Phillip Boa

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Phillip Boa in 2012

Phillip Boa (born Ernst Ulrich Figgen on January 18, 1963 in Dortmund , current name unknown after various divorces and name changes) is a German independent musician, songwriter , singer, guitarist and composer and head of the band Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub .

Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub are among the most renowned German bands that are also internationally recognized by critics and fans ( ARD ). In the survey “Made in Germany - The Most Influential German Musicians”, Phillip Boa was listed in the top 20 ( Laut.de ). He is also one of the keenest observers of our society and the most prominent songwriter in Germany, with a “cynical-poetic look, full of enigmatic metaphors and sharp wisdom” ( New Musical Express ) as well as “magical prose / poetry in texts and characters, at the same time choral-tender and brutal, romantic where it fits ”. "His ideology is the refusal to curry favor with the media and show business." ( Rolling Stone )

Phillip Boa at the Amphi Festival 2013

Life

In 1985 Phillip Boa founded the independent band Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub together with his then partner Pia Lund . He is the only member of the band with a full membership. The album Hair and the single Container Love achieved commercial success and international recognition in 1989.

After his most successful album to date, Boaphenia (1993), Boa made a conscious break to devote himself to his metal project Voodoocult . With Voodoocult Phillip Boa founded a heavy metal band consisting of Dave Lombardo ( Slayer ) on drums , Chuck Schuldiner † ( Death ), Waldemar Sorychta and Mille Petrozza ( Kreator ) as guitarists and himself as singer. The band released the album Jesus Killing Machine in 1994 . A year later the band released a second, self-titled album. Then the band broke up again.

Since 1994 until today Phillip Boa continues to work with Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub . A number of studio albums, live albums and remastered older albums were released. In 1997, Phillip Boa and Pia Lund split . Pia Lund left the band Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub and devoted himself to the publication of solo albums. Between 2003 and 2013 she was a member of the band again, before she left the band again in late 2013. The band has been working with various guest singers since 2014.

The 2014 studio album, Bleach House , was released on Cargo Records on August 22nd and peaked at number 7 on the album charts. After many intensive years and more than 2.5 million records sold, the retrospective "Blank Expression - A History Of Singles 1986-2016" was published on September 16, 2016 on Capitol Records / Universal Music and reached number 8 in the album charts. In addition to the most important singles, the retrospective includes a. also 12 new songs under the album title Fresco - A Collection Of 12 New Songs . The “Blank Expression” tour in 2016/2017 was a further milestone for the band towards old greatness. The current visitor numbers reach the level of the most successful year so far (1993), u. a. the voodoo club played at sold out concerts in Hamburg, Cologne, Dresden and Munich as well as on two evenings in a row in the sold out Berlin “Huxleys Neue Welt”.

Phillip Boa left his tents on the island of Malta some time ago and moved his new home to north London . He still lives in his hometown of Dortmund .

On August 10, 2018, the studio album Earthly Powers was released by Cargo Records, it reached (despite refusal to stream the album) with number 3 in the German album charts, the highest chart position in the band's history. Most of the album was created and recorded in London, produced by David Vella and Boa. The album was mixed by Ian Grimble in Church Studios, London, known for his work for Manic Street Preachers , Mumford & Sons , Daughter and Temples . Mastering took place in Power Station Studios, New York, by Fred Kevorkian ( The National , Sonic Youth , White Stripes ). “Earthly Powers sounds fantastic, has great songwriting. A diverse album full of little stories, all of which have been packed into strong songs and lead to a new artistic peak. "

The rock magazine eclipsed judged the album : “While the last albums were almost at the level of earlier masterpieces, 'Earthly Powers' is a career highlight: Enchanting melodies that only Boa can write and deconstruct in the next instant. An extraordinarily successful album. ” The new release is also praised in the music magazine Visions :“ Earthly Powers has that enthusiastic breadth of melodies, in which creamy rock riffs are combined with pop-based romance, which only a few except the Manic Street Preachers manage. ”

style

Boa's music is influenced by British post-punk , new wave and avant-garde . Boa's compositions and cinematic song titles are often used throughout Europe as background music or soundtracks for reports, documentaries and films. a. He contributed several songs to the award-winning BBC drama Redemption (with Oscar nominated actors Sir Tom Courtenay and Miranda Richardson ). As a German composer and songwriter, Boa sets himself apart from classical songwriting through his approach to composing. He starts with a storyboard, as if he were making a short film, like a cartoon, with rough scribbles, drawings and complete texts. Only when he has finished this storyboard does he go into the studio and shoot this film with his musicians as a “director without pictures”. What the musicians then get from him as a specification is the key, the precise speed and an exact description of the “film scenes”.

plant

Constrictor Records

Phillip Boa founded the Constrictor Records label together with Pia Lund in 1986 . In addition to the records by Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub , around 50 albums and 10 singles from German and, above all, British independent bands , such as Published by Jowe Head , Talulah Gosh and Television Personalities . Subsidiaries of the Constrictor label were Constrictor Musikverlag (or Constrictor Publishing ) and Film Noir . In 1991 the label Constrictor Records ended its work. The publications of Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub have been published by the Film Noir publishing house since 1998

reception

  • In 2012, John Robb, a renowned English music critic, wrote in Louder Than War Magazine : "Boa is one of the most important German artists of the last 30 years."
  • The band Die Ärzte sings in their song Wir sind die beste (bonus EP for the album Jazz is different ) about Phillip Boa. She ironically portrays Boa and herself as the last good musicians.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ wn.de
  2. ↑ programm.ard.de , accessed on May 31, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Made in Germany - The Influential German Musicians" , laut.de, March 26, 2011, accessed on May 21, 2015.
  4. ^ Rolling Stone , September 2018 .
  5. ↑ Interview with Philipp Boa and Pia Lund, popsplits - Phillip Boa: "Container Love", 2007 , at: YouTube .
  6. ↑ Interview with Phillip Boa in LabKultur , March 29, 2011.
  7. ^ Website of Phillip Boa and The Voodooclub, Presse , May 2017.
  8. ↑ Radioeins ( Memento of the original from October 2, 2016 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 26, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.radioeins.de
  9. ↑ Official charts , accessed on September 26, 2016.
  10. ^ Website of Phillip Boa and The Voodooclub, Biography / Vita , September 2017.
  11. ^ Website of Phillip Boa and The Voodooclub, Biography / Vita , May 2018.
  12. ↑ MusikWoche , July 6, 2018.
  13. ↑ MusikWoche , July 6, 2018.
  14. ↑ GfK Entertainment / Official German Charts , August 17, 2018.
  15. ↑ Cargo Records , August 14, 2018.
  16. ↑ Album of the Week , August 10, 2018.
  17. ↑ eclipsed, 09/2018 , accessed on September 22, 2018.
  18. ↑ Visions, 09/2018 , accessed on September 22, 2018.
  19. ^ Website of Phillip Boa and The Voodooclub, Biography / Vita , July 2017.
  20. ^ Website of Phillip Boa and The Voodooclub, Biography / Vita , May 2018.
  21. ↑ Constrictor Records' Myspace page .
  22. ↑ John Robb en : One of the best German bands of the last three decades, Phillip Boa and the Voodoo Club have been on a creative surge recently . louderthanwar.com, December 7, 2012; Retrieved February 8, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Boa, Phillip
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pop musician
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Dortmund