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WHEN I LOOK BACK IT´S
NICE TO SEE THE MILESTONES IN THE HISTORY OF X-MARKS
THE PEDWALK AND MY MUSIC CARREER - HERE YOU WILL KNOW
HOW EVERYTHING STARTED....
From natural
to synthetic.
During my piano lessons as a young boy I was fascinated
by synthesizers. But at this time - my age was 14 -
electronic instruments were very very expensive. My
parents were not very excited about my interest in synthsizers
and so I started to play an electronic organ - as a
kind of compromise I think. When I was 16 I bought my
first synthesizer - it was the famous KORG MS20.
From pop-music
to Skinny Puppy.
From this point it was a fast developement and evolution.
First I played as a keyboarder in a rock-band, started
a first synthie-pop-band with a friend of mine (the
band was called "zymotic"; we won a talent-award
in our town). At this time a music-style called "Neue
Deutsche Welle" came up in Germany with some very
intersting bands I was fascinated in like D.A.F., Kraftwerk.
Also the famous Depeche Mode started a big career in
Germany. I was fascinated by monotonic "cool"
sequencing sounds and atmospheric soundscapes. Bands
like á;Grumh, Front242 and Skinny Puppy were
my favourite bands for a long time.
Scarecrow
In 1987 I decided to found my first music-project. My
musical equipment were 3 synthesizers, a sampling-machine
(it was an akai x-7000) and a drum-machine. First tracks
were composed by using the steinberg pro 16 sequencer-program
on a Commodore C64 computer system. I asked a school-friend
(Jörg Böhme) to take part of this project
- SCARECROW was born.
More than
music
From the very first beginning we wanted to have a concept
around our musical ideas. We both worked at a hospital
for psychic diseases and so we decided to make the human
psyche the basic theme of the scarecrow-lyrics - especially
the negative and dark sides of human psyche. Also esoteric
and spiritual ideas were integrated in our songs. In
some interviews you can read that we both studied psychology
- we never did even we were interested in for a long
time.
The deal
We produced our first demo-tape (including samples from
the movie evil dead) and sent it to 3 record companies.
After only a few days 2 of the companies wanted to make
a deal with us. We got one special call I always remember
when I think about - it was Talla2XLC...
We were invited to come to Frankfurt and to sign a contract
at the famous Technodrome International Label.
From Scarecrow
to ZOTH OMMOG
In 1988 our first single "black door" was
released. It was a success in Germany and also in Benelux.
But the time of Scarecrow was running out, because Talla
decided to found a new label and he wanted us to come
with him. So we had to change our bandname. We took
our new name out of a horror-story by fritz leiber (we
found this story in a stephen king book - called danse
macabre) - X-MARKS THE PEDWALK. We
also decided to give us pseudonyms and so my new name
was SEVREN NI-ARB (backwards for brain
nerves) and my friend Jörg took the name REGAN
ERACS (Regan was taken from the movie the exorcist
and eracs is backwards for scare).The new label and
our musical home for a long time was of course the famous
ZOTH OMMOG label of Talla2XLC.
First steps
After releasing the xmtp-debut-single ARBITRARY
EXECUTION we had our first club-hit with our
second single DANGER (also released
as CD DISEASE CONTROL including a special bonus-track)
and supported by the one and only xmtp-video. After
DANGER we produced and released the all time smash-hit
of xmtp ABATTOIR (12" and 5"
CD) followed by our first full length album FREAKS
and our first xmtp-tour (concerts in germany and one
concert in Budapest/hungary). As a special release to
support the tour we released the 12"/5" CD
CENOTAPH. This was the end of a first
important part of xmtp....
A new future
X-Marks the pedwalk became an important part of the
electronic music scene around the world, but Regan and
me had different opinions and plans how xmtp should
go on. So I decided to go my own way and I wanted to
concentrate only on music - as my profession. I wanted
to feel free and independent in producing my music.
I ended my studies at the university of Münster,
founded the famous T.G.I.F.-Studios
(shortcut for Thank God It´s Friday) and Regan
left the band.
New member
At this time my brother Thorsten built up a band called
DELUGA, first demo-productions should
happen at T.G.I.F. Another member and lead-vocalist
of DELUGA was my early girl-friend Stefanie (you know
her as ESTEFANIA). Thorsten and me
had a lot of fun working together on ideas and concepts
and so I decided that Thorsten is the second member
of xmtp. His pseudonym is RAIVE YARX
(Raive is a simple name that came up in our mind and
Yarx is backwards for X-Ray.).
Fruits
Our first cooperation was the single THE TRAP
taken from the album HUMAN DESOLATION
- our most successfull album all the time. Another tour
and a another single PARANOID ILLUSIONS
came up. With our third album THE KILLING HAD
BEGUN, and another tour through Germany, zoth
ommog released a first Best-Of-Compilation called AIRBACKTRAX
- including the legendary ABATTOIR Razormaid-Mix.
New ways
With our single FACER 1995 we changed
our music style very radically. We combined Techno-Dance
and Crossover-Industrial with EBM-elements. First it
was a hard cut for our fans and the electro scene (a
lot of people had no good words for us) but later you
found this style all over the scene. FACER was a Club-Hit
(Position 4 in the german alternative charts). After
FACER our fourth album MESHWORK was
released - same reaction by fans in Germany but a very
successfull album outside europe.
In this period of xmtp we had a great success in the
states, but we never got the time to tour the states
even we know that our fans waited and asked four a tour
ever. Beside xmtp I ever had a lot of side-projects
and during this period I laso started to invest in commercial
music productions - without any big success. My motivation
to invest more time and energy in music became less
and less.
The end...
...of my music carreer so far was the xmtp-album DRAWBACK,
my personal favourite xmtp-album. We invested all power
and energy we left, but because of a bad promotion,
a missing tour... there was no bigger success than the
releases before. Even I expanded the T.G.I.F.-Studios
my plans for a new way and a new profession became more
important. My very last produvtion at T.G.I.F. was the
PAX-Album "high speed digital spirit processing".
I changed my profession and ended my music career in
1997/1998. There were a lot of reasons: one is that
the "magic of music" was gone. The complete
electronic-music-scene wasn´t longer "my
home" after a long period of music-productions
(people, music, companys...)
On the other hand there was my family - I wanted to
concentrate more on this side.
a new future
Today I´m owner and
managing-director of an ebusiness-company. ESTEFANIA
is my wife. We have two children (both boys) called
Lennard and Luis. We are living in the near of Münster
in Germany. I´m very happy with my new business
and my private situation even I think about the past
sometimes (long days in the studio, crazy and interesting
people, touring and so on.).
"Experiences" is the ultimate retrospecitve
released on Dying Culture and it´s the first musical
sign since a lot of years. Even I sold the T.G.I.F.-studios
completely in 1999 I started to arrange a new musical
infrastructure around me and perhaps the day is near
when I feel the spirit to start composing new tracks...
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