Tilman Rossmy

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Tilman Rossmy (born August 7, 1958 in Essen ) is a German songwriter , folk and country songwriter. In 1982 he founded the sporadically active band The Government and has been a solo artist since 1995. His song rid of was, among others, the Lassie Singers and the alternative country band The Walkabouts gecovert .

biography

Rossmy is one of four children of the chemist and industrial manager Gerd Rossmy (1927–2015) and Maria, geb. Chute. He spent his childhood, youth and the first ten years of his musical career in Essen. His first band, The Government, began as a one-man project in 1982. Her first demo recordings , recorded only with a rhythm machine and synthesizer , were praised in the British Melody Maker . The other band members were arranged by Arthur Schilms from the Bochum city magazine Marabo .

Getting Rid of : The Government and Hamburg School

Rossmy financed the first album Supermüll himself, published it on his own label and sent promo copies to magazines such as Spex , Musikexpress and Marabo. Immediately afterwards he broke up the band and was not active as a musician for almost eight years. The occasion, a complicated love story, however, inspired him to write his most famous and multiple covered song Get rid of . Rossmy integrated the autobiographical story of its origins into a "long version" of the song, which appeared on the 2002 album Travel in my own country .

In 1990 Tilman Rossmy re-formed the government with the musicians Robert Lipinski (bass), Thomas Geier (drums) and Armin Hess (keyboards). The second album So alone appeared on Alfred Hilsberg's label Scratch'n'Sniff, but sold so badly that Hilsberg canceled the contract. Shortly afterwards, the band, which Thies Mynther had since joined as a keyboardist, received L'age d'or , a label of the Hamburg School . The band moved from Essen to Hamburg. The third album So drauf , released in 1992, was successful compared to its predecessors. Three songs from it - Get rid of , I remember and the title track - were covered by other artists in the years that followed, the one that became a hit with the public and Rossmy's most famous song, including the Walkabouts and the Lassie Singers. Due to the punk-influenced sound and the German lyrics, the band was assigned to the Hamburg School by the music critics.

The fourth and, for the time being, last album Unter was also released in 1994 by L'age d'or and was the most commercially successful.

Call me Survivor : Solo career and Tilman Rossmy Quartet

With songwriter-influenced alternative country, Rossmy concentrated on a career as a solo singer from the mid-1990s. Welcome home contained a veritable independent hit with the Bodycount T-shirt, got good reviews in the German branch of the US music magazine Rolling Stone and in other music magazines and became Rossmy's best-selling CD to date. Together with the Hamburg singer, guitarist and entertainer Bernd Begemann , the newly formed Tilman Rossmy Quartet carried out a successful tour, which was managed by Nick Cavacas , a veteran of the German and British independent scene. The joint tour with Bernd Begemann also established the close collaboration with country guitarist Folke Jensen .

After Welcome Home , Rossmy temporarily made the leap into the camp of professional musicians. The follow-up CD from 1997, Selbst , contained Maria , another potential hit that was also released as a single. From a sales point of view, however, Selbst could no longer surpass Welcome Home . His experience with the music business themed the singer, guitarist and songwriter 1998 passenger laconic and even reflected in the two pieces of 15 years and the 251st song . Musical experimentation and sometimes abrupt dangling - on the one hand to the punk and rock 'n' roll roots of the early days, on the other hand to more demanding chanson and jazz elements - also shaped the publications and concerts of the following years. The CD Travel in Own Land (2002) contained 15 new recordings of government pieces. The other side with melancholy, almost chanson-like songs was celebrated by the self-proclaimed “survivor” of the German independent music scene in 2003 on the successor Since then one me… .

Rossmy's next album, Alles muss geht (2004), went a step further on the path of its predecessor and set translations of Persian poets from the late Middle Ages to music. As a counterpoint to the rather calmer, song-oriented work with the Tilman Rossmy Quartet, the artist already carried out a tour in 2005 under the label "Rock'n'Roll Tour 2005". In early 2006 Rossmy tried to put together a new government for live performances and announced that she would perform at the Immergut Festival .

In 2008 the Tilman Rossmy Quartet released In a Foreign Land, the next album. It was not until 2012 that the next official publication, titled Intuition , followed . With only five tracks, however , Intuition is not a full-fledged album; it appeared only as a download .

Tilman Rossmy has been living in Munich , the Black Forest and Switzerland since 2001 and has been a freelance programmer for various companies. The last three CDs are distributed independently, although Glitterhouse continues to act as a label. In order to maintain his independence, he sometimes withdraws from business operations through longer trips or stays abroad . In addition, numerous recordings for various sampler projects have been made over the years, such as the Tribute of Johnny Cash compilation A Boy named Sue , published by Trikont and compiled by the writer Franz Dobler , or the Hildegard Knef - Reminiscence, recorded in 2006 by new German-speaking artists Your songs are different .

Style and reviews

Stylistic location

During his career, Rossmy worked on the idioms of country, jazz, chanson and rock'n'roll. His songs, which often consist of sketchy reflections or everyday stories with mostly an open outcome, achieve a level of consternation that is reinforced by the completely unironic and self-revealing nature of their performance. Rossmy's specialty is getting to the point in three-minute pieces. The music, strongly influenced by alternative country, creates the framework for these stories. The lyrics themselves do contain socially critical undertones, but do not make any political statements, but concentrate - similar to the pieces by the songwriter Funny van Dannen or the alternative German rock band Lassie Singers - on the everyday. Finally, Tilman Rossmy's music shows strong similarities with that of the alternative rock-oriented songwriter Tom Liwa and his former band Flowerpornoes .

Reviews

On the occasion of Alles muss geht, the online portal Tonspion.de characterized Rossmy's music as “grown-up songwriting for thirty-somethings” and further specified: “In his songs, the former frontman of The Government sings openly and honestly about his experiences and they are them a 40 year old who has seen a lot in his life. For example, how difficult it is to survive with dignity in the music business or how easy it is to earn a living as a non-commercial musician by teaching yourself a few programming languages. ”And:“ He should get the nerve of that Meet the generation who once lived the 'good wild life', but who now like to make it a little 'easier' for themselves. "

Ulrich Kriest on the Tilman Rossmy homepage about the last CD Alles must go : “Because Rossmy approaches the things in life without the protection of irony, he comes close to Tom Liwa, whose high pitch is also kitschy to some and appears uncool. If you solve this problem yourself, you will hear a great, yes, classic album. "

Occupations

The government

See article: The Government

Tilman Rossmy Quartet

among other things with

  • Folke Jensen - (git; also Ledernacken ; also producer of the Tilman Rossmy Quartet)
  • Ralf Schlüter - (key + b; simultaneously)
  • Rob Feigel - (dr; ex- Jeremy Days )

Discography

The government

  • Super Garbage (1984; Penalty Records)
  • So Alone (1990; Scratch'n'Sniff)
  • So on it (1992; L'age d'or)
  • Below (1994; L'age d'or)
  • Out (2017; State Act)
  • What (2019; State Act)

solo

  • Welcome Home (1996; L'age d'or)
  • Self (1997; Glitterhouse)

Tilman Rossmy Quartet

  • Passenger (1998; Glitterhouse)
  • Traveling in one's own country (2002; Folke Jensen music production / Glitterhouse)
  • Since then one me ... (2003; Folke Jensen Music Production / Glitterhouse)
  • Everything must go (2004; Folke Jensen Music Production / Glitterhouse)
  • In a Foreign Land (2008; PopAppeal)
  • Intuition (2012) - available for download - 5 tracks
  • I don't know who you are (2014; self-published)

Singles

  • Come Together (1992)
  • Welcome Home (1996)
  • Maria (1996)

Compilation contributions

  • Sturm und Twang ("Everything is not true")
  • A Boy named Sue - Johnny Cash revisited (Trikont; "Orange Blossom Special")
  • Paradise of the Unloved ("Big Black Bird")
  • Out of the blue ("I let my light shine")
  • Electricity and guitar (Popappeal / Broken Silence; "Filmstar")
  • Must all with (Wallpaper Records / Indigo; "Don't open your eyes")
  • Hildegard Knef - Your songs are different ("In this city")

Cover versions of Rossmy pieces

Covered pieces by Tilman Rossmy Quartet

  • "Orange Blossom Special"

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rossmy, Tilman
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German songwriter, folk and country songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH 7th August 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH eat