment of the eighties), Marian Gold and Alphaville prevailed and with their first single Big in Japan they broke into the European charts made.
After further recordings and various multimedia projects, Marian began a solo career in 1990 with two albums entitled So Long, Celeste and United, with good commercial results. From around 1993 Marian returned to replenish the Alphaville brand with various tours abroad. Even today they publish various albums and remixes, mainly on the Internet [2]. However, the other members of the band have been replaced by the current Martin Lister, Dave Goodes and Jakob Kiersch. In 2001 Marian appeared in the music band Sputnik Roadhouse for the television film Reunion (1st series), which was followed by numerous collaborations and appearances in various shows or projects. In his private life, the singer claims the paternity of seven children born to four different women between 1998 and 2013. He still lives in Germany with his wife Amy.
Until he left Alphaville in 2003, Lloyd was keyboard player responsible for rhythm and melody. Today Lloyd lives and works mainly as a music producer in Berlin and works musically with Max Holler in the joint music project Atlantic Popes . In 2000, the formation released the debut album Atlantic Popes on their website , which is very popular with Alphaville fan circles.
Web links
- Homepage Alphaville
- Atlantic Popes
- Christoph Dallach: Synth pop stars Alphaville: “We couldn't use the right instruments”. In: one day on Spiegel Online . 18th March 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lloyd, Bernhard |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Gössling, Bernd (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German musician and co-founder of the synth-pop band Alphaville |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 2, 1960 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Enger , district of Pödinghausen |