Surrogate (band)

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surrogate
General information
origin Berlin , Germany
Genre (s) Rock , noise rock , hard rock
founding 1994
resolution 2003
Founding members
Patrick Wagner
Tilo Schierz-Crusius
Mai-Linh Truong
Last occupation
Vocals, guitar
 Patrick Wagner
guitar
 Herman half
bass
 Tilo Schierz-Crusius
Drums
 Mai-Linh Truong

Surrogate was a rock band that was founded in Berlin in 1994 . The founding members Patrick Wagner (guitar, vocals), Tilo Schierz-Crusius (bass) and Mai-Linh Truong (drums) belonged to it until its dissolution in 2003.

history

Patrick Wagner and Markus Popp were musically active as Kramwelt. When Popp left the project to co-found Oval, bassist Tilo Schierz-Crusius came along. Together with the drummer Mai-Linh Truong, found through a newspaper advertisement, the Berlin-based band started calling themselves surrogate from 1994 onwards. The head and speaker of the group was Wagner, who was responsible for the guitar and vocals. He, who was originally a tennis professional, immediately founded the label Kitty-Yo together with radio DJ Raik Hölzel in order to bring the first single called Tick onto the market. The label established itself in the industry through the publications of artists such as Peaches , Kante and Maximilian Hecker . In 1995 they had their own album debut with the title Unruhig . Soul (feat.MMM) , no longer recorded in the distant north-eastern France, but in the Senate studio for lack of money, followed in 1996 and ensured a broad press coverage, which promoted the subsequent concert bookings. The third album Hobby was produced in his uphon studio by Notwist and Slut producer Mario Thaler, who is a fan of Shellac mastermind Steve Albini . After a three-year break, the album Rock was released in August 2000 . It was recorded in the previously frequented Black Box Studio in north-east France, supervised by producer Tobias Levin (To Roccoco Rot, Kante) and sound engineer Peter Deimel ( Chokebore ), who, like Thaler on the previous album, is a Steve Albini student. At this point in time, many saw surrogate approaching the Hamburg school , especially Tocotronic and Blumfeld . Deviating from these, Surrogat put the severity of meaning into the background and added value to the fun factor.

Without official announcement, Wagner left his company Kitty-Yo in the summer of 2000 and withdrew its marketing rights to surrogate. It soon got through that this had happened in the dispute over the future company direction with the co-owner. The label responsible was Motor Music . It was important to Wagner that the second release of Rock , four months after the Kity-Yo edition, did not contain any bonus tracks in order not to attract the anger of early buyers. Surrogat reported back on November 25, 2002 with the single Hell in Hell , the album of the same name followed in early 2003. For the individual songs they had given themselves as much time as necessary, so On Top only needed one take , while Love Baby needed four Worked intensively for weeks. All tracks were recorded without headphones - as in the 1970s. The resulting sound differs from today's standard high-gloss productions. Herman Halb can be heard on the album as the second guitarist, who reinforced the original members live in the run-up to the release. Surrogat flew out of the first tour with the Queens of the Stone Age in November 2002, according to Wagner, because the Americans couldn't stand a wild rocking opening act. In Musikexpress , Toni Mahoni, who wrote a concert review on the occasion of Surrogat's own club tour, was irritated by the robotic nature of the musicians, the brutality of the music and the boldness of the texts, while the presentation away from the stage shows opposite traits. When analyzing self-portrayal, posing , instrument control and sound image, Jens Balzer found in the Berliner Zeitung that surrogate is more about appearance than reality. When Sascha Krüger discussed the hard rock style of Hell in Hell in the Visions interview , the two male members explained that the music had always been celebrated on stage, but the abstract sounds made it hard for the visitors to notice. Now it's heading towards the party, although the term “German AC / DC ” doesn't scare them. At first they were considered the "German Shellac", then as the "better Tocotronic", now the bridge of understanding for many is AC / DC.

About the end of Surrogate Wagner said that the content was empty, drained from the tours. He himself became a father at this time and saw the band life in a different light. They just broke up and no one had the idea or had the strength to order everyone for the next sample. From 2004 to 2010 Wagner ran the Louisville label, named after their son, with his first partner, then wife, Yvonne Franken. After a bankrupt label and a failed marriage, in 2015 he organized and moderated so-called “FuckUp Nights”, which are lecture evenings of failed existences.

Megalomania image

A journalist who had been following the band's career for a long time once called Wagner on the phone "Patrick-greater-than-God-Wagner", which amused the addressees, especially since the abbreviation of the insert resulted in the word "gag". As a result, Wagner used the addition gaG more often, also for signatures. The fun quickly spread to the entire band, who made megalomania their leitmotif . On Hell in Hell , the combination of letters turned into a title called Gott AG and there is the line "You keep making yourself clear: You are Patrick Wagner Superstar". Some took this as irony , others as arrogance . Wagner's intention, he stated in the interview, was not self-adulation , but rather external motivation. Another (but in the plural) quote that was used in the title song goes back to the deeply fallen boxer René Weller : “We are always up, and when we are down, down is up.” To the extreme game The megalomaniac attitude also includes his own fanzine surrozine with Patrick Wagner as " editor-in-chief ", indulgent text contributions, exuberant reviews of all previous publications and a poster depicting the three musicians in the Mount Rushmore National Memorial style in the middle of the magazine . After all, the imprint sentence “This is actually just a band info” tries to prevent irritations or misunderstandings.

style

Surrogate changed their style from album to album. Henning Richter dubbed the trio in the Metal Hammer as "German Noise - Metallers ". In terms of overall appearance, it is oriented towards avant-garde rockers such as Eisenvater , Party Dictator and the early Hamburg School, but musically more oriented towards Unsane , Neurosis and Fetus . In addition, it is unmistakable that the musicians adored AC / DC and Thin Lizzy . In laut.de where Pop Noise is spoken of, it is considered to affect by Shellac. The other way around it says in the Rolling Stone Steve Albini's band was inspired by surrogate.

For laut.de , the debut album is “still very metallic and brutal”. Intro magazine described it as “noise with stoic, twisted and exhausting rhythm foundations ” and pointed to its closeness to Shellac.

Turned back distortion , reduced lyrics and, above all, a sudden break in style, which does not come from the band, but rather to the techno artist MMM, who has been given space for abstract minimal-electro tinkering, disturb on Soul feat.MMM . Visions reviewer Carsten la Tendresse called it a “big, beautiful puzzle plate” .

When it was released, Hobby received the style description from Rolling Stone as "Spartan metal groove based on Helmet ", while four years later it was said that it sounded "more like Jazz-Rock- Noise". The Ox-Fanzine said that Surrogate was "pushing his reductionist ideas within their song material." In connection with “individual, stoically repeated sentences”, the result is a “funky city blues” that is abstract but captivating. The whole thing is based on the non-destructive gloom that has characterized bands like Shellac, Gang of Four and especially Joy Division . The term “ alternative ” was chosen as the genre name .

With the album Rock, Surrogat “leave the depressive noise orgies behind” and start rocking “hard now”, reads in the biography article on laut.de. The work, which is compressed to 30 minutes, deals with two things in the almost three-minute long, joyful, guitar-heavy pieces: "Old-school rocking and provoking ". It also says: “Based on old veterans like AC / DC, their riffs are wild and oppressive and steer towards rocking and intelligent pop songs.” Andreas Herz from Rock Hard once again recognized the New York band Helmet in the design . The instrumentation is sparse and the riffs simple to monotonous, with the “recurring seven eighth notes ” making the rhythm and bars seem “hypnotic”. Helmet, AC / DC and Big Black form the tension field in which the surrogate should be located, Harald Peters reported in the Berliner Zeitung . Oliver Hüttmann from Rolling Stone was reminded of Henry Rollins . Overall, the album is louder than the previous one and Wagner's desperate roar in itself reminds him of the monarchy and everyday life of Fehlfarben . In "Visions" Martin Büsser wrote that rock was " pervaded by an aggressive punk spirit" like Fehlfarben at the time. AC / DC riffs predominate, but there are also wire and gang-of-four echoes. He also noticed the angry singing. In the FAZ, Andreas Rosenfelder described the vocal performance by Patrick Wagner on the occasion of a later live performance as "shrill triumphant song".

Regarding Hell in Hell , laut.de says: “Even more chubby , even more unerring and with an even bigger wink when it comes to megalomania.” According to the city ​​magazine tip , it is angular stadium metal with “heading for battleships like AC / DC and Led Zeppelin ”. The Spex chose Kiss , Led Zeppelin and AC / DC to illustrate the chosen direction. In the Frankfurter Rundschau , when outlining the album style, one reached not only into other musical boxes, but also into another art area, in which, in addition to AC / DC, Shellac and Sonic Youth, the pop legend Abba and the action artist Christoph Schlingensief , whose respective esprit are subliminally present , were called. The rock attitudes and clichés expressed in the cover artwork , the album title and the lyrics would not correspond with the musical performance, said critics of the Berlin press as well as the national daily newspaper and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung .

Texts

The intro in 1996 stated that the music was provided with “German texts that fulfill associative and lyrical demands” .

The Rock Hard certified the band in 2000 not to use any “flat Lala lyrics”. "And so the eleven songs are a critical, but not moralizing, rather winking statement against superficiality and consumerism ., For humanity and courage of weakness" Visions sweeps out: "listen to this disk is immensely liberating, because it does not separate between politics and private life , but rather a dissatisfaction that pervades all areas of life is addressed. "

With the last album, the view of the text quality shifted a bit. “Intellectual and witty” are the messages, wrote the Metal Hammer , only partially. A positive example is My Generation , which deals with the herd instinct and the resulting consumer behavior. The Rolling Stone won something positive from the “striking, certain texts” because they “actually reminded a little of the habitus of early German punk ”. Metal reminiscences (of text passages from Iron Maiden , Bon Jovi , Nirvana ) are offered by the song Der Zerfall .

Patrick Wagner said in 1996 as follows: “I think of something, get stuck and then work on the finished pieces [...]. Of course, quite a few texts are very important to me because I touch on topics that concern me, but which I often suppress until they come up again while playing heroin, for example . We played the piece the most energetically. "

Discography

year title Type Record company
1994 Tick single Kitty-yo
1995 Restless album Kitty-yo
1996 Soul (feat.MMM) album Kitty-yo
1997 hobby album Indigo , kitty-yo
2000 Are you with me single Universal , Kitty-Yo, Motor Music
2000 skirt album Motor Music, Kitty-Yo
2002 Light in light single Motor Music
2002 Light in light album Motor Music

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lars Brinkmann: Surrogate. All unrest . In: Spex . No. 187 , June 1996, p. 10 .
  2. ^ Kerstin Grether: Surrogate. I hate my generation . In: Intro . No. 102 , February 2003, Music Theme Park, p. 56 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i surrogate. Laut.de biography. In: laut.de. Retrieved February 20, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Admin: surrogate. In: motor.de. August 25, 2004, accessed February 20, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Carsten Sandkämper: Warm bread . In: Intro . No. 73 , April 2000, theme park. Music, p. 60 .
  6. ↑ Frank Tyo: Give me everything, give me rock. The Berlin trio Surrogat saves the noise of the nineties from being forgotten . In: WOM Journal . August 2000, Hot, p. 10 .
  7. ↑ a b Stephan Loichinger: I like myself. Surrogat rock hell on their new record and are actually quite normal . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . February 15, 2003, features section.
  8. ↑ Sassan Niassen: Highway to Hell . All or nothing: The Berlin rock band Surrogat is doomed to success. In: Der Tagesspiegel . February 28, 2003, Culture.
  9. ↑ Thomas Kerpen: Surrogate. Feeling energy through hair. In: ox-fanzine.de. March 2003, accessed February 20, 2016 .
  10. ↑ a b Stephan Glietsch: Surrogate. Go get sloganized . In: Spex . No. 262 (January / February), 2003, pp. 60 ff .
  11. ↑ a b Elmar Salmutter: Surrogate. Blunt is trump . In: (Hard Rock &) Metal Hammer . March 2003, p. 78 f .
  12. ^ A b Toni Mahoni: Surrogate. Hamburg, Molotov . In: Musikexpress . No. 566 , March 2003, concerts, p. 97 .
  13. ↑ a b Josef Winkler: As big as possible . In: Musikexpress . No. 565 , February 2003, p. 46 f .
  14. ↑ Jens Balzer: Rock or Rock Rock? Eggs in a dressing gown: Berlin's most popular rock discourse leader Surrogat presented their new album at the Magnet Club . In: Berliner Zeitung . No. 31/2003 , February 6, 2003, features section .
  15. ↑ Sascha Krüger: Swap ass for horn-rimmed glasses . In: Visions . No. 120 , March 2003, prelude, p. 28 f .
  16. ↑ a b Thomas Winkler: Superstar. In: freitag.de. May 12, 2010, accessed February 20, 2016 .
  17. ↑ Andreas Hartmann: Debt, depression, doom - sounds great! Fail. At FuckUp Nights, people tell how they ruined their company. The moral of the story: The real heroes aren't the successful ones, but the fallen. Today the next night the fucker goes up. In: taz.de. May 21, 2015, accessed February 20, 2016 .
  18. ^ Motor Music / Surrogate (ed.): Surrozine . No. November 1 , 2002.
  19. ^ Henning Richter: Surrogate. Biggest flap in the scene . In: Metal Hammer . October 2000, p. 31 .
  20. ↑ Jan Wigger: With burning megalomania. Departure from the indie ghetto: On their fourth album, the Berlin trio Surrogat flirted seriously and exuberantly with previously frowned upon rockisms . In: Rolling Stone . No. 66 , April 2000, p. 41 .
  21. ↑ a b c Carsten Sandkämper: Surrogate. Have soul . In: Intro . No. 36 (July / August), 1996, pp. 20 .
  22. ^ Carsten la Tendresse: Surrogate - Soul . In: Visions . No. 48 , July 1996.
  23. ↑ Michael Ruff: Surrogate . In: Rolling Stone . No. 31 , May 1997, Alternatives, pp. 106 .
  24. ↑ a b Oliver Hüttmann: Surrogate. Skirt. Spiritual change: three Berlin indie theorists now really want to rock . In: Rolling Stone . No. 66 , April 2000, sound carrier, p. 101 .
  25. ↑ Thomas Kerpen: Surrogate. Hobby CD. In: ox-fanzine.de. 1997, accessed February 20, 2016 .
  26. ↑ a b Andreas Herz: Surrogate. Rock . In: Rock Hard . No. 157 , June 2000, In Scheiben, p. 100 .
  27. ↑ Harald Peters: Everything must be destroyed. Foo Fighters and Surrogate play in the arena . In: Berliner Zeitung . August 17, 2000 ( berliner-zeitung.de [accessed February 20, 2016]).
  28. ↑ a b Martin Büsser: Surrogate. Rock . In: Visions . No. 85 , April 2000, beauties, p. 99 .
  29. ↑ Andreas Rosenfelder: I fear, therefore I am. Purgatory as a transit station: “Surrogate” are noisy in Cologne . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . January 25, 2003, features section, p. 38 .
  30. ↑ Holger In't Veld: Capital noise. Surrogate . In: tip . 04/03 (February 13-26), 2003, music, p. 92 .
  31. ↑ Andreas Hartmann: Full of Boller factor. Bigger than God: Fat sayings are part of the concept of the Berlin rock band Surrogat. But it is only one step from megalomania to village depravity . In: the daily newspaper . (February 8/9), 2003, Kultur, pp. 14 .
  32. ↑ Stephan Ramming: Hell in Hell. Rock assert a surrogate with the means of pop . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . February 6, 2003 ( nzz.ch [accessed February 20, 2016]).
  33. ↑ Jan Wigger: Satan is getting his mouth full. The "German Shellac" surrogate now quote AC / DC and Bon Jovi, filming with René Weller. Radicalization, dulling - and devilish rock'n'roll . In: Rolling Stone . No. 100 , February 2003, p. 33 .
  34. ↑ Joachim Hentschel: The children from the last bank. When Surrogat try to bring a hard rock show to small indie stages, former, once unabashed Monsters of Rock in particular are happy . In: Rolling Stone . No. 101 , March 2003, p. 24 .